Kristian Solem

By now you can probably tell that I think Pilates is a good thing. Some of my friends even say that I "drank the cool aid." Of course I understand that for Pilates to work for someone it has to be the sort of thing they enjoy and get satisfaction from doing. Also, the synergy between an athlete and a trainer in terms of goals, personality, comfort level, etc., is very important. But the fact is that no matter how hard I try I cannot think of a sport or activity where a person would not improve their performance by adding Pilates to their routine.

So I have written a bit about five sports I have personal experience doing. If you have been thinking about taking up Pilates, but the sport you love is not on my short list please feel free to contact me anyway. We can discuss your activities and goals, and if I am not the right trainer for you perhaps I can help you find someone who is. I believe that what goes around comes around, and I know how important it is that people who want to take up Pilates find the right teacher. If that teacher is me that's nice too, but if not then perhaps I can help send you in a good direction.

I am also curious to talk to people who do sports and use Pilates as part of their training routine. I would love to hear your experiences and stories."

A while ago I was working with a fellow in his early 40’s, who is an avid skier. He was rehabbing from knee surgery and was back up to about 90%, so at the direction of his physical therapist we were turning up the intensity of his workouts. Like many skiers, he had a tendency to overuse his hip flexor muscles and the quads on the front of the leg. His inner thigh muscles and hamstrings were underused. I had him doing a kind of leg press on a Pilates Reformer we call footwork. I had him pressing out while on his toes, at the same time squeezing a ball between his ankles. This arrangement forces a person to engage the muscles of the inner thigh into the leg press. The act of extending the toes also draws in the calves and hamstrings and voila, he is using most of the major muscles of the leg. We did 8 sets of 8 reps with little variations, and when he got up off the machine and walked around he turned to me and said “My legs are tired, but I feel so stable it’s like I am walking on someone else’s legs.”

That is the kind of moment a trainer lives for.

Pilates work offers many benefits for a skier. We work to build strong powerful upper legs wrapped all the way around in muscle, and strong stable calves, ankles and feet. We learn to move the legs powerfully without losing stability in the pelvis and lower back because we have a rock solid and stable core running the show. By having balance between all the muscles of the leg, and stability in the hips, we eliminate many sources of knee pain such as patellar tracking issues. By working to have a balance in strength and flexibility between the abs, back extensors, hamstrings and quads we develop a body which is more stable and easier to control during the rapidly changing directional forces the skier experiences. Many of the exercises in a Pilates workout purposefully challenge an athlete’s balance while they are working near their physical limit, an effective way to force a person to connect movement at the extremities to the core of the body.

Of course, an important consideration for a skier is injury avoidance. A balanced combination of strength and flexibility can help defend against many common skiing injuries, and Pilates has been proven to be a safe and fun way to achieve this balance. Now, I will not claim that being a Pilates athlete will keep you from getting hurt if you ski into a tree, but having that base of strength and flexibility could help to prevent the loss of control leading up to such an event.