How a pilates class can turn you into Miranda Kerr

pilatesstars.com

I feel beautiful when I do pilates. I have just started going again after a two year hiatus while I baked and took care of Little Red. There is something about the way it makes me taut and strong in my hips, in my back, in my neck, shoulders and torso that makes me walk tall and feel like I am long and lithe and all Miranda Kerr (sans the uppity ‘tude and the obsession with talking about organic everything). I’m not Miranda Kerr, of course, but the key is feeling like you are, right? Like or loathe the woman, she is seriously stacked. Am I right?

Me on my way to the gym
Me on my way to the gym

The first time I tried pilates, I hated it so much I didn’t go back for a year. It was those tiny, precise movements – there is so much to think about all at once: tighten your abs, keep your shoulders back, head up, etc. It gave me the epic shits, I got incredibly frustrated and went back to weight training (and by weight training, I mean eating chips on the couch). But doctors and physios who I was seeing for a dodgy back kept telling me it was the shizz, so eventually I acquiesced and went along again.

And you know what? It freaking fixed me. Really incredible stuff. Five years of back trouble vanished in a few months. I soon became addicted. I went from being a clumsy beginner to being that smug chick up the front who always starts on level 3, doing tricep push-ups while balancing in a headstand position and smiling at herself in the mirror. *

Incidentally, the midwives who checked my stomach muscles after I had my babies said it was easy to tell I had done pilates because, although I birthed baby elephants instead of humans, my muscles stayed reasonably together and – I don’t like to brag but – apparently my pelvic floor is really something to write home about.

Women who have had babies, of course, have beaten innards, like a batch of overripe tomatoes that have been in a Thermomix for 2.3 seconds. But pilates tightens things up again in a way I had forgotten was possible.

Here’s a nice little summary of what pilates can do for you.

momentopilates.es
momentopilates.es

Champagne Husby has never done pilates. He thinks pilates isn’t a real thing – that it’s a – and I’ll quote here – ‘lame-o, made-up, modern version of yoga with a silly name’. He also thinks core muscles are something gym instructors have made up in order to sell more gym memberships. He calls it my ‘lying on your back in the dark’ class. I made the mistake of coming home last Tuesday night and sleeping in the clothes I went to pilates in, because I was going for a run first thing in the morning and it would save me changing. So now Champagne Husby also thinks if I don’t sweat enough to have to change clothes, it also does not count as exercise.

This is fine with me because it means he can stay at home with the children while I go and get my Kerr on for an hour and get some freaking peace. And he doesn’t seem to mind that I come home all fabulous and confident and awesome either.

Are you a pilates believer? Why/why not? 

 

*That’s so not a real pilates thing. Don’t do that. Champagne Cartel accepts no responsibility for duffers who take it seriously.
Written By

Carolyn is the editorial director of Champagne Cartel and a freelance writer. In her spare time she is a long-distance runner, peanut butter enthusiast, and single mum to three incredible humans.

8 Comments

  • Thinking I might have to give it one more chance – like you I found I was about five steps behind, got completely lost and felt a bit like an elephant trying to do ballet. LOVE that you actually sleep in your running clothes, I have thought of doing that so many times but then wondered if it would be like running in my PJs. I can do it now knowing I’m not the only one!

  • I LOVE pilates. I’ve never kept at it long enough to actually be good at it (I’m like that, giving up is SO now), but I reckon I might give it a shot again. Oh god I can hear your husband saying it’s ‘lame-o’, in his uppity, rude tone. Hahahahahahaha hilarious. Great article BTW. Laughed out loud at the bit about the tomatoes and the TM and how pilates gave you the ‘epic shits’ i’m going to use that in a sentence today. OOO actually you might be the recipient – see you tonight! weeeeeeeeeee

  • Oh Gilly, you know my husband so well – that’s exactly how he delivered it! That moment in pilates when an exercise actually feels easier because you’ve been practising is SO FREAKING AWESOME. And you get to feel so smug and you look around at all the newby losers still trying to get their ankle in front of their elbow and you just have a quiet moment with yourself…Is it wrong that I love that?

    There shall be no opportunity to use the term ‘epic shits’ tonight – for David Sedaris will be nothing but fantastic. Unless you say something like, ‘Wow, David Sedaris is so amazing, witty and urbane, that I just cannot ever imagine him giving me the epic shits.’ Yes, that would be acceptable.

  • I’m 4 weeks post-partum. I couldn’t feel more like a bag of squishy old tomatoes! I am so going to find a Pilates class (in a couple of months!) 🙂 thanks for inspiring me! Keep up the good work.
    And I totally agree, it’s ace being the exercise class swot! Once upon a tint I was top of the class at body combat and I loved it!!

  • I’ve been doing clinical pilates for almost two years now (did it a few years before too) and for me it is now a lifestyle. Something I will do always. It has helped so much with my back issues and I feel stronger, firmer and fitter. It has enabled me to start running again, and hopefully I’ll be back on the netball court next year.
    Pilates isn’t for everyone though, you have to be committed and focused. I find it actually mentally stimulating as well as physically, having to concentrate on muscles and lifting, tightening and counting repetitions. 🙂

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