Pilates and skating?

Pilates and skating?

I'm tempted to buy either a video or a book about Pilates exercises so I can do them at home while I'm not on the rink. I want to tone up (like everyone does, hee-hee) and work even more on flexibility... do you guys think it'll help or should I just try to get the parental unit to fork out some money for the expensive gyms?

<strong>-Lanie</strong> (bored and deprived of skating right now, let me go in my corner and weep! )

Re: Pilates and skating?

If you have the self-discipline, either a book or video will help you as much as a class. You can even take out a Pilates video for free from the library, just to "learn" the moves and then use the book to give you more variety.

For me, the only benefit of a class was that I "had" to do even the moves I didn't like, whereas at home I'd be more tempted to just not do them at all. I finally stopped, though, because even at my health club, the classes were expensive ($50 for 8 weeks, on top of my monthly health club fee).

There are several good books and videos out there. Maybe a friend would like to join you and do them togther?

Re: Pilates and skating?

I don't have any friends who would do it with me, alas!

I told my mom about getting a video and I think she'll buy me one; if I asked dad when I see him again on Wednesday he'll just laugh hysterically. I don't think our junky library would have any (needless to say, I doubt any of the Ventura Co. libraries would have any...they're just that bad). Thanks for the tip, though!

I was watching some infomercial about Pilates the other night and I did some of the exercises I saw on it. Lately I've just been doing crunches, sit ups and push ups, and the crunches sure aren't helping my ab muscles (and my mom laughs at me when I say I have a self image problem, but she's right, I'm tiny, just wanna tone up!).

Our park and recreation newsletter had Pilates for $30/class for eight weeks, but I think it would be odd for me to be around people older than me (just like I feel strange skating around kids so much younger than me). But it started in June, so I was way too late on the ball there!

I don't know about the self-discipline part... I need to work on that, but I think skating's helped a lot (as silly as it may sound to non-skaters).

Re: Pilates and skating?

LANIE:
I cannot be specific about where I saw it, but I have see in my various magazines about skating where they have incoporated Pilates in off ice conditioning. We are going to have a class on it in our adult sakting camp in September. I have done Pilates, and the isolated movements did not feel like much at the time, but the next day, I could not believe how much I felt it. I think that it would be beneficial...especially for the core group muscles. You could try it, and if you so not like it, you could stop. But if you are not skating right now, this would probably help. Just think of the flexibility that you can work on with it