Pilates can be a helpful tool for runners. In one study, a 12-week Pilates program significantly improved running performance, backing up the advice to incorporate core and strength work into your routine to help you run stronger and faster.
Strengthening the right muscles can also help prevent injuries, which is another important reason to do supportive strength work, because there’s nothing more frustrating than not being able to run when you want to.
In this video Pilates instructor Kayleigh Jayne demonstrates six simple exercises and two stretches that can help you as a runner, designed "to improve your running form and prevent or manage injuries," explains Kayleigh Jayne.
According to Jayne, these are "the eight exercises you want to add to your current running routine, to be practiced when the body is already warm." Try doing them after a run or combine them with another workout. "I promise it will make you feel amazing!" says Jayne in her video caption.
How to do this Pilates for runners routine
Jayne's exercises make up a full-body routine. "Focus on your control, mobility, core and breathing," says Jayne. The video is blink-and-you’ll-miss-it quick, so here are some tips to make sure you’re doing the moves correctly. Jayne doesn’t specify how many reps to do, but you can start by aiming for 8-10 reps of each.
1. The clam
Raise your feet off the ground ensuring you don’t let your top hip roll back when you open your knee. This targets your glutes and helps with hip mobility.
2. Open-swimming
Sweep your arm back slowly and then forward to return to the start. This strengthens your back and shoulders, which will help improve your posture and breathing when you run.
3. Bridge with arms
Roll your spine off the floor so you finish in bridge position, then sweep your arms overhead, before reversing the movement. This works your glutes and improves mobility in your spine.
4. Toe taps
Lifting your shoulders off the mat, work your core and abs with slow and steady leg movements.
5. Clam with extension
Work on your hip strength as you extend your top leg upward from an open clam position.
6. Criss-cross
Work your core and obliques with this twisting abdominal crunch.
7. Quad stretch
Kneel with one foot on the mat in front of you and your knee at 90°, and lean into the front leg to feel a stretch in your hip flexor at the front of your thigh on your back leg.
8. Hamstring stretch
With your back knee on the mat, fold over your straight leg in front to feel a stretch in your hamstring.
Including this routine once or twice a week could make a world of difference to your running form, making running feel easier and helping you run faster, as well as helping prevent any injuries from setting you back.
