Will Pilates Improve Your Cycling? City Physiotherapy Says Yes

Ok, so now you’ve invested in a great bike, it’s set up for you and you are doing your post cycling stretches – what you may not know is how much difference good pelvic and core stability makes to your overall cycling performance. It’s is a lot cheaper to work on your body and your core stability than it is to keep up with the latest bike from Europe!

If you’re out on your bike and you’re riding behind someone take a look at the hips and pelvis of the riders in front of you. You’re looking for movement of the pelvis or hips. Sometimes hips will sheer, dip, drop or twist. Even subtle movement here makes a big difference- 5mm is too much movement.

If you have movement present you must strengthen your core, pelvic and gluteal muscles. Clinical Pilates will strengthen your stabilising muscles to eliminate this movement, which not only helps to decrease your chance of a chronic injury or muscular tightness, it will help increase the power of your cycling.

Movement through the pelvis is one of the most common signs of a lack of pelvic and core muscle control on the bike, however another sign can be your knee rolling inwards instead of having good alignment and pressing down in line with the hip joint and your pedal.

Why does good core and pelvic stability matter and what does it mean to you?

The consequence of an unstable pelvis is that it will lead to an increase in wear and tear on your lumbar spinal discs. In addition to this, if your gluteal stabilising muscles are weak, other muscles need to work harder to try to stabilise your pelvis when you are out riding. This will result in pain in your back, knees, tight ITBs and more.

If I just ride more won’t my gluteals and core just get stronger?

City Physiotherapy says No. Your Gluteus Maximus may get stronger (it’s posible) but your stabilising muscles of the buttocks and your core definitely won’t. These muscles need to be trained specifically and targeted individually without using the larger more dominant ones.

How do I improve my core and gluteal stabilising muscles?

The answer is Clinical Pilates. At City Physiotherapy we have highly trained physiotherapists who can assess your individual stability issues and work with you one on one basis to start to activate these muscles. Once your Physiotherapist is happy that you are engaging these muscles correctly and can use the Pilates equipment safely you can join one of our popular small group Pilates classes.

City Physiotherapy Pilates sessions are claimable under your private health insurance extra’s. Give us a call on 8212 4886 to start your City Physiotherapy Pilates programme. Happy Cycling.

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