{"id":104394,"date":"2021-04-01T00:00:47","date_gmt":"2021-03-31T23:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/?p=104394"},"modified":"2021-03-24T16:22:17","modified_gmt":"2021-03-24T16:22:17","slug":"the-power-of-pilates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stories.qvcuk.com\/presenters\/julia-roberts\/the-power-of-pilates\/","title":{"rendered":"The power of Pilates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Those of you who watch the AeroPilates<\/strong><\/a> shows on QVC will know just how much I\u2019ve always loved this piece of equipment, but it\u2019s fair to say that I don\u2019t know how I would have coped without it over the past twelve months, and I\u2019m not just saying that because of the global pandemic and gyms being closed.<\/p>\n

I had major ankle surgery at the end of January 2021. My surgeon\u2019s job was to break bones and re-position my foot, and to also replace tendons that were badly frayed. My physiotherapist\u2019s job is in some ways harder, as she has been responsible for rebuilding muscles from the waist down on my left side and teaching me to walk and stand properly after years of “cheating.” All of this is as a result of contracting polio at the age of fourteen months.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

I left hospital on Christmas Eve 1957 after a five month stay, wearing a calliper on my left leg. My mum was instructed that it should always be worn to aid my severely wasted muscles, but she was keen for me to walk on “my own two feet,” so sent me to ballet class at the age of three.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

Thus began my love of dancing, which eventually led to my first professional dancing job, a summer season in Guernsey.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

When I eventually hung up my dancing shoes some eight years later, I wanted to do something to stay fit and supple, so I started teaching Body Conditioning classes at a local fitness studio as part of the 1980s fitness boom. It proved particularly useful for getting in shape after the births of my two children, Dan and Sophie.<\/p>\n

Once they were attending school and I\u2019d started at QVC, as well as other freelance presenting work, I didn\u2019t have time to teach classes and was looking for a piece of exercise equipment that I could use at home. I liked the idea of the Pilates machine<\/a> from the first time it appeared on the channel, but it took me a few weeks to get pass the \u2018motion sickness\u2019 I initially experienced. Once I did, there was no looking back – I\u2019ve loved my Pilates machines<\/a> (I\u2019m now on my third one) for well over twenty years!<\/p>\n\"\"\n

When we down-sized from a five bedroom house to our current cottage, the first thing we did was have a cabin built at the bottom of the garden as a dedicated gym for the AeroPilates<\/a><\/strong>, my treadmill and a couple of other pieces of fitness equipment that are mostly used by my son.<\/p>\n\"\"\n

Not only has it helped me physically, I find it therapeutic if I\u2019m feeling stressed and energising when I\u2019m tired. It also gives me headspace while I\u2019m performing exercises that my body is familiar with to work on new ideas for my novels.<\/p>\n

But let\u2019s return to the importance of my AeroPilates<\/strong> machine<\/a> over the past twelve months. My physiotherapist, Brittany, works out of a Pilates studio in Chiswick, close to QVC. Prior to my surgery, she was trying to build strength in the muscles that would be most responsible for a good recovery. Among many exercises, she asked me to stand on one of their Pilates Reformer machines, with one foot on the end and the other on the moving platform, and then push outwards. I couldn\u2019t move the platform at all, not even with the least amount of resistance and it reduced me to tears.<\/p>\n