The Training Regime That Helped Drew Barrymore Lose 11kg In 3 Months
The two have been training together for 15 years! “One of the things that I focus on a lot is not ‘getting through the exercise;’ it’s about feeling what it felt like” Alton says. She helps Drew stay present by wapping up the intensity of their workouts—and Drew posts plenty of sweaty selfies to prove it.
Here, Alton shares what a typical workout session with Drew looks like and how she keeps her motivated to keep moving.
1. Drew does hour-long, dance-based workouts.
Alton is the founder of the M/Body Method, a 60-min workout class that combines, yoga, dance and barre. Her workouts with Drew include lots of plié squats, plus, plenty of pulsing…and sweat. Seriously, scroll through to see Drew dripping during one of her workouts.
Something you won’t find in any of the photos? Sneakers. “We basically work barefoot and that’s because the foot is the beginning of what’s called the kinetic chain in your body,” Alton explains. BTW, barefoot training is a *thing* that people swear by for staying grounded and for better balance.
2. Drew’s all about bodyweight exercises.
Drew’s workouts with Alton tend to use very minimal props, and instead focus on bodyweight exercises, Alton says. If they do use equipment, it’s something like light hands weight to activate the back and arms quicker, or sliders to create longer extensions and fuller ranges of motion.
“For me, I come from a place where I think we have everything we need,” says Alton. “You don’t even need weights, you don’t need shoes, you don’t need machines. You need properly sequenced bodyweight movements and then you need to connect with them mentally.”
3. Drew’s serious strengthening her core.
“She loves anything core-related,” Alton says. “She loves crunches, all different types of crunches, so that’s something that we definitely focus on. Typically we do that towards the end once the spine is really mobilised and supported, so that we can get more into the abs and not hurt the back.”
But crunches aren’t the only way Drew and Alton work on abdominal strength. Alton has Drew do what she calls “deep pliés.” In this exercise, you do a plié squat and as you rise up to stand, you power through your feet to jump off the floor, then land softly back into another plié squat.
“If you do that 10 to 20 times, you are strengthening your abdomen and your fascia and your pelvic floor in a way that you could never access with a crunch.”
4. Drew’s driven by the beat.
Alton loves centring her workouts around BPM (beats per minute), which new research, published in Frontiers in Psychology, has shown can actually make hard workouts feel easier.
“The music in our workouts is never background music, so I design playlists that have certain BPMs so that we can do certain exercises on the beat,” Alton explains. “The music’s going at a certain pace, we’re going at a certain pace. It’s all working together. So that always makes it feel a lot more energized.
If you want to know what a Drew Barrymore playlist looks like, she’s built up a few on Spotify.
5. Drew doesn’t skip workouts.
Consistency is key and Drew makes it a habit of showing up and going all in on her workouts every time, according to Alton. “I find her to be a really hard worker, she takes direction and she wants to learn, so she trusts and she works her butt off,” she says. “She also allows herself to be vulnerable, she allows herself to be directed, she allows herself to take risks, and she works really hard so for me that’s an ideal client.”
In an Instagram post, Drew opened up about her commitment to working out, saying “Okay, so not working out, there’s just no excuse not to do it. If I’m on the go or I’m travelling, which I always am— I’m always flying and always working, I’m a ‘Willy-Lowman-business-girl’ on the go— but, again, mother of two, genetics, age, body type… I gotta work out.”
If you want to experience a Marnie Alton workout yourself, she’s currently hosting online classes that you can do right at home.
This article originally appeared on Women’s Health US.
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