Traditional weight training tends to emphasize working individual body parts. You might think about working your shoulder muscles or your back or your thighs. Generally speaking most weight training exercises (particularly those performed on machines) work one or two muscle groups without involving any others.
Pilates and Yoga take a completely different approach and require you to engage virtually your whole body at once. Let me give you an example: when performing a thigh exercise, you don't simply straighten and bend your leg, as you would in a traditional weight training exercise for your quads. Instead, you must:
- Engage your glutes in order to sit evenly
- Use your abdominals and lower back to avoid moving back and forth
- Work your upper body muscles to keep your back and neck in alignment
This approach is similar to the approach in core stabilization exercises that are increasingly popular in gyms, but yoga and Pilates are more than core conditioning.
One of the benefits of working so many muscle groups simultaneously is that this is how you use them in everyday life. It may not seem that lying on your stomach and arching your chest off the floor is a position you often assume during your your day-to-day living, however, the way you use your lower back in an exercise like this is pretty similar to the way your lower back muscles spring into action whenever you have to get a jar from a top shelf, or straighten up after brushing your teetch
Yoga and Pilates place particular emphasis on your core muscles, which consist of your:
- Abdominals
- Lower back
- Spinal muscles
These muscles add are particularly important for those weight training as they don't get much action in a weight machine workout. When all those small, internal muscles are optimally strong, they will lend support, stability, and added strength to your weight room activities. You may find that you can up your amounts in the weight room if you include regular yoga or Pilates sessions in your repertoire, as well as helping to prevent injury.
