Can Pilates Help Tight Hips and Hamstrings After 40?

Nikkiey: My hips are tight, my hamstrings are tight, my hip flexors are weak. My whole body needs to work on stretching. I need to work on stretching and mobility. Over the last three to four years I've really noticed it the most, that my body is getting tighter and tighter and tighter. So I have tried to do stretching challenges with myself.

You know what's crazy? I'm super disciplined with the gym and nutrition, but just trying to do a stretching challenge for myself, or saying I'm going to stretch for X amount of days, and then buying these PDFs and these courses, like a hip flexor challenge or a stretching course, I last seven days. I'm like, why can't I get this? I'm so good at so many other things, why can't I lock this in? I think it's because stretching is so freaking boring, but it's also so freaking important.

So that didn't work. Then I was like, I'm going to pay money for accountability, right? We all pay money for coaches, whatever, X, Y and Z, to help you with something. Clearly a PDF didn't work, but it's also cheap, and you're going to put in how much you pay for something, right? So I paid for a stretch zone, and that was a little bit more pricey. I bought three months' worth of stretches. I went maybe five times. Maybe five times. Horrible. So clearly that didn't work.

So I was like, all right, Pilates. Pilates seems more interesting to me. It seems like it's a little bit more of a challenge. There's resistance involved, there's dynamic movements involved, there's the mental stimulation involved, there's the coordination, the form, making sure you're doing the movements right. So I was on Lifetime's website watching TV last Thursday night, just flipping through all the different classes, and I was like, you know what, Pilates sounds pretty interesting. Let's give it a try.

And that's how I went to my first class. After the first class, I was sold. This was the thing that was for sure going to help with making my body not so tight anymore. So stay tuned. We'll see how I'm going to commit to this.

Guest: You sound like you just got on a fad diet program for stretching.

Nikkiey: Oh snap. I'm just cracking. The hammies are so tight. The head to body, all of the coordination right now. I've got to stare at one thing on the ground right now. Oh baby. Oh my gosh, wow. Is my core a little weak here? Really good rear delts. I wasn't sweating before. I'm starting to sweat right now. Is it bad that I'm shaking?

Guest: No, she's good.

Nikkiey: Okay. Oh jeez. I feel like this is something new. I really feel like this is something new. My core is screaming.

Ryan: From here, what you're going to do is push off with this back leg. The left leg's only going to straighten out so much, so you really want to sit down into it. That front knee can bend a little bit more. You're going to be able to get the hips down further, just like we did in the scooter.

Nikkiey: Oh my gosh. Wow.

Ryan: From here, you're going to get a lot better stretch in that front leg. So you're going to push that back leg back and your front leg forward and get more into a split. This is what I'm doing in class, just because it's too much, but individually I feel like this feels just fantastic.

Nikkiey: Yeah, it does feel great. I'm also like, man, I should start working on a split challenge or something. Wow.

Ryan: Good. And we're done.

Nikkiey: That's awesome. Thanks, Ryan. That was dope.

Ryan: Thank you.

Nikkiey: What's fun about Pilates is knowing that if I continue to keep doing it, I'm going to get relief from the tightness that I feel on a regular basis in my body. So it's that forward thinking, thinking long term, not expecting short-term results like, oh, if I did this three times I'm going to be more flexible. The fun of it is continuing to do it, continuing to feel my body feel better, and then in six, seven, eight, however long it takes me to get to where my body is not as tight as it is right now. That to me is fun.