Hours after the discharge of Anne Hathaway’s current romcom The Concept of You, Google exploded with searches for her exercise routine. As a health author who occurs to have a direct line to lots of the finest superstar trainers, I used to be eager to get the lowdown on how Hathaway workout routines and discover out whether or not her exercises are manageable for the typical individual.

It seems that Anne Hathaway’s go-to exercises are removed from standard. Reasonably than working, reformer Pilates or common health club periods, she (alongside Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt and different A-list names) turns to dance-inspired routines from coach Monique Eastwood.

“Monique has been my trainer since February 2022, and our work collectively has modified my life,” Hathaway tells The Impartial, including that the coach has been “gifted with innate physique intelligence”. Excessive reward certainly.

Eager to expertise this transformative results for myself, I spoke with Eastwood, and he or she agreed to supply me with a month of exercises through her Eastwood Match app. Learn on for the way it went, and how one can attempt Hathaway’s coaching fashion for your self.

Anne Hathaway’s exercise routine

Hathaway trains with Eastwood 5 instances per week through video name, usually rising at 5am to squeeze a session in earlier than work.

“We labored collectively [for The Idea of You] and Annie can be doing Mom Mary, which is her dance movie,” Eastwood tells me. “I believe that was the explanation she needed to begin working with me, to get extra of a efficiency degree to her coaching, and we’ve undoubtedly achieved that. We’ve been collectively for fairly a protracted journey to get her that physique consciousness, and he or she’s achieved amazingly. It’s unbelievable to seek out somebody together with her degree of dedication.”

Every Eastwood exercise is totally different, however the common hour-long class comprises a mix of ballet, dance, Pilates, yoga and resistance coaching, all carried out at an depth positive to set the center racing. This, Eastwood says, “stimulates the physique in many alternative methods” to develop steadiness, physique consciousness, core stability and muscular endurance. She additionally reckons it’s going to result in “a extra profound understanding of how you progress on this planet,” which is especially interesting to me as a notoriously clumsy individual.

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The best way to prepare like Anne Hathaway

If you wish to prepare like Anne Hathaway, attempt the motion flows within the video beneath. The purpose is to carry out every sequence 10 instances on both facet of the physique.

“This brief routine is good for participating the glutes and core muscle tissues whereas encouraging you to give attention to holding your steadiness,” Eastwood says.

What occurred once I tried coaching like Anne Hathaway

Approaching my first Eastwood exercise, I felt assured. Being a health author, I’ve experimented with all method of train kinds, so I figured a mix of Pilates, dance and yoga shouldn’t current any issues. I used to be flawed.

Half-an-hour later, I discovered myself mendacity topless on a yoga mat, respiratory closely and dripping with sweat. My thighs felt like I’d simply hit a heavy leg session on the health club, regardless of lifting nothing greater than a light-weight resistance band, and my core was trembling. So how did this occur?

Eastwood’s follow-along courses extra carefully resemble choreography than a traditional exercise. She walks me by a collection of flowing sequences, corresponding to opening my hips right into a plié, reaching overhead and bending to at least one facet, then stepping from there right into a deep curtsy squat. Then she applies Pilates ideas by having me repeat these sequences a couple of instances by.

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A troublesome begin

It’s balletic, and Eastwood makes it look superbly easy on display. However I quickly discover my physique, which is so snug squatting with a heavy barbell or sprinting, isn’t used to transferring on this approach. Consequently, I wrestle to maintain up.

There’s one transfer particularly, shifting the hips backward and forward, that refuses to compute with my mind or physique. Eastwood seems to be like a dancer from the Taylor Swift tour, fluid and swish. I appear to be the Tin Man, stiff and awkward, regardless of giving it numerous coronary heart. I’m considerably relieved to study that Hathaway’s expertise with Eastwood began in a lot the identical approach.

“I’ll always remember my first session with Monique,” she says. “There have been so lots of her signature strikes I couldn’t do correctly – my knees wobbled terribly, I couldn’t steadiness in any respect, and neglect about doing a downward canine – however Monique was completely undeterred. By way of the display, Monique assessed the place I used to be weak with out making me really feel flawed.”

I won’t have had the good thing about a one-to-one lesson, however Eastwood’s fixed cues did assist me enhance my approach, and by the tip of my first session I had loosened up a bit.

“I’m so bossy,” she laughs. “I’m at all times making an attempt to speak throughout my HIIT courses, which is sort of not possible, however I need to inform you what to do on a regular basis as a result of I’ve seen so many issues over 35 years of coaching like this.”

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3D motion

For Eastwood, “coaching like this” can finest be outlined as “multidirectional motion”; she has me squatting, bending, twisting, stretching, reaching and extra throughout our class. That is in stark distinction to most trendy exercises, which Eastwood playfully refers to as “very up, down, up, down”. And he or she has some extent.

The vast majority of widespread energy coaching workout routines, like squats and press–ups, are efficient at constructing muscle, however they happen largely within the sagittal aircraft – in layman’s phrases, they problem you to maneuver up, down, forwards and backwards. However our joints work in two additional planes of movement: frontal (facet to facet actions) and transverse (rotational actions). The physique additionally operates on a tough “use it or lose it” foundation, so ignoring these actions could cause your joints and muscle tissues to tighten over time, proscribing your freedom of motion and rising your threat of damage.

