It’s time for: Hot Pilates

Is this a good idea?

Probably not.

But that didn't stop me from signing up for my first hot pilates class — the one where they heat the room to 34 degrees and expect my ageing, knackered, stiff, sore body to move into positions it hasn’t agreed to since some time in the 90s.

I’m sitting outside this very trendy studio, uncomfortably aware that I’m the only bloke in a class of twenty women. And these women simply look like the sort of people who actually belong in a Pilates studio — toned, fit, flexible, glowing with health, somehow visibly cleverer than me — and about twenty years younger, at a minimum.

Just for the record: when I take my glasses off, I can barely see my own hand in front of my face. Everything is a blur. I’m basically operating on trust and guesswork once the glasses are off - perhaps I protest too much

. I have to squint to see what the instructor’s doing, which I’m always aware could be… misinterpreted.

But I’m committed.

Mostly because my body is buggered.

My knees have started to hurt climbing stairs.

My back screams when I put on socks.

I haven’t been able to touch my toes in years — these days I’m impressed if I reach my knees — and every time I bend I make those little middle‑aged noises:

“OOOF.”

“Aaah.”

And occasionally: “For fuck’s sake.”

Enter LuLu

Not that Lulu, hot-pilates-instructor-LuLu though she does make me want to shout.

She bounces in, all enthusiasm and sunshine, handing out tiny weights and a ball that I immediately know will somehow humiliate me.

I tuck myself as far into a corner as possible. I could stand in the centre of the room with a megaphone and still not be noticed here… until I do something catastrophic.

“Hot” everything is all the rage now — hot yoga, hot pilates, hot meditation — so why not embrace this need for heat?

I’m reliably informed that heat will help me stretch further, ease pains faster, and burn more calories.

It’s January.

I need all of those things to happen.

Preferably immediately.

I Haven’t Even Started and I’m Already Sweating

I sit cross‑legged on my mat, awaiting instruction. Sweat beads on my forehead, gathers momentum, and plummets onto the mat like raindrops fleeing a storm cloud.

This does not bode well.

We begin gently — cat/cow stretches, arms overhead — and already I’m contemplating escape.

Then LuLu cheerfully demonstrates a move I know I could have done, once, log ago: lying on my back, lifting my legs straight up, then reaching them over my head to touch the floor behind me.

What has happened to my body!?

Today, in a sweltering studio, she wants us to do it with a ball squeezed between our ankles.

How hard can it be?

As it turns out: sweat‑ballingly, catastrophically, bloody impossible.

Flat on my back? Fine.

Lifting my legs? Just about.

Tilting them over my head? Very questionable.

But the moment my soaked legs go up, the ball — slick with sweat — shoots out like a rogue cannonball, bouncing across the studio and ricocheting off innocent Pilates veterans.

Any shred of credibility disappears as I tiptoe between lithe young women, apologising and retrieving my runaway ball like a confused golden retriever.

“Everything okay back there?” shouts LuLu.

Absolutely not, LuLu. Absolutely not.

The Ghost of Yoga Classes Past

Once upon a time I was a 150‑lb lad with thick brown hair, bendy as anything, attending yoga classes in the early 90s and feeling smug as hell.

I even got asked out after a class once.

Yes — that happened.

But nobody warned that 21‑year‑old that one day, far sooner than he could possibly imagine, he’d be 55, built like the Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz, and begging for oiling. Quite simply I’m carting around too much timber for my infrastructure.

I work on the railway — I know what happens when you load too much weight onto creaking infrastructure. It doesn’t end well. What I really need is a full maintenance team… or, failing that, the less glamorous option of eating less and moving more. Preferably in a very hot room, apparently.

The Great Sweating

LuLu leads us through movement after movement — each one more agonising than the last — while doing the exercises herself, shouting encouragement, and somehow not sweating.

At all.

Not even a glisten.

How is this physically possible?

Is she cold-blooded?

Is she part‑machine?

Meanwhile, the pool beneath me is reaching “small paddling pool” proportions.

At the end, I try to soak up as much of it as possible with my small, insufficient towel. LuLu, with piteous voice says:

“Don’t worry, Jonathan — we’ll get a mop.”

After-sweats

I know - I look nothing like this

I catch sight of myself in the mirror on the way to the showers: thinning grey hair glued to my forehead, steam rising off my head and shoulders like a freshly microwaved ready meal.

Form an orderly queue, ladies.

I spend so long standing under a freezing shower that they’re locking up the studio as I leave, and I STILL get back to work sweatier than when I arrived.

A colleague walks past my desk and asks if I’m okay.

No. No I am not.

But I tell her I’m fine.

That night, though?

I slept like a baby.

A slightly more supple one.

And yes, I’ve already booked a series of hot yoga and pilates classes. I want to be the guy with long grey, thick hair, a supple body, a narrow waist, who doesn’t groan when he bends.

I took this class at Tribe Yoga in Waterloo, London. I’d thoroughly recommend. Despite my shortcomings, they are super-friendly and welcoming and offer lots of advice.

Check it out: https://tribe.yoga/