Beautcamp my Booty

Okay, it's time to admit it... I'm a fad-happy kinda gal. I tend to go into a new venture super gung-ho and after a few months (18 months max.) my resolve fades...

But not this time. I swear to you, I have found the answer to everyone's prayers re: their wobbly bits, and it is Beautcamp Pilates (an extreme Pilates where the exercises are performed on a reformer bed with the aid of springs and weights).

I first read about it in the UK's beloved Grazia magazine (a weekly glossy that surprisingly manages to squeeze quite a bit of text onto pages of celeb photos and fashion must-haves). So with only three weeks to go until I head down under for some sunshine and beach-action, desperate times have called for the serious expenditure of my new found babysitting-earned cashola. At £20 a pop - and that's with a discount, peak-rate classes are £25 - Beautcamp Pilates is not exactly cheap. But... it works.

Yes, I have only attended one class, but I have started (and stopped) enough fitness regimes in the past to know which ones work and which ones are just for laughs. In Beautcamp, there's no laughing. This morning, bright and early, I made my way all the way up from South-West London to the North-East for a 7am session. Given that the temperature had barely reached 6 degrees when I set off, and the fact that in my neurotic-style I arrived 30 minutes early when sadly the club didn't open until 7am, it's surprising that I enjoyed myself at all. But I did.

Daniel, our instructor, asked if I had done Pilates before, which of course I have (that was actually my longest running fad starting back in 2003 and ending 18 months later when my gym membership got too exy), but I told him that I had never ventured into the world of reformer (with the exception of my Supreme Pilates machine that now leans idly behind my wardrobe door, gathering dust)... He was surprised then when I took to the bed so easily. Along with being slightly neurotic, I am also delightfully competitive, so I tend to thrive in classes, call it Teacher's-Pet-itis. After his first pat on my back, I started to regret my actions, because once Daniel knew my strengths he wouldn't let me show any weaknesses. With only 6 reformer beds in each class this is almost as good as one-on-one training. Today's session focused mainly on leg work (Pilates is all about you core-muscles so most mat classes tend to work your abs, but with the reformer bed, the muscle-torchering possibilities are endless) before we were even half-way through my thighs were shaking, and carves aching. But at the end, I felt amazing. If I could have physically jumped for joy I would have, but unfortunately my little legs found it hard enough keeping my body upright, so instead I texted some girlfriends about my joyous find. Without doubt I will now spend the next three weeks (three classes a week) boasting and gloating, and trying to recruit new members. London-based friends beware.

http://beautcamppilates.co.uk/

Beautcamp Pilates City of London
Unit 10 (Grey Gate), 10 Willow Street

Shoreditch, London EC2A 4BH

http://www.fastfitness.me

020 7739 1130

Beautcamp West London

34 Porchester Road

Bayswater, London W2 6ES

http://www.fastfitness.me

020 7034 0000.

Note: The Intern is indeed keeping up with her running three times a week (for those of you who read often and may have wondered what had happened to her mini-marathon dreams)... and in fact competed in her first 10km race a few weeks ago. She was going to blog about it but was waiting for the pics to come through of her charging past the finish line - in 57 minutes! - but alas, they have yet to be posted on runnersworld.com. Sorry...