Pilates is a useful tool for runners: one study found that a 12-week Pilates program significantly improved running performance, supporting the advice to incorporate core and strength training into your routine to run stronger and faster.
Strengthening the right muscles also helps prevent injury, which is another important reason to do supportive strength training There’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to run when you want to.
In this video, Pilates instructor Kayleigh Jayne shows us six simple exercises and two stretches that can help runners, which according to Kayleigh Jayne, are designed to “improve your running form and prevent or manage injury.”
According to Jain, these are “8 warm-up exercises to add to your current running routine.” Try doing them after a run or combine them with other workouts. “I promise you’ll feel amazing!” Jain says in the video’s caption.
Pilates for runners
Jane’s workouts are full-body routines: “Focus on control, mobility, core and breath,” Jane says. The video is blink-and-you’ll miss it, so here are some tips to help you get the moves right: Jane doesn’t specify how many repetitions you should do, but a good starting point is to aim for eight to 10 of each.
1. Clams
Keep your foot off the ground to prevent your top hip from rotating back as you open your knee, which will engage your glutes and increase hip mobility.
2. Open water swimming
Slowly swing your arms back and then forward to return to the starting point, which strengthens your back and shoulders and improves your posture and breathing as you run.
3. Arm bridge
Finish in a bridge position by lifting your spine off the floor and swinging your arms overhead before reversing the movement, which will engage your glutes and improve spinal mobility.
4. Toe tap
Lift your shoulders off the mat and engage your core and abdominal muscles with slow, steady leg movements.
5. Extended clam
Build hip strength by extending your top leg upward from an open clam position.
6. Cross
Strengthen your core and obliques with twisting abdominal exercises.
7. Quadriceps stretch
Place one foot in front of the mat and kneel with your knee bent at a 90-degree angle, putting your weight on your front leg and feeling a stretch in the front hip flexor of your back leg.
8. Hamstring stretches
Place your back knee on the mat and bend your straight leg forward to feel a stretch in your hamstring.
Doing this routine once or twice a week will make a huge difference in your running form, making your runs easier and faster, as well as helping to prevent setbacks due to injury.