Fortunately, Eastwood’s class covers all three planes of movement in abundance, and by the tip I really feel notably much less stiff. Smaller supporting muscle tissues round my shoulders and hips are additionally known as into motion excess of regular, and over the course of the month I discover this has a optimistic influence on my common muscle-building staples within the health club like shoulder presses.

“You don’t need your large superficial muscle tissues at all times being those doing the work,” Eastwood says. “You need different deep-lying muscle tissues to have the ability to stabilise you. I need you to have a extra balanced physique; that’s actually my philosophy.

“Once I see purchasers I’ve taught for 10 or 15 years, I can’t inform you how wonderful they appear as a result of they’re like dancers. They’ve that dancer energy.”

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‘Pilates is usually a bit boring’

I can’t assist questioning how Eastwood’s humbling hybrid strategy took place, so I quiz her on it.

“I used to be on stage as a dancer and cherished the self-discipline and focus,” she says. “Then I fell pregnant with my youngsters, so I ended up educating all of the native moms in village halls. I did a Pilates course which contained me a bit higher, as a result of dance is kind of free, and it made me actually begin serious about my anatomy and the explanation behind every motion.”

Nevertheless, throughout courses, Eastwood observed a few of her purchasers entered one thing she calls “sleepy mode” once they have been doing sure mendacity down workout routines. “Pilates is usually a bit boring for those who can’t take in all the knowledge,” she explains.

“I assumed, ‘Proper, I’ve obtained to alter this up and make them transfer just a little bit extra’. I wanted to make a distinction to folks’s our bodies, and fairly rapidly, so I began to maneuver them like a dancer with the Pilates philosophy; the lateral breath, the containment, the alignment.

“After which I assumed, ‘ what, I need to construct just a little bit extra muscle and energy, so I’m going to elevate weights whereas I do it’. I really like yoga as effectively, so there was just a little little bit of yoga thrown in to present you that stretch between the facility strikes too.”

The consequence, I discovered, was exhausting. My muscle tissues have been challenged in a approach they hadn’t been earlier than, regardless of the absence of heavy weights – I by no means lifted greater than a 5kg dumbbell in every hand throughout one in every of Eastwood’s periods. I additionally needed to take into account my steadiness and coordination all through. Nevertheless, this full-on strategy banished boredom to the again of my thoughts, with the various components protecting my mind switched on for all the class.

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The best way to use Eastwood’s coaching

Eastwood’s courses cowl numerous bases, and if you wish to use it as your main type of train like Hathaway, you possibly can. However for me, she recommends a distinct strategy.

“Individuals love what they love, and I simply need you to coach and keep robust,” she tells me. “I need you to coach ceaselessly. I’m 57-and-a-half and I’m nonetheless coaching arduous, the identical approach I’ve educated for the final 35 years.”

According to this, Eastwood instructs me to maintain lifting weights and working (as I like to do), then add a couple of of her approach and HIIT courses into every week. If all goes as deliberate, the actions ought to share a mutualistic relationship.

“I at all times say to folks, use me as a method individual, then return to your different stuff,” Eastwood says. “When you’re a tennis participant, your tennis shall be unimaginable as a result of now you can take extra energy out of your deep core. Your golf swing shall be higher, and also you’ll be extra agile for snowboarding. You’ll additionally discover you’re in a position to elevate heavier weights and do it extra effectively since you’re actually utilizing all of your again and core muscle tissues.”

It’s not simply how you’re feeling and carry out that Eastwood guarantees to enhance both. She additionally says her fashion of coaching will help construct a lean, robust physique.

“I’ve been doing this a very long time, and I do know what folks need to obtain,” she says. “I like to get the most effective out of my purchasers, and I do get the most effective out of them. Then they begin to belief you and imagine in you. They’re at all times amazed, as a result of once I take a look at them now, they’re so robust. It’s such a blessing to see that achievement.”

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The Verdict: Coaching like Anne Hathaway for a month

Change takes time, and within the grand scheme of issues one month isn’t very lengthy in any respect, so don’t count on a dramatic earlier than and after picture on the finish of this function. However I did discover some variations throughout my time coaching with Eastwood.

Firstly, I used to be in a position to transfer extra freely by the tip of the 4 weeks. Repeatedly accessing unfamiliar positions throughout her courses (together with shifting my hips backward and forward) despatched a transparent message to my physique that I didn’t need to lose these actions. The physique, wonderful as it’s, tailored accordingly and progressively relearned how you can recruit a wider vary of movement across the joints in query.

I additionally observed how the consequences of Eastwood’s workout routines carried over into my common coaching. By growing my mobility and paying extra consideration to smaller supporting muscle tissues across the shoulder and hip joints, I felt stronger squatting and urgent a barbell overhead, even hitting a brand new cut up jerk PB a couple of weeks in.

Nevertheless, extra importantly than any of this, I had numerous enjoyable. I firmly imagine the finest exercises will increase your well being, health and temper, and Eastwood’s courses delivered on all three fronts by offering me with one thing new, difficult and satisfying. That’s why, for these bored by traditional exercises and searching for a distinct option to keep in form, I believe Eastwood’s strategy might be value trying into.

Hathaway definitely thinks so, itemizing her introduction to Eastwood as a key second from the previous few years in her inaugural publish on Tiktok.

“As I’ve develop into bodily stronger and extra versatile, my outlook on life has improved,” Hathaway says. And that, for me, is value greater than any transformation picture going.

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