12PE Inferno Hot Pilates Trip!

As part of their current training focus, the Year 12 PE class headed to Hot Yoga Dunedin this week for a hot Pilates session designed to strengthen key muscle groups and see different methods of training in action.

In the warmth of the studio, students worked through a glute-focused hip bridge series, targeting their posterior chain and learning about isometric contractions - where muscles hold tension without movement. The session also included core conditioning through a series of planks, with the heat adding an extra challenge and requiring students to manage fatigue and hydration. There were a few laughs along the way as students stepped outside their comfort zones.

To finish, students were put through a short HIIT set including burpees, squats, and press ups. These full-body movements recruited major muscle groups like the quads, chest, glutes and shoulders, boosting heart rates and tapping into the anaerobic energy system.

The session ties directly into their current internal assessment, where students are designing and trialling their own training programmes to improve performance for next term’s netball tournament. They’re applying principles of training like overload and specificity, exploring different training methods, and building an understanding of key components of fitness. Hot Pilates offered a valuable and challenging chance to reflect on exercise physiology - especially how the body responds to heat, fatigue and repeated effort, and what that means for performance and recovery.