I bet this is a title you never thought you’d see on my blog! However, during a stint as a Pilates teacher a couple of years back I did a lot of experimentation with how to adapt classical Pilates mat exercises to support healthy running technique instead of interfering with it.
Surprised I’m saying classical Pilates interferes with healthy running technique? Get my full explanation here. Also check out my running technique analysis of Joseph Pilates.
A query from journalist Marty Munson of Podium Runner about the best Pilates exercises for runners prompted me to put together a short sequence of my adapted moves for the magazine. Here’s her piece, which just came out. She did a great job of streamlining my explanations into concise instructions.
Here’s the video I made for her, showing the moves in detail and explaining how they’re different from the classical mat exercises. The order is also different from the Competitor version; I recommend you do them in the order I’ve put them in the video, as it’s a little easier on your body.
Jae Gruenke Pilates for Runners from Jae Gruenke on Vimeo.
The video is a little dim and with imperfect audio; it was filmed late at night on short notice and I hadn’t planned to share it publicly. Despite that, I’m pretty sure you’ll find it helpful.
In addition to myself demonstrating, the video also shows Sally the Cat demonstrating what cats do best. Many thanks to her for her gracious consent to stay in one corner of the rug.
I elaborated on this blog post Friday, November 3, on Facebook Live, and I demonstrated some of the things I wrote about. Here’s the replay:
great post Jae and good explanations of how to adapt these exercises so that they make sense for runners. function as the starting place and not isolated exercise and core stability as the starting place cannot be talked about too much. Thanks
Thanks Scott!
Thanks for this – would you advise doing this before or after a run?
I think it’s probably best as a warmup or as cross-training. It’s a good warmup since it sets up good movement patterns for running, and if you do it as cross-training you should still see good carry-over to your running. Postrun, however, you may be fatigued and not have the greatest form when you do the exercises…however you could always try it and see if you like doing it then.