Why pilates is my only exercise

PHOEBE Burgess used to love running, until it landed her in hospital. Now, she swears by pilates, and her bikini body has never been better.

I USED to work at a desk. As a producer on a breakfast television program, this meant sitting down for about eight hours, fingers typing madly and eyes glued to my two computer screens and two televisions. I would move only for bathroom trips and coffee fill ups.

One morning, following a nine-hour night shift, I went home to take my morning nap before going to university. I woke up to get to my afternoon lectures and realised I couldn’t feel the toes on my left foot. Then I realised I had searing pain running down my entire left leg. I crawled, panicked and thinking I couldn’t walk, to grab my phone from my handbag to call mum. And that’s how I ended up in the emergency room with my first introduction to ‘back pain’.

At 24-years-old, I was the youngest patient on the osteo block at St Vincent’s Hospital, by about 30 years.

I spent eight days recovering from my first spinal surgery, specifically a lumbar laminectomy for all the body nerds out there, and then another six weeks in rehab at home.

Lying flat on my back, staring at the ceiling and in between Game of Thrones (seasons 1-3) episodes all I could think was: how did I end up with a protruding disc so young? I was always so active; I played tennis my entire life, rowed at Head of the River, I skied overseas every year and ran every day, twice if I could. I was so fit. And so healthy. So, like any stubborn sportsperson, when I could walk following surgery, I went back to all the activities I loved most. Including running on concrete. Smart, I know.

With my absolute belief that exercise existed only in the form of cardio blasts, and high-impact training, it’s no surprise my stubborn arse, attached to my weak back returned to hospital a year later. This time, it was a new bulging disc, the same nerve and a series of four injections.

Three cortisones and an epidural, an experience I am not looking forward to revisiting for childbirth, meant I was temporarily pain free and able to stop getting around like my 91-year-old grandmother.

I finally decided that I needed to find an alternate way to exercise.

Phoebe loving life in the reformer pilates studio. Picture: Phoebe Burgess.

I wanted my workouts to be the remedy to my condition, not the cause. And, at 25, and as a woman interested in family, I wanted to carry a baby. Luckily, my at-the-time partner, now husband Sam Burgess was a professional athlete with a raft of body fixers on speed dial.

Enter: Pilates.

With a focus on slow, perfected movements specific to each part of the body, it’s the ultimate compliment to an athlete’s training. The ultimate cure for broken down bodies. And the ultimate key to quite literally discovering muscles underneath the body you might not be entirely happy with.

The start to my own body overhaul and back-pain salvation lay in Kirsten ‘Kee’ King at Sydney’s Fluidform pilates (Subtle plug? Maybe. Life-changing recommendation? Definitely.) Having trained rugby teams, including the Rabbitohs, and athletes for more than a decade, she’d seen it all. But I was still a challenge.

Lured into my new regimen with the promise of a leaner, longer and stronger body, free from pain, I started working with Kee three times a week. After spending a slightly irritating four sessions locating the mysterious and elusive pelvic floor, not only did I uncover abdominals, obliques (yes, also a new word for me), a waist and a ‘bikini body’ I definitely didn’t have before, I found a new and healthy obsession.

Yep, most of us would love that bikini body. Picture: Phoebe Burgess.

They say you have a ‘new body’ in 30 pilates sessions, but for me, that was no reason to stop.

With endless ways to push my poor unused muscles, build strength in my knees and shoulders and engage in pilates-cardio (yes, there is such thing as ‘getting your sweat on’ in the studio) the journey to fully-fledged guru is still on. And, I’m still not bored of it.

Follow Phoebe Burgess on Instagram @mrsphoebeburgess