Mary Helen Bowers – Ballet Beautiful

Автор: Mary Helen Bowers
Название книги: Ballet Beautiful
Формат: PDF
Жанр: Музыка
Качество: Изначально компьютерное, E-book

Get a tight, toned and elegant body with this effective ballet inspired total body workout from Mary Helen Bowers, trainer to the stars! Sculpt sleek and strong legs, arms, butt, abs and upper body. Shape a lean and graceful dancer s body with targeted mat work and standing exercises that lengthen and tone. Workouts include focused exercises that target trouble areas while increasing flexibility and improving posture.

Bridge Series: A challenging series of bridge exercises that sculpt and tone the muscles
on the inside and back of the legs, butt, inner thighs, hips and abs.

Abs: A targeted abdominal workout that strengthens your center of balance and sculpts a
lean waist.

Inner Thigh: Focused exercises that strengthen and tone the inner thighs, key to sculpting
a ballerina’s long, powerful legs.

Outer Thigh: A transformative workout for the outside of the hip and thigh. These exercises
tighten and tone the outer hip, lengthening the line of the legs.

Arms: Upper body and arm exercises that quickly sculpt and tone the arms, shoulders
and back and improve posture without any weights or equipment!

Standing: Dance inspired standing exercises with cardio elements.

When I go to the ballet, I am always in awe of the dancers’ bodies as much as I am of the beauty they
express through movement: the definition in their arms, their strong legs, and the length—that beautiful
line that extends from their fingertips to their toes, through their necks and torsos. I had the privilege of
working with Mary Helen Bowers for a year in preparation for the film Black Swan, and her system
works for nondancers by simplifying the balletic exercises that result in these beautiful lines.
Mary Helen’s technique is based on the motions that ballerinas use all day long. It allows anyone to
achieve the long, toned physique of a dancer. I had had essentially the same body since I was 14 years
old, and after a couple of months working with Mary Helen it had been completely transformed. I gained
length, strength, and tone. My arms and legs completely changed shape. My posture looked, as my dad
said, like I had swallowed a broom. And it was all possible without equipment. For so many of us, with
our transient lives and hectic schedules, the ability to do a workout at home with zero equipment is truly a
gift.
My new regimen gave me a sense of discipline, a much better body image, and so much more strength,
but in a way that always guarded against injury. Mary Helen’s knowledge of healthy diet in conjunction
with the exercises was also helpful in achieving the fitness goals we had set out. It was a truly
comprehensive approach that allowed me to be physically convincing as a ballet dancer in a relatively
short time. I hope that with this book you will also enjoy the insider knowledge that Mary Helen shares
and learn how simply you too can attain the ballet body.
—Natalie Portman

Those three words have become my inspiration for the type of life I want to create, one that is healthy,
fun, and full of possibility—not just for myself but for others. These words are close to my heart because
they also represent the promise of Ballet Beautiful, a transformative approach to reshaping the body so
that it becomes slender, long, and lean with the strength, grace, and elegant carriage of a ballerina. I used
this method to train and prepare Natalie Portman for her Academy Award—winning role in Black Swan. I
have also helped thousands of women around the world lose weight, turn fat into lean muscle, and
recontour their bodies so that they too achieve the elegant posture and grace of a ballerina. The basis of
my Ballet Beautiful program—and the book you now hold in your hands—is deeply connected to ballet’s
incredible artistry and rich yet mysterious tradition. Grace matched with strength is the essence of ballet
and the inspiration for this program.
What makes this program remarkably unique is how it enables women, including myself, to embrace
the emergence of their own inner beauty. Again and again, I have seen women incorporate my Ballet
Beautiful method into their lives and then quite tangibly connect to a deep confidence. As Katherine, one
of my longtime clients, told me, “Ballet Beautiful has allowed me to feel prettier than I ever thought
possible.”
With Ballet Beautiful, you too can attain and embody a truly feminine energy, poise, and power.
Achieving my dream of becoming a professional ballerina at age 16 was more challenging and more
rewarding than I could ever have imagined. To create the Ballet Beautiful method I took all that is
inspiring, strengthening, and empowering in ballet and its techniques and transformed it into a doable,
streamlined system of movements that anyone can do at home, whether or not they have any dance training
or experience. Of course, I didn’t do that overnight. The end result is a product of my own trials and
errors and what I’ve learned along the way. I developed the Ballet Beautiful method over the last 15
years as I gradually understood and then integrated all that I know about ballet, exercise, and nutrition into
a comprehensive approach to life. Today Ballet Beautiful has become a total-body workout and lifestyle
that allows anyone to achieve the toned, powerful body shape and beautiful posture of a ballerina.
As I began to craft and share my Ballet Beautiful method, I realized that one of the most important
steps in achieving a physical transformation—in fact, what you have to do before any real and lasting
change can take place—is to integrate a mindset that sets you up for success and helps you connect more
deeply with your goals. This step is not as simple as giving yourself a pep talk. It is a strategy for
implementing change, experiencing growth, and achieving something truly remarkable. I believe that there
is incredible beauty, power, and grace in all of us and that it is possible to be both very feminine and very
strong. This is the essence of Ballet Beautiful. With my program, I help women believe in themselves (as
well as in the value of their dreams), envision themselves in a body and a life imbued with power and
grace, and then achieve that goal. A shift to a healthier lifestyle happens organically with this new
mindset, and anyone who practices it becomes truly Ballet Beautiful.