Pilates is increasingly the must-do exercise routine for stars and celebrities. But does it work? Christine Madden takes to the exercise mat to check it out.
Seated across the mat from me, a very slim woman with a regal posture is demonstrating how to breathe properly. A broad rubber exercise-band taut around her tiny midriff, she inhales - and, it seems, nearly doubles her breadth.
Now you try, she prompts. I do my best, gulping air like a goldfish, yet you'd need a microscope to measure any additional width. But then I've never done Pilates before, and the woman in front of me, Abbe Harris, has been practising this, now fashionable, exercise technique for years.
Pilates has recently become the workout of choice for the flash and famous. This technique - currently favoured by celebrities such as Madonna, Mick Jagger, Meg Ryan, Liz Hurley, Courtney Love and Friends' Jennifer Aniston - originated with Joseph Pilates, born in 1880 near Düsseldorf, Germany.
A sickly child suffering from rickets, asthma and rheumatic fever, Pilates was determined to overcome his ailments, combining his knowledge of gymnastics and body-building with Eastern body-awareness regimes such as yoga and Zen meditation. When he emigrated to the US in the 1920s, he opened his first studio in New York, where dance professionals such as Martha Graham, George Balanchine and Hanya Holm included it in dancer-training techniques.
Pilates speculated that his methods were 50 years ahead of their time. Now, nearly 40 years after his death, it seems he was right. "Medical research recently proved what Joseph Pilates knew all along, that if you use the abdominal muscles, it releases the pressure on the spine," says Harris . "And then people like Madonna started doing it - and when she does something, everybody knows about it."
Trust rock and film stars to suss out the advantages of Pilates, such as an elongated, firm and trim body, erect yet willowy posture and relief from stress. Lynne Robinson, whose development of body-control Pilates has made her something of a celebrity, describes it as "a body conditioning method unlike any other technique". Instead of usual body-building, which focuses on creating knots of muscle we can see, "it works on the deep postural muscles, so it works from inside out".
Since Joseph Pilates first developed his method, several types have emerged. For her version, Robinson adapted Pilates's exercises for enthusiasts other than dancers. "I broke the original exercises down and teach them progressively, so that people can learn them step by step. An average person doing the original exercises could do himself some injury. This method is user-friendly." As well as helping with medical problems and sport, Robinson adds, "it also makes you look good".
Her success and feedback indicates this. She has published 11 books and produced five videos of her body-control method, and counts among her clients many English cricket clubs, Manchester United and the Duchess of York. Liz Hurley came to her when she was pregnant. "She wanted to do the best thing for herself and the baby, and wanted to avoid back problems and keep her arms and legs trim. She did the exercises throughout her pregnancy, and they stood her in good stead."
The search for strength, good looks and self-awareness has also attracted the theatre and film crowd to trainer Dreas Reyneke, a former dancer with the Ballet Rambert in London. He discovered Pilates in his final years as a dancer, and began training others in the early 1970s. After an injury to his lower back, he began doing pelvic floor exercises, and astonished his osteopath with his speedy recovery.
Reyneke has just spent four years writing a book about Pilates and the history of physical training. His sharp focus on the body helps actors prepare for their parts - "finding themselves, how comfortable they are with themselves, approaching the characters they play". Working with actress Tilda Swinton during her preparation for Orlando, he told her, "I can't make you look like a man, but I can give you the body language of indeterminate sexuality, so you can look like a 16-year-old boy or girl." And it worked wonderfully.
He also tended to Christopher Lambert during the filming of Greystoke. "He needed to be trained, but they didn't want him to look like he had been pumping iron; the audience would just laugh at him." So Reyneke went to work on him, and created the lean strength that helped make Lambert's performance convincing. Further clients include Martin Amis, Ian Holm, Helena Bonham Carter, Miranda Richardson and Juliette Binoche.
Abbe Harris, who with physiotherapist Lesley-Anne Ross opened the Dublin Pilates Studio in January, started using the technique two and a half years ago. She had trained to be a ballet teacher in London and specialised in Pilates. As a result, she no longer suffers from back pain and, as a dancer, noticed a huge improvement in balance and stability.
"It also released an awful lot of bodily tension," she adds, "and strengthened the deep abdominal and back muscles." The Pilates method incorporates eight principles: relaxation, breathing, concentration, alignment, co-ordination, flowing movements and stamina. Trying to remember all of these while going through the exercises is a bit like patting your head and rubbing your stomach simultaneously, but you can get it with time and practice, she says. After two sessions, I'm not ready to burst iron chains by expanding my stomach muscles, but I start noticing things, such as my bad habit of tensing the shoulder muscles whatever movement I make. The exercises prompt the stirring of muscles I never knew existed, and they power into place as I release the tension in the back. With this, Harris says, I'm on the right track.
"Pilates works on your body awareness," she says. "You become aware of all the tension and stress you're holding in your shoulders. A lot of people find it relaxing and energising, as you become aware of what you're doing all the time, aware of yourself in movement."
It strengthens the abdominals, the "deep corset muscles", that hold you up and relieve the back. And, in giving you new strength, energy and flexibility, Pilates also tones and firms the body.
There are a great many Pilates books and videos, but Harris recommends consulting a skilled practitioner, at least at the beginning. "The exercises are very subtle, and it helps to do a class or to get instruction. As with any physical training, if you do it badly you can hurt yourself."
If done carefully and consistently, Pilates "works very deep", says Robinson. "As well as helping with medical problems, it also makes you look good." And, as people who work with the body know, looking good and feeling good complement each other. "You have to have good body-language - it's the first thing that registers with other people," Reyneke insists. "And it also has to look natural. Good posture is so important. If it's bad, your knees will play up, and then the hips, back and shoulders will cause trouble. It's fascinating how each body works and how it's put together."
Many Pilates exercises involve minimal outward movement, yet have deep inner effect, they are suitable for keeping healthy during long-haul flights - or indeed any time you are seated and immobile for long periods of time, such as on buses, trains or in the office. Apart from breaking the tedium, the exercises can make you feel more comfortable and help reduce the risk of deep-vein thrombosis.
Pilates expert Dreas Reyneke published a book with Helen Varley, In-Flight Fitness, that tackles this and other health issues involved with lengthy air travel and "economy class syndrome". After explaining this life-threatening condition, Reyneke outlines how to keep the risk at a minimum and describes massage and exercise techniques that keep the leg musculature active and effective in maintaining blood flow, even while remaining seated. Executed every half hour to an hour, they stimulate circulation in the legs and feet.
Pilates exercises performed in-flight can also help keep your limbs supple, decreasing the chance of a sore or stiff back and aching muscles when you arrive. Since they involve correct posture, small movements, resistance and relaxation techniques, you can do the exercises periodically without annoying travelling companions.
Many airlines suggest in-flight exercise. Body Control Pilates has teamed up with British Airways to offer information and an in-flight video with exercises devised by Lynne Robinson for long air journeys.
In-Flight Fitness, Orion, £5.99 sterling
Dublin Pilates Studio: Abbe Harris and Lesley-Anne Ross 01-4982688
The Official Body Control Pilates Manual, by Lynne Robinson, Helge Fisher, Jacqueline Knox and Gordon Thomson, is published by Macmillan at £12.99 sterling.
Other books by Lynne Robinson are described on the Body Control Pilates website: www.bodycontrolpilates.co.uk Ultimate Pilates, by Dreas Reyneke, is published by Random House at £14.99 sterling