Welcome to the August edition of Pilates Central News.

In this edition:

• Gold standard
• BBC Pilates
• American Dream
• Hot Pilates

Gold standard

The Paris Olympics has seen many top athletes advocating Pilates. One of the biggest adverts for Pilates was the USA’s triple gold medal winner Gabby Thomas. She’s one of the fastest runners in the world, winning gold in the women’s 200-metre race, the 4 x 100 metre relay and the 4 x 400 metre relay. Thomas, who has a masters in public health from the University of Texas, told Women’s Health in April: “Pilates is humbling. As an Olympian in that room, not being able to do a lot of the exercises that they’re doing, you really realize how many small muscles that you don’t activate every day. My body goes through it during Pilates. But it’s really good for me and my personal growth. It’s really hard, but it’s also relaxing in a way, so it’s fun.”

Team GB had Pilates enthusiasts too. British weightlifter Emily Campbell was Team GB’s final medallist, winning a bronze in the +81kg category. She told Women’s Health that as preparation for Paris she enjoyed weekly 60-minute Reformer sessions. While the Times reported that Team GB’s pole-vaulter Molly Caudery, trained “several hours a day, five or six days a week: sprinting on the track, strength work in the gym and recovering with Pilates.” Retiring Olympian and tennis ace Andy Murray is another advocate.

Joseph Pilates would surely be proud to see what an influence he’s had on the Olympic podium.

BBC Pilates

Have we reached peak Pilates among BBC presenters? Interviewed in the Independent, Radio 2 Drivetime presenter turned novelist Sara Cox said that in her home gym, “I’ll always try and do a bit of something each day, even if it’s just 20 minutes to do some weights, do a little HIIT, or do Pilates.” While Radio 1 and 2 DJ Jo Whiley, 60, told the same paper as she prepared for covering Glastonbury: “I’ve just decided that as I’ve got older I need to stop being so frantic in my exercise and maybe do something that stretches and tones, and so I’m trying to embrace Pilates

Emma Barnett, presenter of Woman’s Hour and now Radio 4’s Today revealed in the Times that Pilates helped her after she herniated a disc in her back four months after her daughter was born. “It was agony trying to breastfeed, do the school run with my older son, hold my baby daughter through gritted teeth and put the car seat in. So I’ve also been doing months of physio, exercise and Pilates.”

Olympics presenter Gabby Logan told the Western Mail that facing midlife challenges, “I’m enjoying certain types of exercise more… really getting into Pilates.” Match of the Day presenter Gary Lineker is another advocate of Pilates who said in the Evening Standard, “I do at least three sessions in the gym every week, and then I’ll do Pilates as well.”

In fact it seems more newsworthy these days if a BBC presenter doesn’t do Pilates.

American dream

Pilates is now big in American football. “Getting to the core of why NFL players love Pilates,” reads the headline in The Athletic. The feature cites an in-game quip from the New York Giants’ 6ft 4in defensive linesman Dexter Lawrence. After a fine passage of play Lawrence shouted to teammate Leonard Williams, “That Pilates be getting me right!” “For real?” replied Williams. Lawrence later explained why he loves Pilates: “A lot of core work so that helps with my lower back. Just flexibility and strengthening different areas.”

The Athletic also talks to Dolphins linebacker Jaelan Phillips who says: “I voluntarily go to go shake like a leaf and hold myself in these extremely challenging tough positions. It makes your body stronger but also makes your mind and soul and spirit stronger. I really leave Pilates with a glow.”

Phillips credits Pilates with ending his groin and hip injury problems and says ten of his teammates now join him at Pilates classes. He also enjoys the breathing work: “If you take that to the field, if you take that to really anything, (such as) anxiety, breathing can alleviate that. So Pilates is just like a microcosm of a lot of things that you can apply to real life that are beneficial for your health and wellness.”

Another NFL star, the Giants’ Andrew Thomas says: “A lot of times we get put in compromised positions just because of the nature of going backwards (as an offensive lineman). So I think Pilates just helps with your flexibility and your core strength and it helps you sit down rushers and be athletic on the field.”

When it comes to gridiron Pilates is clearly making quite a touchdown.

Hot Pilates

Guardian columnist Tim Dowling’s latest amusing dispatch sees him doing Pilates while on holiday in sweltering 40C conditions. He writes: “I am lying on a mat in a triangle of shade, in Spain, pressing the small of my back earthward as commanded by a Pilates instructor named Nicole. She is on her own mat, in front of a beach at sunset, in California or possibly Australia, on an iPad propped up against a shoe.”

Dowling is ordered to pump his arms. “‘Ow,’ I say. All around me I can hear the groans of the people I’m on holiday with. We do this every morning because soon it will be too hot to do anything at all. We have chosen this corner of the terrace because it’s the only place that affords both shade and sufficient wi-fi to summon Nicole.”

Things don’t improve when he’s asked to do something called “Happy Baby”. Dowling writes: “I look up to see everyone else lying on their backs, legs in the air, knees bent, clutching their insteps. I imitate them, eyes closed, exhaling slowly, feeling the last of my dignity slip away.”

His day doesn’t improve as he’s forced to listen to couples discussing elderly parents and gown-up children. Then at seven pm his wife wants him to go shopping in the car to somewhere selling, “peculiar items fashioned from straw.”

Should Tim wish for a cooler and more dignified experience he can always visit Pilates Central, where there’s no dodgy wi-fi and absolutely no obligation to go shopping after sessions.

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The Pilates Central Team