Pilates With The Boys
By Erin Deborah Waks
NB: No males were harmed in the making of this article.
I spend most Tuesday mornings bending my hips at unnatural angles, swinging my legs above my head while attached to straps and muffling silent expletives under my breath while squeezing my thighs tightly together - all while donning a teeny-tiny matching pink ensemble reminiscent of a 1980s active Barbie. Kinky pre-work morning sex? Nah. Reformer pilates, baby.
In classic Erin fashion, I joined the cult sport a little after it was deemed cool, hesitant at first because of the insane cost and general inconvenience of having to take the tube somewhere just in order to work out. Alas, I fell in love with it fast. The booming music, flashing lights and sweaty bodies is as close to clubbing as I’ll likely get anytime soon - and it’s all in the name of health and fitness (insert wink here).
But my pilates class is, usually, filled with twentysomething girlies in similar alo or lululemon sets, with similar red or pink manicures, similar water bottles and similar (or, sometimes, even identical) handbags. And while I recognise that plenty of men get involved, perhaps even more so at other studios across London, a friend and I had a radical thought. What if, instead of our standard Pilates With The Girlies, we instead embarked upon a research project: Pilates With The Boys?
The Boys, I will say, didn’t take much convincing. Lured with the promise of a decent workout, a couple of giggles and pizza beforehand, they were in.
What were we expecting? Well, I did hazard a guess that there would be a complete lack of flexibility, a lot of falls and tumbles, a couple of embarrassing moments and a feeling of, by comparison, physical superiority. Did that happen?
Of course not.
Instead, one minor fall aside, what happened was four pretty fit people doing a pretty intense workout class together, all to varying degrees of success. While I demolished any thigh or glute moves, as a runner and bum-workout fanatic, and held a plank quite easily (probably unfairly helped by my small stature), the boys easily outdid me on upper arm, chest and shoulder strength. I guess it’s true what they say about girls and leg day.
I think it probably helped that our research volunteers were, in their own right, sporty and athletic individuals. Pilates - especially the reformer kind - isn’t for the faint of heart.
But it is - whatever your gender - very sweaty, very tiring fun.
