Sport & Fitness

Curves | WeightWatchers | Rosemary Conley Diet and Fitness Clubs

Curves
In a studio just off Mill Hill Broadway, I’m sitting on a leg-press machine, perspiring slightly. Twenty or so other people are working out on machines and mats set out alternately in a circle. Those on the mats are doing star jumps or wiggling gamely inside a Hula-Hoop. I’m just starting to ache when a pre-recorded American voice cuts over the dance music and instructs everyone to move round clockwise to the next place. This happens every 30 seconds, and makes it impossible to get bored of doing any one activity. Every shape, size and, surprisingly, age of exerciser is represented here, from pensioners to teenage girls in headscarves. The only missing element, in fact, is men.
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This is a Curves workout studio – a small cog in the workings of a phenomenon that began in Texas in 1992 and aimed at women who don’t do tight lycra, weights, team sports or aerobics. Though only women are allowed, Curves was conceived by a man, Gary Heavin, who was originally inspired by his ageing, overweight and fitness-phobic mother. It turned out the world had a lot of overweight fitness-phobes and by 2006, the Curves empire had ballooned to 9,500 franchises worldwide (France, Scandinavia and South America have all jumped on the wagon-train) with more than four million members. In America there are two Curves studios for every three McDonald’s outlets. There are already 180 franchises in the UK, but thanks to awkward planning laws about changing premises’ usage in the capital, growth in London is only just happening now.

Curves is not about dieting. There are two recommended healthy-eating plans designed to boost the metabolism, but it’s Curves’ exercise regime that is its USP. Before the widescale popularity of gyms, women who wanted to burn off some calories went to an aerobics class. But not everybody wants to jig around, puffing, sweating and possibly vomiting, while a whip-thin sadist in a leotard berates them over her headset.
At Curves, all the gym machines use hydraulic resistance, which means that there are no stacks of weights to fiddle with. The harder you push against hydraulics, the more they resist – so even the strongest person can get a good workout if they try.

On the other hand, it’s not too tough on people who last exerted themselves when decimalisation came in. While the machines work on toning muscle and strengthening the body, the mat work is designed to keep the heart rate up and improve cardiac fitness. Each workout is designed to last exactly half an hour. Members are encouraged to go along two or three times a week and, while many chiefly come in for an out-of-breath natter, others do their 30 minutes and leave. Changing rooms are deliberately minimal, with no showers.

The aim is to dispel the myth that going to a fitness club takes hours out of your day, which it can, once you’ve factored in adjusting every set of weights and blowdrying your hair. Even for someone like me, who proclaims herself too busy to exercise, Curves feels doable on a regular basis and, while it definitely feels like I’m burning off calories, it doesn’t make me so hot and bothered that my hair goes curly (this is key). Head to the website if you need more convincing. There are women in there who look like entirely different people after losing 15 dress sizes and hundreds of pounds apiece.

Curves (0800 130 0544/ www.ukcurves.com).

Joining fee? £34 a month plus a one-off joining fee subject to promotions.
Calories burned? Depending on how hard you work and how much you weigh, between 150 and 522 calories a session.
Good for Exercise- and gym-phobic women who know they should be doing something for their health.