Pilates--longer, leaner muscles?
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Pilates--longer, leaner muscles?
| Wed, 02-02-2005 - 12:29pm |
I have heard this so many times that Pilates will help make your muscles longer and leaner.
| Wed, 02-02-2005 - 12:29pm |
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i don't feel as strongly about it, because pilates is actually an exercise program (whereas yoga is much more) and also because it seems to me that there isn't as great a risk of injury from doing pilates wrong as there is from doing yoga wrong.
i don't have much experience with gym pilates, but i do think that it is likely to be much less effective than real pilates --
Hi,
I would say that hatha yoga does better for muscle lengthening as it stretches the muscles in a more balanced manner. The standing poses, sun salutes, and backbends are excellent for strengthening. In the mat-based Pilates classes i've tried, the emphasis was on crunches with the neck in a (to me) stressful position, and then some ball work which made me nervous. I went fleeing straight back to yoga!
fuchsia
I don't get how this works--I always thought that you built strength by increasing muscle size.
Well does does a longer, leaner muscle look like anyway?
This is exactly what I was thinking. I never did Pilates, but in the the later phases of study & as a pro (in dance) I was taught yoga, not to keep the muscles long & lean, but to maintain balance & symmetry in the body & develop a greater mindfulness in an effort to combat the damage dance was doing to us and improve the quality of movement.
You have to have the right body to excel in any physical endeavour. I was told very early in my pro training that although I had to take ballet I would never be a ballet dancer - that i wasn't built for it, but might have a chance w/ modern dance. In dance & gymnastics you have to have a specific build to achieve the right lines. There are always exceptions to every rule though.
Although strength training should be done thru full ROM its not intended to increase ROM (although it does to a minor degree). Pilates isn't really meant to be a flexibility program, its more like a a yoga-based exercise program (:-p which is why I was teaching almost identical exercises I thought I'd developed for almost a decade before I found out about Pilates ;-> ).
its more like a a yoga-based exercise program
That's my perception of pilates.
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