- Improves Your Bone Density
Strength training is proven to improve bone-density, Pilates also offers fantastic bone-building benefits. Bone, like muscle, is made up of tissue and responds to weight-bearing exercises. Resistance exercise involves muscles pulling on the bone to make tension, which strengthens the bone. Some of the better resistance based exercises in Pilates workouts involve the use of resistance bands.
- Lose Weight Practicing Pilates
Losing half a KG of body weight a week requires a deficit of around 300 – 500 calories per day. You can cut back on calorie consumption or combine calorie deficit with exercise, Pilates can definately help. The caloric burn during a Pilates workout can range from five to eight calories every minute, depending on intensity. As part of a weight-loss program, It is suggested doing moderately intense exercise at least four days a week for 30 to 45 minutes, not including warm-up and cool-down.
- Pilates helps Prevent Injuries
Pilates can help improve flexibility, increase strength and improve balance. These factors reduce your risk of injury. If you’re able to increase your hamstring flexibility by 10 degrees, you will be less likely to hurt your back when you bend over to pick up something from the floor. Improved strength links to improved dynamic control of movement. Also, unilateral one-legged Pilates improves balance therefore reducing the risk of falls. Pilates provides body awareness to create efficient movement patterns, thereby reducing stress on joints, muscles and ligaments.
- Increase Your Flexibility
Most exercise involves movement in one plane of motion at a time. Usually, forward and back motion. Pilates requires motion in 3 different planes. Pilates sessions shift the spine from flexion to extension, internal rotation to external rotation and side bending, allowing an increased range of motion in the body. Using these additional planes of motion increases and can improve flexibility as well as decreasing injury risk.
- Pilates Helps Improve Posture
Having a desk job can have you constantly looking down at a computer screen and can lead to hunched shoulders and incorrect posture. Over time, this makes muscules imbalanced. Pilates helps to reverse the effects of these bad habits by creating improved muscle symmetry. Pilates forces you to work only one specific muscle group at a time, isolating the weaker ones to help develop lost strength and restore balance.
Pilates classes now available every Monday 6:30PM @ Hammer’s Gym – For full timetable visit ww.hammersgym.com.au
