I thought I was a fit 52-year-old – until I tried Reformer Pilates

Sciatica, it turns out, is no fun. After a week of being unable to sleep because of the burning sensation running down my leg, coupled with some excruciating lower back pain, I realised that I should probably do something about it. But I was at a bit of a loss.

I think of myself as being reasonably healthy for a 52-year-old bloke. I’m not overweight, I cycle to work most days and I took up running a couple of years ago: 10km around the neighbourhood is now part of my weekend routine. So I’m fairly confident that my thighs still work and that my heart ticks over adequately.

However, until the sciatica hit, I had never, ever, done an exercise class. Never done weights or bench pressed (to be honest I still don’t really know what a bench press is), and had certainly never attempted to “body pump”.

And exercise – proper, co-ordinated exercise – seemed to be the key to ridding myself of all the leg burning and back pain stuff. Fixing that, I was told by a sympathetic colleague, would be all about strengthening my core, improving my posture (ruined as a result of decades sitting at a desk) and reversing some of the muscular atrophy that is the curse of all men in their 50s. Ideally, they said, I should try Reformer Pilates.

Now, in as much as I’d ever previously thought about Pilates, I’d assumed it was the sort of thing highly toned women did while finding their inner zen: light exercise with a wellness tinge. But it turns out that plenty of men – some of them quite famous – also swear by it. Cristiano Ronaldo does it. Hugh Grant, too. David Beckham reckons Pilates has put him in his “best shape in years”. I’m not sure Jeremy Clarkson will ever be one of my role models, but even he confesses to “not unenjoying it”.

The thing that gets them going is the “Reformer” version I’d been advised to try. This is Pilates – which, it turns out, is far from light exercise – performed on a weird bed/rack contraption with various ropes and pulleys. (Clarkson calls it a “sex orgy dungeon table”.) You can see the attraction from a male perspective: it’s Pilates with a Sony Playstation vibe, plus the potential for a bit of a lie-down at some point.

The idea of using precise movements and controlled breathing to build up my strength had a certain appeal: a bit science-y, a bit Karate Kid. So once the sciatica had calmed down a bit, I booked myself a class at my local studio, part of a chain that runs across north London, Hertfordshire and Essex. I was quite excited by this point: a body like Beckham was now the bare minimum I was aiming for.

The reassuring mantra that plenty of men do this was immediately undermined when I arrived to a swing-doors-of-the saloon, hold-the-sarsaparilla silence and the certain knowledge that I was the possessor of the only Y-chromosome in the room. I immediately had a prickly feeling that I was intruding on a sisterhood where the bants would be absolutely terrific if only the smelly boy hadn’t turned up.

But it turns out that a Pilates class is not particularly chatty, nor is it sound tracked by thumping dance music, or led by people in leggings trying to be Jane Fonda (all of which had been high on my anxiety list). Instead, to the gentle crooning of Chris Martin from Coldplay, I was gestured towards my Reformer – one of eight available; the small class size is part of the appeal – and made the first tentative enquiries into the existence or otherwise of my core.

Joseph Pilates was a German physical exercise guru who was born in 1883 and pioneered the idea of using repetition to work on muscle exertion. He also invented “the apparatus” which evolved into the “universal Reformer” that is used in Pilates studios around the world today.

Controlled breathing is at the heart of it all. You breathe out when you are exerting yourself, which apparently helps engage your core and provides stability in your spine. You are encouraged to think about breathing at all times: expanding your ribcage as you inhale and contracting it when you exhale. There’s also a lot of chat about the transverse abdominis, which is your key Pilates muscle. I promise to let you know when I’ve worked out where it is.

All this takes some getting used to. A typical routine would include strengthening exercises for the lower back, or planking while sliding the platform below you, followed by stretches using a Pilates “ring” (another piece of equipment to master, which helps add resistance to exercises involving your arms and shoulders). You keep repeating the movements under the guidance of your instructor, then layering extra elements of complexity, with some “pulses” at the end of each exercise (by which point I’m often close to collapse).

There’s also a box, which you sit on, stand on or stretch out on, in “long box” or “short box” configurations. Our class uses some light weights as well – nothing terrifying – often with a pulley looped over one arm.

Ah yes, the pulleys. There’s an exercise that appears regularly towards the end of a session during which I desperately hope I won’t catch anyone’s eye. Lying on our backs on the Reformer, feet caught in stirrups, we do slow circles with our legs and various groin stretches. At one point our instructor said what we were doing should feel as if we were “pulling a tampon up inside ourselves”, before adding, for my benefit, “or pulling ‘your boys’ inwards”.

Frankly at that moment “my boys” had rarely felt so alarmed.

But all that repetition really works. I’ve had some embarrassing moments: it’s terrifyingly easy to fall off your Reformer while you are involved in some tricky balancing positions, and I’ve had to learn by sneaking glances to my left or right what “cat pose” and “child pose” are supposed to look like. There was also an awful impasse at one point where it became evident that I had absolutely no idea what a crunch was. But each class is held as if everyone is a beginner and individual routines are often adjusted mid session in order to ensure people get the most out of them.

And, just to reassure you, occasionally another bloke will turn up. In fact, I’m reliably informed that my local studio has more than the usual number of men as clients. To be honest, I tend to be too busy “exhaling on the effort” to do more than nod a greeting.

Gentlemen, I’m proud to be a Reformer. As one instructor told me, if you’re after muscle mass you lift weights in the gym, but if you want to look “cut” – which apparently means visible muscle definition and low body fat – then Reformer Pilates is the answer. I wouldn’t say I’d got to the “cut” stage quite yet, but I genuinely think I’ve gained some upper body endurance, more flexibility and a better posture.

I still get my glutes and abs confused occasionally, and I suspect my core will never be completely engaged, but my sciatica has gone completely. And that’s a result to be proud of, even if I don’t get a body like Beckham’s any time soon.

Three Reformer Pilates exercises to try

Bicycle crunches

1. Lie back on the reformer platform with your head in the head rest, your legs in tabletop position and your hands in the long loops pointing towards the ceiling.
2. Exhale as you bring the loops forward and move your head into a crunch.
3. Incorporate one leg per repetition, pointing it towards the mirror or wall, inhaling as you return to neutral, and repeat.

Shoulder retraction

1. Kneel facing the back of the reformer and hold both loops with your palms facing forward.
2. Keep your back straight and shoulder and abs engaged
3. Keeping your arms straight, pull the loops to the side of your body while exhaling, and repeat.

Single leg lunge with bicep curl

1. Select your chosen weights. Place one foot on the side of the reformer and the other near the front of the carriage, a hip’s width apart.
2. With your standing leg slightly bent, push the carriage away with the other leg in a lunge while exhaling.
3. At the same time, do bicep curls upwards with your weights, and repeat. Then do the same, lunging with the other leg.

Ben attended a Zero Gravity Pilates studio