Welcome to the October edition of Pilates Central News.

In this edition:

• It’s in the bag
• Life in the slow lane
• Pilates on the pitch
• Pilates by royal appointment

It’s in the bag

Writing on handbags in the Guardian columnist Emma Beddington revealed that, “Coleen Rooney has Pilates socks and instant coffee” in hers. We checked the source for this and last year Coleen did indeed tell Vogue’s “In The Bag” series that in her Chanel Tote handbag she often had five pairs of Pilates socks and a couple of coffee sachets among other things. “I absolutely love Reformer Pilates,” she explained. “I try and go as much as I can, and by the end of the week I end up with like four or five pairs of socks where I’ve just took them off and put them in the bag.”

Rooney, who is married to Plymouth manager Wayne Rooney, is definitely a Pilates lover. She celebrated her 2022 ‘Wagatha Christie’ libel case victory against Rebekah Vardy with a trip to her Pilates class in Cheshire. The Daily Mail recently described her as looking  “effortlessly chic in a blazer and gym leggings as she leaves her Pilates class” and a couple of weeks earlier cutting “a casual figure in gym wear and £950 Prada sandals as she leaves her Pilates session.”

Now she’s rumoured to be heading to the jungle in I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! Coleen won’t be allowed a handbag or indeed Prada sandals, but we’re looking forward to seeing her do some Pilates stretches as she rises from her bunk in the bush, even without her Pilates socks.

Life in the slow lane

Slow down, you move too fast, as Simon and Garfunkel once sang. The Times recently ran a feature on “The 10 exercise mistakes we all make and how to avoid them.” One of these was, “moving too fast in Pilates.”

Pilates instructor Abby McLachlan tells the paper that too many people see Pilates as competitive and try to out-perform their fellow class members or start with classes that are too advanced. She says: “I see a lot of people rushing through exercises, which means their alignment goes out of the window and they make technical errors such as pronating or lifting their shoulders when they should be in a neutral position. The important thing in Pilates is to match breath to movement as this helps you to engage the core and pelvic floor correctly and to focus on the precise movement.”

McLachlan adds that if you are breathing “hard and fast” you need to slow down: “Pilates is a precise practice and it’s important for beginners to start with a class that gives them time to get the basics right. Slower is better for long-term progress.” All of which seems sensible advice in an increasingly fast-moving world.

Pilates on the pitch

Many footballers are now using Pilates to boost their game, including the England squad, Ronaldo, Man City’s Erling Haaland and Brighton’s Matt O’Riley. The latest Premier League recruit is Ipswich Town’s Wes Burns. The 29-year-old winger has had problems with hamstring injuries throughout his career.

While playing for Wales Burns told the Independent: “I’ve seen a number of specialists, especially after my last time, to get on top of why it kept happening… Sometimes with sprint athletes, even GB athletes, it happens. They run in a straight line and it can still happen. A game of football, there’s so many variations; someone can knock you off balance when you’re running at high speed. It can send stresses through your body that don’t usually go there, and that’s where injuries happen. I’m trying Pilates every morning so hopefully that takes the edge off it. It’s tough because I’m not that flexible.”

Burns has signed a new two-year contract at newly-promoted Ipswich and it would be fantastic if Pilates can finally help him solve his hamstring problems.

Pilates by royal appointment

Queen Camilla has long been an advocate of Pilates saying in 2020 that she started her lockdown day with “a little bit of Pilates” and then a session of ballet with the Royal Academy of Dance’s Silver Swans movement. She added that, “We’ve got to keep active otherwise we will all seize up and we won’t be able to get out of bed in the morning. It doesn’t matter if it is ten minutes or 20 minutes, it just starts off the day.”

Now her son Tom Parker-Bowles has joined her on the Pilates mat. Parker-Bowles, who is a restaurant critic and food writer, has published a new book, Cooking & the Crown. He tells the Times’ Polly Vernon that his food obsession and three boozy lunches a week were taking a toll on his health in his fifties. So he has taken up spinning and Pilates, “both of which are keeping a lid on the excesses.”

Parker-Bowles also confided to the Daily Telegraph magazine that at Pilates classes, “I’m the oldest man there everyone else is 20 years younger and has a body like a Greek god or goddess.” The Times writes: “He loves Pilates. Even so he can’t do as many boozy lunches as he once did. ‘One every two weeks now, and I can’t do a dinner as well as a lunch.’”

Tom opens up to Polly Vernon about his classes with an unusual revelation. “I never wear baggy shorts [to classes],” he reassures me. His friend’s girlfriend, a Pilates instructor, told him he mustn’t; it’s unpleasant for the instructors if you do. ‘All they can see is your balls.’” We couldn’t possibly comment, except to say that Queen Camilla might be a little more discreet than her son.

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The Pilates Central Team