How does Pilates fit into the secondary components of fitness?

The secondary components of fitness consist of balance, coordination agility, reaction time, speed, power and mental capability.  We’ll take a look at balance, coordination, agility and mental capability and how Pilates can help these components.

Balance is the ability to maintain a specific body position in either a stationary or dynamic situation.  The benefits of increased balance can be found in everyday life whether it’s walking more confidently in the winter across icy patches, riding a bike, roller blading or just the regular activities of everyday life.  Pilates is ideal for improving balance.  Among the areas Pilates focuses on, core strength and stability are fundamental.  Increased core strength, i.e. pelvic region and lumbar spine, as well as greater strength in the abdominals will help create stability in the torso.  This will help with improving balance.  Learning to stabilize the scapular region and pelvic region teaches stabilizing muscles to engage especially when performing other movements.  So many of the Pilates exercises require these stabilizing muscles, the deeper, smaller muscles, to be called upon to help keep the body in place while movements are performed.  This practice of recruiting these stabilizing muscles during Pilates exercises will in time translate into everyday life.  Posture is also a big part of Pilates.  Improved posture requires correcting muscle imbalances, strengthening of deeper, stabilizing muscles will in turn will lead to improved balance.  

Coordination is the ability to use all body part together to produce smooth and fluid motion.  The benefits of increased coordination have been seen in everyday life.  Moving from one position to another more fluidly and smoothly will lead to decreased risk of injury due to sudden movements that may be out of the ordinary.  Many of the exercises in Pilates, especially as you move on with Pilates, incorporate some element of coordination.  This may include coordination between legs and arms, breathing and the movements performed, i.e. exhaling on the exertion and inhaling on the recovery.

Power is the product of strength and speed. Power is also known as explosive strength.  Power is used in many sports. Any sport requiring bursts of speed i.e. soccer, football, sprinting, speed skating, cycling etc.  In everyday life bursts of speed are needed whether we realize it or not.  It may be running to catch the bus in the morning or running after the dog or toddler that gets away from you.  Pilates and in particular work on the Jumpboard on the reformer can help increase power.  In particular, increased strength in the quadriceps however in the plyometrics.  Jumpboard simulates jumping but lying down which means less impact, almost negligible amount, on the joints. This allows the quadriceps to be trained in the way they would be while jumping vertically with the impact.  Power in this muscle group increases which means that the burst of speed needed to catch the bus in the morning is not as much of a challenge.

Mental capability is the ability to concentrate during the exercise to improve training effects as well as the ability to relax and enjoy the psychological benefits of activity.  The advantages of increased mental capability can be seen everywhere whether we realize it or not.  Being able to concentrate while we move through life while enjoying the experience and being relaxed leads to less tension, stress and anxiety, something so many suffer from through the course of the day. Pilates is sometimes referred to as a mind body form of exercise implying that concentration while performing the exercises is a big part of Pilates.  Each movement in Pilates is accompanied by an inhalation and or exhalation requiring the mind to get involved in order to coordinate this.  Pilates incorporates deeper small muscles that normally get overlooked in more common exercise regimes as a result greater focus and concentration is required to learn to activate these muscles and then to go on to strengthen them through contractions.  The training of having the mind and body work together increases body awareness but also mental capability.  Over time it becomes second nature to most and a sense of relaxation and distressing results.  

As we can see there is so much Pilates can offer to all components of fitness including the secondary components of fitness.