While prepping for the marathon, two runners find alignment, decompression, and length in Pilates.
In Pursuit of 26.2 is a series following two Equinox members as they train for the New York City Marathon, from their first long-distance runs to the finish line. Since early August, our athletes have been following a new personalized training program created by an Equinox Personal Run Coach, powered by Precision Run, and utilizing Equinox services to strengthen, stretch, and stabilize. Check back each week for a new installment.
Follow any generic marathon training program that pops up on the first page of Google search results, and you’ll likely be filling your weeks with a handful of running workouts — and not much else.
But a well-designed plan also offers space for other workout methods that fine-tune different aspects of your fitness. And that’s why Equinox Personal Run Coach Corky gave her first-time marathoners, Luis Colón and Aurora Straus, the opportunity to perform Pilates throughout their 13 weeks of training.
For runners in particular, the full-body method helps you lengthen, strengthen, stretch, and decompress after pounding your joints over and over again, says Ron Tal, the Pilates manager on duty and an instructor at Equinox Greenwich Ave. Pilates also opens up the body, which can start to cave in on itself due to the forward motion of the sport, he adds.
That lengthening and decompression was exactly what Luis hoped to get out of the workout. A Mat Pilates regular, Luis was intrigued by the idea of using the reformer — a tool he believed would help build his mobility, flexibility, and strength — for the first time. But there were some butterflies, too. “If you just look at a reformer from an outside perspective, you're like, ‘What is this machine and why is it there?’” he jokes.
Any nerves washed away at his first one-on-one session with Ron in early September. Throughout the workout, the instructor focused on lengthening movements on the reformer. He led Luis through footwork exercises, extension movements, leg lowers and lifts with his feet in the straps, and inversions, the latter two of which open up the spine and hamstrings, he says.
In the process, Luis says he targeted tiny muscles he was overlooking in other facets of his training. “There was one point where I was holding up a bar, both of my legs were stretched [forward], and I was shaking,” he recalls. “It was because that new area was being engaged, just when I thought everything was decent.” Cue: a surprising level of muscle soreness the next day.
The two also practiced abs and core moves, including the classic Hundred exercise, says Ron. At this point, Luis realized he didn’t know how to properly engage his core; previously, he had simply “sucked in” his stomach when given the cue, he says. “A lot of people run without the use of their core. What ends up happening is their hips feel tighter, they feel pain in their low backs, and they feel pain in their knees,” adds Ron. “If your core is good, you can get everything else done much more efficiently.”
After a single workout, Luis was already convinced of the powerful benefits of Pilates. “Seeing that increase in your flexibility, what your body's capable of doing, and the activation of the new muscle groups is definitely interesting because it applies to running and so many other things,” Luis says. “I probably should have been doing Pilates years ago, not just on the floor, because it's so drastically different on the actual reformer.”
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With the reformer and other tools, Pilates also helps you find your best physical alignment, says Abby Simpson, a senior Pilates instructor at Equinox Columbus Circle. In turn, the workout can take your running performance to the next level. “Getting closer to an ideal alignment will change you dramatically,” she says. “You want your whole foot to work. You want your hips to be strong and aligned. You don't want to have shin splints or super tight calves. [Through Pilates], the uncomfortable things are alleviated…When you create good alignment, you're going to be stronger and faster.”
Establishing proper body alignment was a key focus for Aurora and Abby, who began training together shortly after the onset of her shin splints. Abby quickly noticed that Aurora’s pelvis was unstable and her big toes had trouble connecting with the ground. As a result, her inner thighs weren’t fully engaging, Abby says. “If you picture a foot and how we run, you need that big toe to propel yourself forward,” she explains. “If she's missing it every time, there's no way she's going to be as fast as she wants to be.”
To Aurora's surprise, Abby discovered that her lower body doesn’t absorb impact well, just like her physical therapist had determined. The two pros also had similar warm-up and exercise recommendations that would help Aurora’s body better handle her runs. “The level of insight that I got on my body, even from a single 45-minute [Pilates] session, was pretty insane,” she adds.
In their sessions, Abby and Aurora focused on improving her alignment, stability, and mind-body connection with her big toe. She used the Pilates foot corrector to practice pressing her big toe toward the floor while keeping her knee in line with her foot, an action that called on her outer hip, Abby recalls. She also worked on her pelvic stability and ankle-knee alignment in the Pilates high chair. “If you don't live in ideal alignment and we put you there, it's suddenly extremely challenging,” Abby adds. “That's why Pilates, with a good teacher, is so challenging — we don't let anybody cheat. We put you in your good alignment, and you have to kind of suffer there.”
And suffer she did. “There were [moves] that were embarrassingly hard for how little I was working,” Aurora recalls of her first session. For example, when Abby showed her how to do an exercise targeting her big toe issues on the high chair, “I was like, ‘That is not even exercising,’” Aurora adds. “Within 30 seconds, my muscles were shaking…I had never had muscle failure that quickly.”
Walking out of the studio after her first class, Aurora quickly noticed a difference in her body alignment — and in her perspective on fitness. “Emotionally, I’m having a better understanding of how little things like that can make such a big difference,” she says. “I've always associated working out with, ‘The more I sweat, the better.’ The reason I like running is because it feels like you can accomplish very large things...So going into something where I did not break a sweat once and being absolutely humbled by it was a good experience for me.”
Looking ahead, Aurora plans to dial back on Pilates and fill more of her free time with personal training, while Luis hopes to squeeze in a few sessions between his group fitness classes and runs. No matter how often they practice, though, the decompression Pilates offers can be a game changer for marathoners. “Even if it's not your main workout, it's going to help your main workouts,” says Ron. “You're going to be a more agile swimmer because you take Pilates. You're going to be able to lift with fewer injuries. You're going to be a faster runner because you take Pilates.”