The article below was in the Health & Wellbeing section of the South Wales Evening Post
on Tuesday 22 November 2005 and has been reproduced without permission

PILATES STRIKES PERFECT BALANCE

Pilates may not look very physical to the uneducated eye but it gives your body a thorough workout from
the inside out. The exercise form works on the core muscles deep inside the body and is excellent for
back pain sufferers. Melanie Walters is one of Swansea's most qualified pilates instructors and runs
eight classes in and around Mumbles a week. ABIGAIL HART learns more.


You cannot help but feel a slouch when you meet Melanie Walters. She has the most perfect posture, even when she is
sitting cross-legged on a squishy leather sofa.
"Using your core muscles is something you all the time whether you are driving or sitting at a desk," says Melanie. "I can
tell people's different posture types just looking at them walking down the street."
Melanie used to live in London and was a successful jobbing actress who had appeared in Belonging, Holby City and
Coronation Street. But her priorities changed when she gave birth to son Rowan.
"I was away filming for a lot of the first two years of his life and really wasn't very happy about being away from home,"
she says.
So she decided to return to her family home in Swansea and re-train in pilates, something she had come across during
her training as an actress.
Pilates was invented 90 years ago by German Joseph Pilates. He was interned as an alien in a prisoner of war camp in
England during the First World War and invented a series of exercises that could be done by his fellow prisoners in
their beds.
Pilates consists of breathing exercises, controlled arm and leg movements and contracting internal muscles. This
strengthens the core (otherwise known as abdominal, back and pelvic floor muscles), while toning the entire body. As
well as strengthening your core muscles and improving your posture, pilates has other benefits.
"A lot of my clients have dropped a dress size," says Melanie. "It doesn't burn fat but because it tones deeper muscles
it has a corset effect."
As well as tightening up your tummy, pilates can also improve a bad back and your sex life (because the pelvic
floor is strengthened).
Maybe that is why Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow and Michael Winner are all devotees.
Unfortunately anyone can call himself or herself a pilates instructor after completing a brief weekend course.
On the other hand Melanie trained for a year in fitness training at Swansea College and has completed numerous
courses at the Pilates Institute in London.
"We are dealing with people's bodies here and you've got to know what you are doing," she warns.
She's been running classes in Mumbles for three years now and says that many of her clients have become as
addicted to pilates as she is.
"At my first class 50 people turned up but I will only teach 15 at a time," she says.
I now have eight classes a week and a waiting list. A lot of my clients have been with me from my very first class in 2001.
They are still with me because pilates makes them feel good and look good."

Click HERE to read 'How Carolyn bounced back'