Essential Takeaways
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Stabilizer muscles are essential for joint health. These small, supportive muscles prevent injuries, improve form, and support smooth, efficient movement.
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Traditional workouts often neglect stabilizers. Exercises like crunches and bench presses mainly target surface muscles, leaving deeper stabilizers underdeveloped.
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Pilates activates deeper muscle groups. Movements strengthen the transverse abdominis, pelvic floor, and other stabilizers, improving posture and reducing back pain.
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Controlled movements build stability. Pilates emphasizes slow, precise motion, enhancing strength across a joint’s full range and targeting areas such as the rotator cuff and hips.
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Mind-muscle connection improves performance. Pilates trains participants to consciously engage stabilizers, boosting awareness and translating to better results in other workouts.
Men may choose from a variety of muscle-building exercises based on their interests and goals, including crunches, leg lifts, bench presses, and more. However, what most of these activities have in common is a focus on the surface muscles. While this might be valuable for bouts of explosive strength (such as hoisting a bench press bar), it may not be as helpful as you think for supporting your daily movement. Men interested in joining a Pilates class often take the plunge because they want to see what Pilates can add.
And add it can! Pilates strengthens the stabilizer muscles throughout the body, which men often neglect. Why does this matter, and how does Pilates achieve such a goal? Here are the basics to fit Pilates into your exercise routine the smart way.
What are the Stabilizer Muscles and Why Do They Matter?
Stabilizer muscles are small, targeted muscle groups that support a joint and keep you steady. If you hold something heavy above your head, your stabilizers are not what determine whether you can lift the weight; they are what cause your body to make minuscule adjustments side to side or front to back so that your arms remain in the proper position.
Stabilizers matter for many reasons. Preventing injuries is one of the most significant; without strong stabilizers, movements can harm your joints by causing grinding, uneven pressure application, or even dislocation and tearing. In the scope of an exercise routine, stabilizers help you maintain your form and perform movements with greater efficiency and smoothness. Training them is essential, but many common exercises neglect them entirely.
Pilates Strengthens Stabilizers
A reformer Pilates class can strengthen the stabilizers you probably neglect because it:
Triggers Deeper Muscles
When you exercise, if you are focusing on sculpting muscle tone, you are working surface muscles such as the biceps and rectus abdominus (the top layer of the abdomen). However, Pilates takes those movements deeper into the supportive muscles, such as the transverse abdominis and the pelvic floor.
As a result, you may notice better posture, as the stabilizers keep your spine and hips properly aligned. This can lead to less back pain and help you lift heavy items more safely.
Emphasizes Control
Pilates is not an explosive exercise routine. It focuses on slow, methodical, attentive movements. This allows your body to develop consistent strength throughout a joint’s range of motion. If you can only remain stable at the start and end points of an exercise but not in the middle, Pilates’ approach is to tackle that problem.
Participants often find that greater control over the form of their movements helps them try new exercises they previously struggled with. The rotator cuff, hip rotators, and ankles are among the most commonly targeted areas in Pilates.
Recruits Cooperative Muscle Groups
Muscles do not work in isolation. Two muscle groups, the agonist and antagonist, engage in a push-and-pull cycle to achieve movement. A simple example is the bicep. When it contracts to produce force and strength during arm curling, it is an agonist. Meanwhile, its antagonist, the tricep, relaxes and lengthens. When it’s time to straighten your arm again, the tricep will contract (become the agonist), and the bicep will relax (the antagonist).
Many people struggle to work both muscle groups evenly. How much easier is it to curl something (using the biceps) than to pull something (using the triceps)? For most people, it’s much easier.
Pilates allows participants to work both muscle groups evenly. This improves stability and makes sure that stabilizers at both locations develop without the need for compensation.
Boosts the Mental Connection
As you get used to Pilates movements, you are more aware of your body. This is a feature, not a bug, of Pilates, and you can carry it with you into the rest of your exercise routines. Gradually, participants can learn to consciously activate smaller muscle groups and stabilizers, even when they are not doing a Pilates workout. This can translate to better performance outside of the studio.
Try Pilates to See Your Stabilizer Muscles Grow
As you consider how to make the most of your exercise routine, consider how Pilates can complement the other movements you engage in. By targeting the stabilizer muscles, Pilates gives you a strong, secure foundation to approach more explosive exercises, such as running or lifting weights. And Pilates, by itself, can be an intense workout for men! Contact RTR Pilates to sign up for a beginner class and see how quickly you start to notice the difference.
