As any sports expert will tell you, warming up is one of the most important parts of your training. Through warming up you prepare your body to face the physical activity you are about to do. Today almost all of us follow a sedentary lifestyle. This means that most of the time we spend sitting and that we move rather little. When going from practically zero activity to performing physical activity, our body undergoes a great effort. The thing to understand is that most of our muscles are cold and haven’t done any work all day. In this way, through heating we manage to activate each and every one of the parts of our body. When our muscles have warmed up properly they are much more flexible and less rigid and this helps us not to hurt ourselves even if we force them during the training of our favorite sport.
Warm-ups before doing Pilates take on great importance. Most Pilate’s exercises involve a lot of resistance and flexibility work. When we work on our flexibility with cold muscles, two very negative things happen. The first one is that we are less flexible. In this way you will notice that it is more difficult for you to do the work and you will feel very rigid. On the other hand, when trying to force your muscles to achieve greater flexibility, you may injure yourself. For both reasons, it is important to warm up and stretch very well prior to our Pilates training.
If you wish, you can access our main category of pilates and if you want to know more about how to warm up before doing Pilates, pay close attention to the instructions that we detail below.
What do you need to warm up before doing Pilates?
- mat yoga
- comfortable sportswear
Instructions to warm up before doing Pilates
- The first thing you should do is try to mobilize your whole body. In this way, it is convenient that before performing your Pilates practice you walk for a while at a brisk pace. In this way you will get your blood circulation moving and reach all parts of your body. With an exercise as simple as this you will notice how the temperature of your body increases slightly.
- Once you have managed to activate your blood circulation and wake up your body, you should start working on all your joints. The best thing is that you start by making small rotational movements that involve the various parts of your body. If you don’t want to forget anywhere, you can start from the highest point and go down little by little. In this way you will start by warming up your neck while making gentle turns with your head. Then you will go on to perform them with your shoulders, elbows and wrists, later with your hips and finally with your legs, knees and ankles. If you have noticed what you have done so far is mobilize all parts of your body. Right now you should notice warmth in all your extremities.
- Now that you have managed to mobilize and involve all parts of your body in the warm-up, you should do a few stretches. You do not need to insist much on this point since throughout your Pilates session you will go deeper into the practice of flexibility. Therefore, perform some very gentle stretches that prepare your body for what it is going to do next.
- Finally, you must remember that you should not push yourself too hard during your warm-up. It is not necessary that you run out of breath in fact this would even be counterproductive.
Tips for warming up before doing Pilates
- Don’t neglect stretching. There is a completely wrong belief that Pilates is a very gentle sport that hardly requires any effort. Pilates, as you will undoubtedly know if you have ever tried the sport, is a sport that requires great physical preparation. Relaxation and flexibility are two of the most important points in Pilates. If you try to exceed your limits of flexibility without having previously warmed up and stretched, the most common thing is that you end up hurting yourself. Remember that a good warm-up does not have to take you more than ten. You will not lose too much time and your training will be much more efficient and effective.
