No Pain, No Sweat

By TAMALA M. EDWARDS/NEW YORK

Kym Bassett considers herself an expert in gym fads. She has taken orders from aerobic Step Nazis; she has pumped iron with the manly men. She ran like a rat on a treadmill and searched for Nirvana in yoga. Very little about her body changed over seven years, mostly because she seesawed from five-day-a-week workouts to none at all. Last November the Manhattan jewelry designer noticed a story about Pilates, a regimen based on stretching exercises. "I had no idea how to even pronounce it," says Bassett of her impulsive call to make an appointment. (It's Puh-lah-tees.) "I just knew I was fed up."

Now Bassett, 24, is coached twice a week on exotic machines with names like the Reformer--and the benefits she describes sound miraculous. Two hours of work with no sweat has allowed her to drop from a size 10 to a size 8, sometimes 6. Her stomach has been whittled; her hips have slimmed. She has the posture and lanky gait of a dancer. What she doesn't have is a diet, and her workout shoes--Pilates calls for socks only--sit in her closet, dusty. She's lost nearly 10 lbs. "People say to me, 'You look thinner,'" she marvels. "And I'm thinking, But I had that huge piece of chocolate cake last night."

With the fitness boom of the 1980s, healthy living became associated with noticeable muscles and no-pain, no-gain workouts. But if anything ever represented the Zen '90s, it's Pilates and the less-is-more body. "I used to look like Sylvester Stallone. People stared," clucks actress Sonia Braga, who's now keeping company with Pilates devotees like Madonna, Vanessa Williams and Sharon Stone. "What Pilates does is strengthen and elongate." Practitioners claim they double-cross genetics, getting fabulous bodies and feeling better with whiz-bang workouts that fit their hectic schedules. The number of Pilates studios has grown from just five worldwide in 1976 to 500 in the U.S. alone today; businesses that make the equipment report exponential growth in sales. Major gym chains have begun offering the floor-exercise portion of the method. One complaint is that the demand is outstripping the availability of teachers. The other is that this has got to be too good to be true.

Pilates has a long history. It was developed by Joseph Pilates, a German boxer, at the turn of the century. A sickly child, he obsessed about the perfect body, something to combine the physique of the ancient Greeks with the meditative strength of the East. The result was 500 exercises requiring intense concentration and centered mainly on a strong abdomen, as well as deep stretching. "This is your powerhouse," says Pilates master teacher Romana Kryzanowska, 75, her hand on her stomach. "With that you can do this": her right leg scissors into a kick that would make a Rockette cry, with her poodle Bijoux nestled nonchalantly in her left arm.

The exercises first became known among athletes for their ability to heal injuries. In the 1950s such dancers as George Balanchine and Martha Graham became devotees. After a brief public boom in the 1970s, the system went back to the ballerinas. But in the past few years the exercise has begun to break through, in large part because of celebrity hype. "I always want to be doing what Madonna is doing," cracks author Jennifer Belle.

What Madonna is doing is this: for an hour an instructor leads a client through a volley of positions, both on the floor and on machines with names like the Cadillac and the Barrel. Repetitions are low, but concentration is intense. The stomach and butt squeeze, the legs and arms reach. Pilates promises that you'll feel better in 10 visits, look better in 20 and have a new body in 30. Those who try it say it's true. "I'm naked and standing in front of the mirror," reports Belle, who's done Pilates for a year. "My stomach is tighter. The butt is higher and firmer. I'm more streamlined now."

The mostly female clients say the exercises make them feel better, stronger, more in control, less prone to injury--the opposite of their gym visits, which left them wiped out. "I like to do this in the morning because it gives me so much energy," says Alison Brown, 33, a Los Angeles student. The focus means they get a vacation from the stress of the outside world; the lack of sweat and panting makes it easier for them to rush back to it. "Most of my clients are working women with children," says Atlanta studio owner Penelope Wyer.

Lisa Hufcut, director of New York Sports Clubs, the largest chain in the city, says that two weeks ago, a Pilates class got so full that she had to take reservations and move to a bigger room. Still, she's skeptical about claims that the system is magical: "If that were the case, we'd close down our gyms and open Pilates studios." David Barton, Manhattan celebrity-gym owner and devoted pumper of iron, also offers Pilates classes, but he's a doubter too. All the talk of magically narrowing hips upsets him. "Find me the study that proves all this, and I will kiss that person's behind," he snorts.

Such a study doesn't exist for the moment. But believers abound. Says Belle: "It's this or full body lipo."