During any endurance event your body goes under a tremendous amount of physical stress. Your glycogen stores become depleted as your body digs deep for fuel, and your muscles undergo tiny tears (micro tears) as part of the process.
Recovery after any training is important to allow your energy stores to recover and your muscles to repair, but it's imperative to allow that process to occur following your endurance event.
The immune system is also depleted after an endurance event, so this is another reason your body needs time to recover.
The amount of recovery needed will depend on your triathlon distance but for an Olympic distance 10-14 days is a good amount, depending on your level of experience and how your individual body is feeling.
For a half-Ironman, for example, it might be 2-4 weeks of recovery period.
During the first 48-72 hours, gentle exercise such as walking would be appropriate, whereas in the following days you can perform low-intensity cardiovascular and low-load strength training.
This is where Pilates comes in as it's a great low-impact, low-load exercise during the recovery period. Here are eight great exercises you can do post-race to help speed up your recovery and repair muscle strength.
Best Pilates exercises for triathletes post-race
1. Bent Knee Opening
This exercise is a great warm-up, which will mobilise those hip joints which will have taken a lot of load during your training and final event.
Bent Knee Opening loosens off the hip joint and helps you connect to your spine and pelvis, developing your sensory awareness of these areas.
Perform the exercise with your eyes closed to really focus on the sensation of your pelvis staying heavy on the floor as you do the exercise.
- Lie on your back with your feet flat on the floor.
- Gently one knee out to the side, allow your foot to roll onto its outer edge.
- Only move as far as you can keep the pelvis flat on the floor.
- Gently roll the knee back in.
- Now roll the other knee out to the side.
- Repeat 2 sets of 10 on each side.
2. Femur Arcs
This is a nice gentle abdominal strength exercise to keep you going during your first week of recovery. The following week you can start to build in some more challenging abdominal work.
- Lie on the floor with your legs bent and feet flat. The back of your pelvis and shoulder blades should be in contact with the floor.
- Press down into one foot, and float the other leg up until your knee is directly over your hip and your shin is parallel to the floor.
- Take a breath in and as you exhale, float your other leg up to the same position.
- Take another breath in and as you exhale, lower one leg towards the floor to tap the toes down.
- Inhale to lift the leg back up.
- Now lower the other leg down to tap the toes.
- Repeat 2 sets of 10 on each side.
You should be able to do this exercise without having to force your lower back into the ground, or allow the back to arch away from the floor.
You should also be able to do the exercise without holding your breath or without your stomach popping up into a dome shape.
3. Prone Press-Up
Prone press-up is a great exercise for working into a stiff upper back. Start off by using a bit more support through your arms to assist you in the first week of recovery.
In the second week you can reduce arm support to start working your back strength or move on to move challenging progressions.
- Lie on your stomach on the floor, with your hands palms down resting underneath your shoulders and elbows tucked into your sides.
- Float your forehead away from the floor, thinking of your head as an extension of your whole spine.
- As you breathe in, draw your shoulder blades towards each other and allow your upper body to float away from the floor.
- As you breathe out, lower yourself to the floor, think of elongating your spine from the tail to the tip of your head.
- Keep the movement relatively low, so that you are not moving all from your low back.
- Repeat 1 set of 5-10.
4. Cat/Cow
So simple, but so good, we’ve included the Cat/Cow for the taper period and the recovery period.
- Kneel on all fours, keeping a little bit more weight over the legs.
- Press your hands into the ground as if trying to push yourself away from the ground, but not rounding into your spine. We want to avoid collapsing in between the shoulder blades.
- Slowly start to tuck your tailbone under to round your lower back, then continuing rounding through up to the upper back, gently lowering your head to look towards your knees.
- Then start to unfold the spine, starting at the tailbone and working your way up, finally lifting your head to look towards the top of your exercise mat.
- Keep the movement slow and deliberate, focusing on the sensations at each section of your spine as you sequentially work your way up and down.
- Repeat 5-10 times.
5. Thread the Needle
This is a great exercise for a stiff upper back through all planes of movement.
- Kneel on all fours, keeping a little bit more weight over the legs.
- Reach one hand underneath you, feeding it through to the opposite side of you, rotating through the upper back.
- Now pull the arm back through and reach towards the ceiling on the opposite side.
- Keep your pelvis directly over the knees, trying to minimise any shift from side to side.
- Repeat 5 each way.
- To get a shoulder stretch, bend your supporting arm to allow your opposite shoulder to sink towards the floor and hold.
6. Mermaid
Mermaid is great for stretching out the lateral trunk muscles, reducing stiffness through the upper spine and opening up the ribcage.
During your first week after your race avoid forcing the stretch as your muscles will still be recovering from your training efforts and need to repair – deep muscle stretches can be counterproductive.
- Sit on the floor with your legs bent and feet pointing to one side in a ‘Z’ shape.
- Take breath in and as you exhale, think of growing taller, reach one hand up towards the ceiling and then bend to one side.
- Keep your opposite hip anchored towards the ground.
- Use your other hand to support you on the floor.
- Hold this position, breathing to expand your ribcage.
- Gently return to the middle and then reach towards your opposite side.
- Repeat 2 or 3 on each side.
7. Hip Flexor Stretch
Go gently on this one during your first week. Repairing muscles shouldn’t be aggressively stretched, we just want to gently reduce the feelings of stiffness that may be creeping in.
- Kneel on the floor with your legs in a split lunge position.
- Tuck your tailbone under and gently lean forward so that the front knee moves towards the toes.
- Keep your body upright and don’t lean forward.
- Perform 3-5 repetitions of 10-30 seconds each
8. Gluteal Stretch
Go easy on this one during your first week of recovery. Again, repairing muscles need to be treated gently – just because it feels tight it doesn’t mean you should force it, you can do more harm than good.
- Lie on your back on the floor, your knees bent and your feet flat.
- Cross one leg over the other, with your knee turned out to the side.
- Get hold of the thigh of the supporting leg with both hands.
- Pull the thigh in towards your chest.
- Hold this position.
- Perform 3-5 repetitions of 10-30 seconds each.
Top image credit: Getty Images
