in: Physical Education and Learning, Papanikos Gregory T, Editor, Athens Institute for Education and Research,, Athens, pp.37-46, 2013
ports practice.
The purpose of the study, by Verda Akbal, Bergün Meriç Bingül, Mine
Gökkaya, Menşure Aydın and Çiğdem Bulgan was to determine the effects of
pilates exercises on the improvement of balance and flexibility, which are
among the most important parameters of figure skating. 12 figure skaters (age:
7,83±8,0) participated in the study as volunteers who have been members in
sport clubs. As the control group, 6 of them were applied routine figure skating
trainings without any pilates exercises, and as the experimental group, the rest
of them were applied routine figure skating trainings with pilates exercises.
Figure skaters were trained within 8 weeks, twice each week. The balance
parameters of the subjects were measured with flamingo testing and the
flexibility values of the subjects were measured with sit and reach tests before
and after the exercises. All data was analyzed by using SPSS 18.0 program by
the Wilcoxon test. As a result, statistically significant differences were found
for experimental group values of each sit and reach test and flamingo balance
test (p<0,05). According to the results pilates exercises have positive effects on
flexibility and balance abilities of figure skaters.