one of my newer students shared a great story with me the other day. after a couple months of pilates, apparently he was able to use his newly found core muscles to prevent a small basketball injury!
prone to turning his ankles, during one game, he caught and re-centered himself just before he was about to land improperly. he said that before, he would have just landed and then hurt himself (and in turn, putting himself out of commission, unable to enjoy more play time with his friends). since he felt more centered and stronger with his core, he quickly recognized the danger and avoided landing wrong all together. after several lessons, he had quickly developed more control over his overall movement.
pilates is amazing for applications in cross diagonal, multi-directional movement, as in playing basketball. this is why pro-basketball players like kobe bryant, lebron james and jason kidd practice pilates. the more stable your core muscles are that support the movement of your limbs around your spine and torso, the more control you will have over your body. it all makes perfect sense, the better functioning your axis, or midline is, the more control you will have over movement around this axis.
it's pure physics. think about a spinning top. a top that is spinning upright on its tip will spin much longer than one that is spinning on an angle. as a matter of fact, the one spun on an angle will quickly topple over. a strong core is analogous to the straight axis upon which the top spins by centrifugal force. the stronger the core is, the faster and more effective the spinning movement is and can be.
whether you're a recreational athlete or one that makes a living off of your sport, pilates will not only help your execution, more importantly, it will help you with injury prevention so you can keep playing for a long time!
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