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AS A MAN who does advanced Pilates (I’m level 3 now; there’s talk about level 4), it has taken me a while to come fully out of the closet. Not about the man thing: I adjusted to that years ago. No: I mean about the Pilates, a form of exercise that, despite being quite fashionable, still has a big image problem in the eyes of one of the main genders.

Part of it is the name. Its eponymous derivation from the system’s creator notwithstanding, Pilates sounds somehow girly. This is doubly unfortunate, because not only was Joseph Pilates a man, but he was a man’s man. A German, a professional boxer, a circus performer and a police self-defence trainer among other things, he developed his exercise system for wounded soldiers while interned by the British during the first World War: all impeccably masculine credentials.