Pilates & Swimming

Pilates exercises are performed at a deliberate pace, employing appropriate breathing patterns and attention to detail. This approach translates well to the pool, where many swimmers need to ‘slow down’, forget how many lengths they intended to swim and focus instead on breathing, body orientation and balance.

Particularly important is the need to release the neck in order to lengthen the spine, eliminating the muscular tension that affects the whole body when the head is pulled back. The head position adopted by most poor swimmers, particularly when performing the breast-stroke, would be impossible to hold for long periods out of the water. The challenge, therefore, is to ‘remember to remember’ the superior postural alignment and sense of lightness gained through Pilates and apply it in the pool.

Swimming, meanwhile, has the image of being a sport for which the prime requirements are strength and determination, and success is measured in terms of ‘how far’ and ‘how fast’. The skill of learning to swim well is overlooked, with little attention paid to grace, elegance and economy of movement.

As a result, it is rare to find recreational or fitness swimmers demonstrating effortless, efficient strokes that cause barely a ripple on the surface. Instead, too many of them view swimming as a battle against a relentless opponent – the water; hence the number of head-out-of-the-water thrashers, expending energy but getting nowhere, both literally and metaphorically.

Swimmers who also do Pilates, however, find it easier to focus on breathing, grace, flow and maintaining a steady pace.

Pilates & The Olympics 2012

Many athletes use Pilates in their training programs, using the similar exercises to the ones featured in the Exercise section of this blog.

As the Olympic Games 2012 approach, we will publish more articles on how Pilates is helping individual athletes to prepare themselves for the greatest sporting event on the planet.