Pilates fits into marathon training as a supporting session, usually once or twice a week, alongside your runs and strength work rather than in place of either. It is most useful for the things running relies on but does not train well by itself: keeping the pelvis level on one leg, holding the trunk steady as you tire, controlling the foot and ankle, and moving well through the hips and upper back.
The springs let you load each of these slowly, in positions close to running. How much you do should change as your training block moves towards race day.
What can Pilates train that running doesn’t?
Every stride is a single-leg landing at roughly two to three times your body weight, repeated tens of thousands of times over a marathon. These are the demands where studio work helps most.
Keeping the pelvis level on one leg
At midstance, with your weight over one leg, the hip muscles on that side stop the other side of the pelvis from dropping. Running in a straight line does little to build this side-to-side control. Standing work on the reformer, such as scooter and side splits, asks the standing hip to hold the pelvis level while the carriage moves under the other leg, and single-leg step-ups on the stability chair put more of your body weight through it. Side-lying leg work on the trapeze table can isolate the hip first, but the aim is to progress back to standing.
Holding the trunk steady when you’re tired
In running, the trunk has to stay fairly quiet over the pelvis while the arms and legs move, for hours at a time, so endurance matters more than strength. Plank and kneeling work on the reformer, such as the long stretch series and knee stretches, has you hold a trunk position while the limbs move and the carriage adds instability. Side-lying work over the ladder barrel loads the sides of the trunk. Progress by holding for longer with less support, not by making each repetition harder.
Calves, feet and ankles
In a modelling study, Dorn and colleagues found the soleus and gastrocnemius provided most of the body’s vertical support at speeds up to 7 metres per second, well beyond marathon pace. Reformer springs cannot get near that load, so heavy calf raises belong in the gym. The reformer helps with control and range: single-leg heel raises, slow lowering, and work with the knee straight and then bent, which shifts the emphasis between the two muscles.
Hips and upper back
At toe-off the thigh extends behind the body, and if the hip cannot get there the lower back can arch to make up the difference. Lunging on the reformer, with the carriage taking the back leg into hip extension while you keep the pelvis controlled, trains range and control together. Arm swing also rotates the upper body against the pelvis with every stride. Seated rotation on the reformer and extension work over the barrels train that movement through the upper back rather than the lower back.
How should Pilates change across a marathon block?
Marathon plans usually run 12 to 20 weeks, and the Pilates work should follow what the running is asking of you at each stage.
Base phase
This is the time for new and more demanding work, while running intensity is moderate and there is room to recover from unfamiliar loading. Two sessions a week gives you time to learn the single-leg and trunk work properly before adding spring load, range or complexity. Anything specific from your assessment, such as the pelvis dropping more on one side, is worth working on here.
Build phase
As long runs get longer and sessions get faster, Pilates moves to maintenance, usually about once a week. Schedule it after an easy run or on a recovery day rather than the day before a long run or a hard session, and keep the exercises familiar, with small progressions.
Taper and race week
Reduce the load and keep the movements. A session in the taper should leave you looser, not sore, so this is not the time for anything new. A short, easy session early in race week is fine. Leave the last two or three days to rest and your planned runs.
After the race
Spend the first week or two on easy mobility while your legs recover, then reassess before the next block, because what you need may have changed over the build.
What does the research show?
Most of the research here is not about Pilates, so it helps to be clear about what each study can and cannot tell us.
Well established. Strength training helps distance runners. Blagrove and colleagues reviewed 24 studies and found heavy, explosive or plyometric training generally improved running economy by 2 to 8% and tended to improve time trials over 1.5 to 10 km, while VO2max and body composition were typically unchanged. Lauersen and colleagues pooled 25 randomised trials with more than 26,000 participants across many sports. Results varied between trials, but strength training cut injuries to less than a third, and stretching showed no protective effect. None of this was Pilates, and the injury trials were not specific to runners.
Associations, not causes. Bramah and colleagues found more pelvic drop and forward trunk lean at midstance in 72 injured runners than in 36 healthy ones. The runners were already injured when measured, so this cannot show cause. A systematic review of prospective studies by Ceyssens and colleagues found the evidence linking running mechanics to later injury sparse and inconsistent. Pelvic control is worth training, but not as a promise of fewer injuries.
Preliminary, and specific to Pilates. Finatto and colleagues randomised 32 young men, all running for nine months or less, to 12 weeks of twice-weekly mat Pilates alongside their running, or to running alone. Both groups improved their 5 km time, the Pilates group by more (about 2.4 minutes against 0.7), and after training its runners used less energy per metre than the running-only group. Only 28 men finished, the work was on the mat rather than equipment, and none were marathon runners, so it is an encouraging result from one small trial.
Practical application. The exercise choices and timing above apply standard training principles: train a movement close to how it is used, add load gradually, and manage fatigue around key sessions. They are reasoned recommendations rather than trial findings, and they are adjusted for each runner after an assessment.
Does Pilates replace strength training or physio?
No. Your running plan is the training, and Pilates is one supporting session within it. The Blagrove review points to two or three strength sessions a week for distance runners, and if you can only fit in one extra session, the evidence favours strength training. If you are injured, your physiotherapist leads. We align with your coach, gym trainer and physiotherapist on goals and programming, so the Pilates work supports their plan.
Where to start
Start with an assessment rather than a class. The initial consultation looks at how you move, compares that with what running asks of you, and takes your race calendar into account. The programme is then built, progressively loaded and reassessed through your block, with exercises to take away between sessions.