Olympic Athletes and their Pilates Training

The Olympics have been a wonderful distraction and there have been so many inspiring stories of adversity and commitment this year and particularly for those of us in lockdown. We would like to do a shout out to Helen Stamatakos, Owner and Founder of Pilates Insync, to spotlight the great achievements of the athletes she has been training.

I was inspired by Helen’s Instagram posts, and her excitement and pride of having been a part of their training and journey to the 2020 Olympics.

We asked Helen a few questions about her experience and the journey for the athletes she sees in her studio.

Which Australian athletes were training with you and what was their personal best result at the Olympics?

• Rohan Browning – athletics 100 m sprint 10.01 in the heat (PB), 5th in the semi finals (10.09)
  

  

  

  

  
  

  

  
  
• Melissa Wu – 10 m platform diving – Bronze medalist
  

  

  

  

  

  
  
• Matildas soccer team – I trained 5 of them before comp. reached semi finals & currently train the future Matildas team 2 x week
  

  

  

  

  

  
  
• Kaarle McCulloch– track cyclist- 9th in the Keirin race, 13th in the sprint
  

  

  

  

  
  

How does Pilates fit into their training regime?
Most clients do sessions weekly- sometimes on rest days of training. Some sessions were done online as they traveled interstate based on coaching and team location.

What do you love about working and training athletes at the Olympic or professional level?

I love the challenge of working with elites athletes – trying to help them get an edge over everyone else. I love learning and analysing their sport and coming up with different Pilates exercises to complement their base training.

Who has made the greatest competitive improvement since they started Pilates with you?

Rohan Browning started Pilates as an amateur runner 5 years ago and now is the fastest man in Australia and fastest Aussie in an Olympic Games.

What are the ratios of male to female professional /Olympic athletes who train with you currently?

It’s 50/50 men – women

How did you get started working with professional athletes? Is that a large part of your business? Or just your clients?

With regards to runners/sprinters I used to teach Pilates to a local athletics group and the coach used to send me specific athletes for intense work – these runners competed in world juniors/world Uni games/commonwealth games and some in the Olympics.

Following on from that it became word of mouth and then through social media other coaches and athletes who follow me came or were suggested to come.

Elite athletes are now a large part of my business, including:

• NRL players
• Sporting groups – Matildas/ young Matildas/ Sydney kings
• Athletes from individual sports such as runners/divers/rhythmic gymnasts/cyclists/bob sledding/golfers/boxers/tennis, etc.

 

Thank you, Helen and congratulations to all the athletes on their achievements!