How Pilates Works: Muscle Fibre Contractions
Pilates is a popular exercise that emphasises controlled movements and intentional muscle engagement. This exercise method involves all three types of muscle contraction: concentric, isometric, and eccentric.
However, unlike other forms of exercise, Pilates emphasises eccentric muscle contraction more.
Muscle fibres are the building blocks of muscles and comprise smaller structures called myofibrils. These myofibrils contain the proteins actin and myosin, which interact to cause muscle contraction.
Muscle fibres are found in every type of muscle in the body, including skeletal muscle, smooth muscle, and cardiac muscle.
Your muscles can contract in three different ways: by shortening (concentric muscle contraction), by remaining motionless (isometric muscle contraction), or by extending (eccentric muscle contraction).
Most types of exercise focus primarily on concentric muscle contraction, which results in dense, bulky muscles.
However, Pilates focuses more on eccentric muscle contraction, which involves extending your muscle fibres past their usual length. When the fibres regrow, they will regenerate longer and stronger than before.
Pilates exercises involve resisting a force rather than aggressively pushing through it, which harnesses the power of eccentric contraction.
This passive resistance makes your muscles stronger with minimal bulking up, and research indicates that eccentric contraction might make you stronger than a concentric contraction.
By contracting your muscles using primarily eccentric contractions, Pilates causes you to burn calories and is an excellent form of exercise.
Pilates also activates slow twitch muscle fibres, activated by low-intensity, sustained movements. These muscles burn out slower than the rest of your muscle fibres, which are fast-twitch muscles. By training your slow-twitch muscles, Pilates improves your stamina, agility, and strength in ways that conventional forms of exercise do not.
To maximise eccentric contractions and reshape and fortify both familiar and unfamiliar parts of your musculature, you should include at least the following three Pilates exercises in your daily routine:
- Chest Lift: This exercise involves lying prone on your Pilates mat and using your abdominal muscles to raise your chest off the mat.
- The 100: This exercise involves lifting your legs, engaging your arms while lying prone, and moving your arms up and down as if treading water.
- Single Leg Stretch: This exercise involves raising alternating legs while lying prone and pulling one knee to your chest at a time.
In summary, Pilates is an excellent exercise that emphasises controlled movements and intentional muscle engagement. Using eccentric muscle contractions, Pilates can help you burn calories, improve your stamina, agility, and strength, and reshape and fortify familiar and unfamiliar parts of your musculature.
Don't take our word for it, come try it for yourself at Drip Nation Pilates Studio and see first hand what all the fuss is about