Yoga vs. Pilates

Yoga is an excellent way to embrace life sans deodorant and wear cool hip hemp clothing.

Yoga is an excellent way to embrace life sans deodorant and wear cool hip hemp clothing.You clearly need to come to a yoga class in Scottsdale the next time you're visiting your bro' in Arizona. Think fashionistas + plastic surgery + make-up + skintight clothing. All the single guys I know love these classes.

You clearly need to come to a yoga class in Scottsdale the next time you're visiting your bro' in Arizona. Think fashionistas + plastic surgery + make-up + skintight clothing. All the single guys I know love these classes. And usually best viewed from the back of the class.

I prefer pilates but I think yoga and the flexibility it gives you is important. With my team, we do versions of pilates core exercises as part of our dry land. The coach feels a strong core is essential to strong swimming - especially to make faster flip turns.

I worked with a women who teaches both yoga and pilates last year (Leslie at Pure Movement in Portland) and she recommended pilates over yoga as it is more movement oriented. I have noticed that some of the pilates moves look very similar to a lot of yoga poses. I the pilates classes I took were helpful as part of an overall dry land program.

My limited experience with pilates exercises caused me discomfort so I don't have a lot of enthusiasm for it. I like a faster paced yoga. Maybe Yogalates would be good.

Yoga definitely teaches you to be more cognizant about what each muscle in your body is doing and how to better position it for greater effect. I think this feature is the same in a well-taught Pilates program as in a well-taught yoga program. Gaining strength and control in the core and in the muscles that stablilze the hips and shoulders means thinking a lot about muscles that most people don't think about. I think that both pilates and yoga are beneficial. They are good for improving muscle imbalances, core strength and flexibility. These should not be the meat and potatoes of your program however. Both activities include a lot of isometric exercises with long holds in certain positions. When training for perfromance it is best to incorporate movement, and eventually explosive movement. Pilates and Yoga do not address these needs. I sort of agree and sort of disagree with this statement. If I had all the time I wish I had for working out and recovering, I'd do more strength training for my large muscles and I'd do more of what Grif calls "explosive movement." But I don't have anywhere near as much workout or recovery time as I would like. I also have naturally hypermobile joints, and a congenital abnormality in my neck vertebrae. So for me, I think that the limited time I do have is better spent making sure that the weakest links in my kinetic chain stay as strong as they can be, so that I can avoid injury and so that I can use what strength I do have as efficiently as possible. That's why I spend more of my dryland time on Pilates than on lifting or other large-muscle strength training.

I have never done Pilates on a regular basis but I do a power vinyasa style yoga nearly every day of the week. I'm swimming better than ever and feel a lot more flexible and powerful in the water. I can also really feel my core strength in the water. Without a yoga practice I doubt I'd be able to translate the instructions from my coach "zip it up or pull in your core" to something happening in the water. It has also helped me stay focused at practice and at meets. I've had so many positive changes in my life from this yoga practice that I'm starting to teach yoga too.

I think both have their merits for different reasons. Most pilates classes emphasize core strength, which is imperative for top performance in all sports. Yoga improves balance, flexibility and mental focus. I teach group exercise classes at a spa and active adult resort community including Yogilates, where I meld core and posture work with flexibility and balance training.

I think both have their merits for different reasons. Most pilates classes emphasize core strength, which is imperative for top performance in all sports. Yoga improves balance, flexibility and mental focus. I teach group exercise classes at a spa and active adult resort community including Yogilates, where I meld core and posture work with flexibility and balance training. Susan, are you speaking of the pilates machines or the mat classes? From my experience, the latter are not terribly effective as a means of strengthening the core for competitive athletes (absent a situation like Ourswimmer). I've not used the pilates machines, but my instinct would be that weights & drylands are more effective means of increasing core strength (though I admit there's a higher risk of injury). For these reasons, I prefer yoga and like the combo of swim + drylands + yoga. YMMV