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If you have ever participated in a Pilates or Olympic weightlifting exercise regimen, then you know how these activities benefit your body. You might be surprised to learn that practicing them together offers a more comprehensive fitness routine. The trainers at Big Blue Strength of Lexington, KY, merged a Pilates studio with a Weightlifting and CrossFit® training space to create a workout programs that helps clients make the most of your efforts. Here, they explain why they recommend blending these two exercise methods.
Weightlifting programs that incorporate the Snatch and Clean and Jerk help to improve ones strength and power. These programs also use squats, presses, and deadlifts to increase ones overall strength. While mainly using our big power muscles (mirror muscles), we still need all of our deep postural muscles to stabilize the positions used for these exercise and that’s where Pilates come in. Pilates can help to build balance of strength waking up muscles that can be dormant due to poor movement patterns. You can target muscles in the deep core, shoulders, and hips used to maintain good posture and stable positions. Pilates can help to reset your body to fire up those quiet muscles thus leading to increase power production when your body as a team.
2. Get a Full-Body Workout
Olympic lifts and Pilates are both known for strengthening the core muscles, and they also provide a full-body workout. For example, Olympic lifts target the core, back, arms, and shoulders. Pilates can target leg muscles such as your hip flexors, which can be difficult to work into other routines. Combining the exercises improves overall muscle development and tone.
Weightlifting is proven to build our main moving muscles under higher resistance, while Pilates focuses more on activating the underlying hip, shoulder, and core muscles using lower resistances. Being flexible is extremely important in weightlifting in order to effectively hit bottom positions fo the snatch and clean and jerk. Using Pilates as a cross training method helps in lengthening the muscle fibers as they develop improving your range of motion, stabilizing your joints, and prevents injury during a workout.
Whether your goals are related to weight loss, toning, or building muscle, the team at Big Blue Strength will help you reach them through their hybrid Olympic weightlifting and Pilates training regimen. The gym’s coaches are highly trained and have degrees in exercise science to help every client maximize their efforts and results. Learn more about their programs online, and call (859) 537-8032 to learn more about their group and personal training options.