How Pilates is Beneficial for Winter Sports

Pilates is a great workout that helps transition the body to excel in many sports.  In this post I would like to address specifically how Pilates is great for a Skier. 

Skiing generally involves the whole body, but the primary muscles activated are those located in the lower body: hip muscles, hamstrings, quadriceps, calves, and muscles in the feet.

The primary muscles include: gluteus medius, peroneus longus, adductor longus, gluteus maximus, rectus femoris, vastus intermedius, biceps femoris and semimembranosis.

During skiing the action the muscles take is in an eccentric fashion.  The rate at which these contractions occur are relatively slow compared to other activities, like running, due to the hips staying in the relatively same position during most of the skiing action. 

Some great exercises from Pilates that are most beneficial to a skier are as follow:

-Standing and Kneeling Inner Thighs

-Speed Skater

-Spider

-Scrambled Eggs

-Bungee

-Bridge

-Bridge with a High Heel

-Legs in straps exercises

-If you have a jump board in your machine, than any and all feet work on the jump board

-Lunge

-Floor Lunge

-Grasshoper