BOOGIE LITE; Meet the Dance Guru Who is Helping Hollywood’s A-List to Shed the Pounds

WANT to know how 33-year-old mum of two Gwyneth Paltrow losther baby belly? It’s all down to Hollywood’s new fitness revolutionary Tracy Anderson.

Four days a week, for the past six months,

Tracy Anderson.

Four days a week, for the past six months, Gwyneth has sweated it out with the fitness guru, and it’s paid off the actress has transformed her body, which is tighter and leaner now than it was before she had Apple, three, and Moses, one.

Tracy’s Dancer’s Workout is based on an innovative combination of Pilates techniques, diet and aerobics, and promises immediate results most clients lose nine inches from their stomach and thighs in the first 10 sessions.

Trained in dance at New York’s famous Juilliard college, Tracy designed her own version of a Pilates machine called the Hybrid Body Reformer (both version of a Pilates machine called Hybrid Body Reformer (both Madonna and Gwyneth have bought one for their homes).

This machine has a moving pulley system that hits the muscles from different angles, allowing for an infinite number of positions, all of whichmimic dancing movements.

Tracy also regularly sweats it out with Madonna and Gwyneth, using a cardio dance aerobics programme she created to help clients lose fat.

Using this combination of Pilates and aerobics, Tracy says she can take a woman from any genetic background and turn her body into that of a professional dancer thin, long and lean.

‘I’ve changed hundreds of women even celebrity clients have these kinds of issues, in terms of not liking their shape,’ explains Tracy.

‘I have changed bodies. If you’re a pear shape, for example, there are certain muscles that are weak.

If I am training a pear-shaped woman, I have to figure out how to wake up those muscles that are weak, those quads or hamstrings, and pull that muscular structure very tight.’ The key to Tracy’s approach is this system of building ‘in’ instead of ‘out’. ‘Pilates works on this enormously strong core, but what it does ultimately is build muscular structure "out" by building up the major muscle groups in your abs,’ she explains.

‘Instead of over-using the major muscles, I focus on the muscles around them.

When the accessory muscles are properly developed, they pull in the larger ones, creating a tinier body structure. In this way you can reshape your body.’

Tracy says that what most of us are doing wrong at the gym is too much repetition. ‘Any time you are doing the same movement over and over, you are building and bulking your muscles. It is very important to change your rotations and hit your muscles from different angles.’ She was her own first client. At five feet tall with a dad built like Danny DeVito, Tracy grew up believing she was genetically doomed to a lifetime of fat. ‘When I decided to do this research, it came from a very emotional place for me,’ admits Tracy.

‘My dad is obese and when I was around 20 years old my genetics really kicked off. I had a 40-pound weight gain. I was dancing a lot and my body was changing and not in a good way genetics plays such a strong role.’ Tracy had such great results herself that Tinseltown soon caught on to her revolutionary exercise plan.

And what’s it like to train with the Celebrity Queen of fitness, Madonna? Tracy says: ‘It comes down to whether or not you are a hard worker and someone who puts in 100 per cent. With my workouts, you have to be motivated and consistent.’ These days, she even says no to the rich and famous: ‘I turn down celebrities who I don’t believe are committed. I prefer to train with the dedicated.’ While you may not be able to hire Tracy as a personal trainer or afford your own Pilates Reformer machine, you can still benefit from her programme at home. Just follow the exercises below that she has devised specially for Lifestyle to get a bikini body in no time..

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