In Search Of The Inner Thigh

Sydney Morning Herald

Tuesday November 23, 1999

Felicity Ward

The Pilates method might seem effortless, but don't be fooled.

Saturday, 10am: "Urrrrgghhhh!" This is all I have to say about my Pilates experience.

Saturday, 2pm: "Ahhh ..." Now I'm ready to talk. That's all it took; an hour and a half of exercise for the body to move from tight and tense, to every inch of it feeling relaxed and fit.

The Pilates (pronounced pill-ah-tees) Method is based on a form of exercise called Contrology. For some, that might conjure up images of a boisterous, power-hungry instructor standing over you screaming "Work harder! Sweat harder!" Well, Pilates is none of this. It is, rather, soothing plinky-plonky rainforest music and kind, encouraging voices, feeding you a routine of deep breathing, long stretches and small flowing movements.

"I do the best thing," a flat-tummied, lean-yet-athletic-looking fashion model once confided. "It's this thing where you look like you're doing nothing at all. You look like you're just lying on the floor, relaxing or something."

And so it does. First impressions on walking into the tiny studio at North Sydney are of a roomful of people breathing heavily, and not much else. A bit like pregnancy classes. They're just hanging out with their leg propped up on a bar - nothing to it. How wrong I was.

"But it hurts so much the next day," the model squealed in delight at the thought of me all hunched over and complaining. (I'll just pull this corset in one more notch). "But it's sooooo good, you can eat whatever you like." (Yes, but you were born with more than your fair share of model genes, darling).

Pilates first came to Australia with Allan Menezes in 1986. He now runs the largest Pilates company in the world, with three studios in Sydney and two franchises.

"We've had at least an eight-week waiting list for the past six years," Menezes says. "It's going through a popular phase now. From what I've heard, it's extremely popular in America and Europe, and when you look in virtually any magazine like Tatler and Harpers, there's an article on it. People used to say, 'oh, you're a ballet dancer', or 'you must have a back injury' when they heard you were doing Pilates. Now people do it more for fitness."

Contortions, sorry, exercises such as stretching out the thighs and keeping your

b-line (the line between your hip bones) tucked in are why ballet dancers like it so much - it gives them the ultimate up-down, slip of a figure.

Menezes became involved with Pilates through a back injury, when he was kicked playing rugby and hospitalised for 10 days. He claims Pilates was his saviour. "They were giving out free sessions when I moved to London, and in the very first session I felt my back stretching like I never had before. After the first six weeks, my back pain disappeared. It just went." Because he couldn't afford the prices for sessions, he became an instructor.

Since, he has written a book (The Complete Guide to the Pilates Method) used in the US as an instructors' manual, produced seven videos and runs the only accredited (by the Australian Fitness Accreditation Council) Pilates sessions in the country.

And he's developed a two-part session of stretching and strengthening work. When stretching, Menezes works on a pain scale. Ten is the pain you don't want; better to aim for eight-point-something-very-close-to-nine - stretching to the limit, so to speak. After placing my leg up on a bar, lifting my torso and bending me forward in a hamstring stretch, he says: "Just pull your pinky toe up ... there, feel that?" YES! Nine, NINE!

And, even though some may be put off by exercises that leave you with legs spread-eagled in the air, or by instructors sometimes having to be literally hands-on to demonstrate whether you're working the right muscles, Pilates in Australia now has 300-350 enthusiasts.

"Keeping in mind that, compared with gyms, it's a small amount, but the muscles mechanics are far more specific than what you do in a gym, and Pilates is by appointment so you get much more attention," says Menezes.

The studios are tiny and instruction is just about one on one. Instructors have to watch that the sometimes barely noticeable movements you make are effective. It feels like you're engaging almost every muscle in your body.

"For example, if you're working the stomach, the angle of legs makes a difference - keep your neck long and your shoulder blades off the ground, drawing the ribs towards the hips in a horizontal plane, while externally rotating the legs to mobilise the hip joint, which also decreases the pull of the quadriceps on the pelvis, and besides all of that you've still got to breath." Quite.

In the first session, I think I worked my mind more than any physical part of my body (though the pain in my stomach muscles for four days afterwards suggested otherwise). But the thought of looking like the no-bottomed, shapely-legged Elle look-alike beside me was enough to spur me on through the inner-thigh exercises (even though my legs were shaking like palm trees during Cyclone Tracy).

But the damage was minimal. Overriding the slight pain was the fact I felt brilliant - energised, sleek and happy as a person in a Pilates class. And, boy, are they happy. They all thank Menezes over and over as they leave the studio. I realise why, when at one stage during the class, scrunching away at my stomach trying to make it look like Cathy Freeman's, the lady puffing away next to me gives me a real-life testimonial. Her back was bad, and now it's mobile. "It takes about a month, you know, for it all to start working - phschhhh phschhhh - and then you'll really start to see a difference - FFFffff, FFFffff - it's amazing."

Marta Karlikoff had a chronic hip problem that doctors and specialists failed to diagnose or treat successfully with magnetic resonance image scans, which show tissue damage, or cortisone injections. "One even told me to sell my house because it was the stairs that were the problem," she says. She went to Pilates classes as a last resort, barely able to walk into the studio after 18 months of suffering. "I started doing four sessions a week, and I'd say within a month I noticed an improvement in my hip. That was five years ago, and now I have absolutely no problems with my hip," she says. "I now stick to three sessions a week because otherwise I find my general fitness level falls."

What once was restricted to ballet dancers wanting the leanest body achievable, or to people with back problems, is now being used for general fitness. "I find that it improves every facet of my fitness; my flexibility, my aerobic mobility, my metabolism," Karlikoff says. "It seems to give me an overall workout from top to toe. You walk out really feeling invigorated."

Yes, I know.

Pilates classes are held at Bondi, the city and North Sydney. Individual sessions: one for $50, five for $200, 10 for $300, 20 for $450. Unlimited monthly memberships: one month $300, three months $650. For more information call 9267 8223 or 1300 369 348.

History

Pilates originated in Germany during the '20s with Josef Humbertus Pilates, who suffered rickets, asthma and rheumatic fever as a child. His drive to overcome these physical afflictions meant he excelled at gymnastics, skiing and skin-diving, as well as his studies on the muscle structure of our bodies and on Eastern forms of exercise. Roll all that together and you've got what he dubbed Contrology: "The conscious control of all muscular movements in the body ... a complete knowledge of the mechanism of the body."