Efeitos do pilates na flexibilidade e força muscular

Abstract

Nowadays much importance is given to the practice of continuous exercises in order to promote health, considering that several diseases are associated to sedentary lifestyle Concerning this, there have been several proposals of physical activities in which the Pilates method emerges as a form of physical exercise particularly interested in providing general welfare to the individual. Pilates incorporates six principles: precision, consciousness, control, centering, breath and flow (BARBOSA et al., 2009; FERREIRA et al., 2007). In spite of the growing worldwide popularity of the method and in a large scale, scientific information about it is still scarce creating a gap as to the muscle skeleton changes resulting from the Pilates exercises. It is necessary t o aggregate further theoretical knowledge on the subject in order to support physiotherapists who are instructors of the method. Having said that, the main target of this study is to describe through a review of literature the effect of Pilates in the flex ibility and muscle strength. A search in MedLINE/PubMED, BIREME/LiLiACS, BiREME/ScieLo e PeDRO databases has been done since the first register till July 2012. The keywords that have been used are: Pilates, flexibility, pliability, range of motion, strength, muscle strength, strengthening, resistance training, exercise and their equivalent in Portuguese. The descriptor Pilates has been crossed with all the other descriptors. Experimental studies that have been selected (Randomized Clinical Trial and quasi - experimental ) evaluated the effects of Pilates soil and/or Pilates in apparels concerning the variables force and flexibility on healthy individuals or on those with muscle skeleton pathologies. Studies with participants who had systemic diseases were not included. There has been no restriction regarding measurement of outcome. The search yielded a total of 235 articles. These, 154 articles have been excluded by the title and 52 by repetition. 29 abstracts have been read and 18 were selected for a complete reading of the article. 4 have been excluded because they didn´t evaluate flexibility and/or strength. Therefore, a total of 14 articles were included in this review. In general the results of this review showed that have a better flexibility of the core and the posterior chain muscles of the trunk, a better muscle strength of the abdomen, of the pelvic floor and lumbo -pelvic stabilizers in individuals who practice Pilates. There are still absence and some controversial results as to the gain of flexibilit y and improvement of the muscle strength in other musculatures, which indicates the necessity of further studies with a more rigorous methodology.