Why Your Muscles Shaking During Pilates is a Good Thing

If you’ve ever done a workout that takes your body to the limit, you’ll know that all-too-familiar sensation of your muscles shaking. This could occur during or after the exercise, and it may have made you feel uncomfortable or even weak.

Talking about exercise, pilates is a very, very demanding one.

Different from HIIT, weight lifting, and other workouts, pilates pushes you and your muscles to hold different (often tricky) positions before getting any rest.

No matter the reason you’re doing pilates, it’s an excellent exercise for strengthening your core. It’s for this reason many dancers take pilates classes. It’s the additional strength they get from these workouts that empower them to perform better.

The muscle shaking is, of course, not just a pilates thing. But the point is, you don’t have to worry about it. It’s actually a really healthy thing for your body!

Let’s explore this in a little more detail…

Reasons You See Your Muscles Shaking During Pilates

Your muscles trembling as you exercise can indicate more than one thing, but in general, when it comes to getting a decent workout, its something good.

1. Low Blood Glucose

To do all the tasks we demand from our bodies, we need to fuel up with energy. This is what Adenosine Triphosphate (or ATP) does when we provide cellular energy to our muscle fibers.

It’s our body’s biochemical solution to using, storing, and producing power. Think of this process a bit like a battery.

Our first source of energy is glucose, which we obtain from carbohydrates. When we burn our glucose energy supplies, our body goes for the second source, which is our own body fat.

This transition from one energy source to the other may cause waves of nausea, a sensation of great weakness, and tremors.

2. Muscle Fatigue

When you exercise and work your muscles to the extreme, it’s normal to feel your muscles shaking. After all, they’re completely worn out!

If you notice your muscles tire out exceptionally quickly, you might not be warming up properly. A quick five-minute jog before your pilates class and a ten-minute stretch of the muscles should be enough to warm the body up, so it’s ready to work out.

3. Lack of Personal Care

The two scenarios above usually occur due to one of two reasons.

  1. You’re giving it 100% during your pilates session.
  2. You’re not taking proper care of yourself.

With regards to the latter, this could be not sleeping enough, not consuming sufficient calories, or not staying hydrating before exercising or throughout your day.

Post-Workout Muscle Shaking

Sometimes the trembling will continue even after the workout. This is usually due to muscle fatigue, especially if you’ve just endured a particularly intense session.

Even though most of the time the muscle shaking will end not too long after the end of your routine, it may continue for a couple of hours. After that, everything should get back to normal.

To recover from the shaking, get hydrated and eat something; that way, your body will receive the boost of energy that is missing at that moment.

What Should You Do When Your Muscles Tremble?

Even though in general this isn’t an alarm, remember that when your muscles shake, it’s an indication of tiredness. Your muscle fibers lack strength at this moment.

Exercising when you are already quivering can lead you to an injury. After all, you need to understand how your body communicates with you and get the signs that tell you when you should stop.

Give your best, and a little more, but ensure it doesn’t hurt the “wrong way.”

Prepare for Your Pilates Session

As we mentioned before, the two main reasons for body shaking are low blood glucose and muscle fatigue.

To get the best out of your sessions, you’ll need to sleep enough and eat well. That way, when your body trembles, it’ll only be because you’re giving 100% to your workout.

Don’t skip a big meal before a pilates routine, unless you want your body not only to tremble but to end up on the floor out of energy. At the same time, don’t eat that much; otherwise, you’ll feel slow and inflexible.

Some things you can eat 15 to 20 minutes before doing Pilates are avocado, yogurt, an apple or almonds, a hard-boiled egg, a banana, or a protein bar.

After Your Pilates Session

At the end of the exercise, you’ll have used a lot of energy, and it is time to recover. You can get a nutritious smoothie with fruits and protein to recover fully and quickly.

After drinking that and getting some rest, your body should start to recover well, and stop shaking.

If it lasts for over four hours, and other symptoms follow, contact a doctor. You need to rule out if you’re suffering from something unrelated to your workout.

Follow this advice, and you’ll get the best from your Pilates routine, build a rock-solid back and abdomen, become more flexible, and strengthen your muscles and joints.

All in all, you’re likely to feel more energetic, and you’ll learn to enjoy each and every pilates routine.

Want to Learn More?

We hope that having read this article, you now have a better idea of why it’s a good thing to see your muscles shaking during a pilates workout.

If you want to learn more about pilates and other related topics, visit our website today!