3 BEST PILATES EXERCISES TO PREVENT SPORTS INJURIES
A. The Seal
This exercise helps your mobility.
1. Sit tall at the front of your mat and balance on your sitting bones, with your feet apart and holding onto your ankles. Breathe in and pull your navel in tightly.
2. Now gently roll back, onto your shoulder blades.
3. Then, while breathing out, use your abdominal muscles to roll back up into the balanced starting position.
4. Pull yourself up tall so that your spine comes into neutral again, and hold the balance for three beats by “clapping” with your ankles three times.
Repeat ten times.
B. The Crab
This exercise is good for improving core strength and spine mobility.
1. Sit tall at the front of your mat and balance on your sitting bones,with your ankles crossed and holding onto them. Breathe in and pull your navel in tightly.
2. Keeping your heels close to your thighs, gently round your spine and roll back onto the mat as far as your shoulder blades.
3. Breathe out as you roll back up into the balance position, still keeping your heels close to your thighs. Stretch your spine into neutral again, keeping your feet off the mat.
Repeat five to ten times.
C. Double-leg Stretch
1. Lie on your back on the mat, with your head, neck, and spine in neutral. Push your spine against the floor while gently raising one leg so that the knee is vertically above your hip and the shin is parallel to the floor.Do the same with the other leg. Put your feet together. Relax your spine into neutral again and keep your shoulders relaxed.
2. Breathe in and pull your navel in tightly.Gently push your knees away from you so that your legs are extended. Only extend them as far as you can while holding your spine and pelvis absolutely still, or until you feel that the strain on your back is too great.If you wish, you can extend your arms in a circle, out and back. Take them to an angle of about 45 degrees to your torso and to the floor.
Breathe out, and bring your arms back in a circle past your shoulders as you pull your knees back toward your hips until your hands touch your knees again. Repeat five times with your arms circling in one direction, and five more times with your arms circling the opposite way.