Letter to the Editor
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Meta-Anal. Dec 18, 2024; 12(4): 98736
Published online Dec 18, 2024. doi: 10.13105/wjma.v12.i4.98736
Effectiveness of Pilates exercises in sports
Aikaterini Pantelis Sivrika, Efstratia Giannikou, Georgios Kypraios, Demetris Lamnisos, George Georgoudis, Dimitrios Stasinopoulos
Aikaterini Pantelis Sivrika, Efstratia Giannikou, Georgios Kypraios, George Georgoudis, Dimitrios Stasinopoulos, Department of Physiotherapy, University of West Attica, Egaleo 12243, Athens, Greece
Demetris Lamnisos, Department of Health Sciences, School of Sciences, European University Cyprus, Nicosia 2404, Cyprus
Author contributions: Sivrika AP contributed to conceptualization; Sivrika AP and Giannikou E contributed to methodology, writing and draft preparation; Sivrika AP, Giannikou E and Kypraios G contibuted to data collection; Lamnisos D, Georgoudis G and Stasinopoulos D contributed to review-writing-editing; Sivrika AP and Stasinopoulos D contributed to visualization, project administration.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Authors declare no conflict-of interest.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Aikaterini Pantelis Sivrika, MSc, Physiotherapist, Physiotherapy, University of West Attica, 28 Agiou Spyridonos Street, Egaleo 12243, Athens, Greece. asivrika@uniwa.gr
Received: July 4, 2024
Revised: September 24, 2024
Accepted: October 25, 2024
Published online: December 18, 2024
Processing time: 161 Days and 2 Hours
Abstract

Participation in sports is spreading all around the world in an attempt of the community to stay active, healthy, prevent health issues and conditions and to ensure quality of life while there is life expectancy and population is getting more and more older. Existing protocols in rehabilitation are sometimes demanding and are addressed in athletes and people with good physical condition while population gets involved in recreational sports activities more and more. Sport injuries are very common not only in athletes but in general population as well. Pilates is a very popular type of exercise and industry around it is flourishing. Although there are indications that it could be used as an alternative in rehabilitation, research is limited in certain fields. The aim of this editorial is to motivate researchers to conduct well-designed studies in sports injuries’ rehabilitation based on the Pilates method, to explore the efficacy of the method as a complementary approach and the optimal integration strategies in diverse sports rehabilitation settings. Last but not least, it is an attempt for the need of the community to establish certification on Clinical Pilates Physiotherapists based on the principles of rehabilitation.

Keywords: Sports injuries; Rehabilitation; Pilates

Core Tip: Pilates "industry" is flourishing while sports injuries are very common. Approaching the issue from two aspects: There is evidence that Pilates is effective but research is based on other conditions than sport related injuries. Moreover, there is evidence based on its principles. Well-conducted trials would contribute to draw safe conclusions, create protocols and thus add an alternative to rehabilitation from specialized Clinical Pilates Physiotherapists.