20 - A Book with a Character who Does Pilates or Lagree

[Nadine in NY]

A book with a character who does Pilates or Lagree.



You can tell Popsugar has a fitness column :-)

Pilates:

a system of exercises using special apparatus, designed to improve physical strength, flexibility, and posture, and enhance mental awareness.

Lagree:

The Lagree Method is a muscular endurance workout which eliminates any idle time between sets, performed on a device called the Megaformer.

This is crazy specific and I am SO STUMPED. I need at least one title to start the Listopia, or Goodreads will delete it, and I THINK the character in All Fours mentions pilates at one point? So I'm using that book to start the list, although I am not CERTAIN it fits.



Listopia list is Here: A book with a character who does Pilates or Lagree

[Ellie]

I think a characters uses pilates class as an alibi in Not Quite Dead Yet. I'm clutching at straws here.

[Dubhease]

I would rather have to do a one hour Pilates class (in my out of shape body) than have to come up with a book to read for this prompt.

[K.L.]

I have never even heard of Lagree before, but it sounds really intense...and possibly painful.

[Chelsea]

I'm usually someone who sticks very strongly to the prompts but I vote we collectively agree to add yoga as a third option for this one

[Gillian]

I'd really suggest searching your library catalogs for this one. I'm finding a bunch that way.

[Laura Ruth]

The Amazon search engine is so borked. I did a search for "pilates fiction," and got how-to books, plus multiple novels about Pontius Pilate.

[Michele]

Seriously?

[Jennifer W]

Never Saw Me Coming mentions in the summary that the MC does "yogalates" and it gets mentioned exactly once in the book, but there it is. TBH, she's pretty fit, so she must do something.

[Sarah]

I searched my Kindle and found one on my first try!

When I Kill You By B.A. Paris

[Michele]

Gillian wrote: "I'd really suggest searching your library catalogs for this one. I'm finding a bunch that way."

I tried that and got a bunch of titles about pirates! Not quite the same thing.

[Gillian]

Michele wrote: "Gillian wrote: "I'd really suggest searching your library catalogs for this one. I'm finding a bunch that way."

I tried that and got a bunch of titles about pirates! Not quite the same thing."

That's so weird! The only results I got on mine that weren't about the exercise were about Pontius Pilate 😂

[Doni]

Dubhease wrote: "I would rather have to do a one hour Pilates class (in my out of shape body) than have to come up with a book to read for this prompt."

Word.

[Bea]

This will be a prompt that I skip unless yoga is acceptable as an alternative. I did a search for pilates fiction and still came up with books on Joseph Pilates and books on Pilates...but no fiction that I could find. This will work for those of us who read nonfiction, but this is not a nonfiction topic that I will be pursuing.

[Bluebelle-the-Inquisitive (Catherine)]

Chelsea wrote: "I'm usually someone who sticks very strongly to the prompts but I vote we collectively agree to add yoga as a third option for this one"

I second this motion but Bea seems totally on board.
TBH, I'm more than willing to interpret a prompt, but interpreting prompts is how I got through uni; it's one of my best life skills.

[Jennifer W]

K.L. wrote: "I have never even heard of Lagree before, but it sounds really intense...and possibly painful."

Megaformer sounds like a piece of equipment in a health-obsessed dystopian society!

[Victoria]

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - it’s mentioned at one point that Sadie starts doing Pilates

[Jennifer W]

From pilatescentral.co.uk:

Joseph Pilates was born near Dusseldorf in 1880. He was a sickly child who determined to make himself strong and healthy. He took up body-building, to the point where by his teens he was getting work as a model for anatomical drawings.

Pilates was perhaps the first influential figure to combine Western and Eastern ideas about health and physical fitness. He researched and practised every kind of exercise he could.

This ranged from classical Roman and Greek exercise regimes to body-building and gymnastics. He set this alongside practising the Eastern disciplines of yoga, tai chi, martial arts and Zen meditation. Additionally, he studied anatomy and animal movements. Dedicated to his task, he sampled every kind of exercise that he could and carefully recorded the results.

In 1912, aged 32, he left Germany for this country, where he became a professional boxer. An expert skier and diver, it was in England that he taught self-defence to Scotland Yard detectives and found work as a circus acrobat.


So from that, it seems like you could easily include bodybuilding, gymnastics and yoga.
Stretching it might include boxing, skiing, diving, self-defense and circus performer! :)

[Erica]

Anyone else having the problem where you read lager instead of Lagree?

[Laura Ruth]

Victoria wrote: "Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow - it’s mentioned at one point that Sadie starts doing Pilates"

That's Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrowby Gabrielle Zevin, right? There are a couple of other books with the same title.

[Ruth]

Oof yeah, again with the oddly specific sports/activities prompts. Unless I luck into something I might broaden it to include yoga too.

[Dubhease]

All this is reminding me of Friends where Rachel and Amy have the worst smack talk before their fight about how they both work out. And then it turns out that Rachel does Pilates and Amy does yoga.

[Nadine in NY]

Jennifer W wrote: "Never Saw Me Coming mentions in the summary that the MC does "yogalates" and it gets mentioned exactly once in the book, but there it is. TBH, she's pretty fit, so she must do somet..."


yassss! Close enough, and I've got that one on my TBR too!

[Nadine in NY]

Chelsea wrote: "I'm usually someone who sticks very strongly to the prompts but I vote we collectively agree to add yoga as a third option for this one"


Yeah I agree with that, because all the books I keep finding mention yoga, not pilates or lagree

[Nadine in NY]

Erica wrote: "Anyone else having the problem where you read lager instead of Lagree?"



I keep reading "Legree" as in Simon Legree of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, so my initial reaction to this prompt was "what in the what??? pilates or slave owners??? how does THAT make sense?" Then I calmed down and re-read it.

[Sasha]

It seems so difficult to find a novel that actually has a character doing Pilates to a meaningful degree that I think I'm going to try a nonfiction book, Chair Pilates and Yoga: Seated Exercises to Improve Strength, Flexibility, Balance and Posture. Apparently it has a good section on the history of Pilates (and presumably yoga, but I know a fair bit about that already) as well as the actual exercises. I'm hoping that retiring from work at the end of this year will leave me with more spoons to try to get back into exercising as part of managing my neuro issues. Perhaps this is the universe nudging me in the right direction? LOL

[Karen]

The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel - hope it mentions something close enough.

[Jennifer W]

Nadine in NY wrote: "Jennifer W wrote: "Never Saw Me Coming mentions in the summary that the MC does "yogalates" and it gets mentioned exactly once in the book, but there it is. TBH, she's pretty fit, s..."

I'll be super curious to see how you like it. Emotionally, I was totally hooked and really loved it, but if I pick it apart intellectually, there's some issues.

[Jennifer W]

So I don't usually read ebooks, but I just had a thought and it worked! I opened up an ebook on my kindle app, there's a search feature. I typed in "pilates" and it tells me if it's in the book. I'll add what I find to the listopia.

[Laura Ruth]

Karen wrote: "The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel - hope it mentions something close enough."

Ooh, thank you! I LOVE Alison Bechdel!

[Britany]

Jennifer W wrote: "So I don't usually read ebooks, but I just had a thought and it worked! I opened up an ebook on my kindle app, there's a search feature. I typed in "pilates" and it tells me if it's in the book. I'..."

YES! Thank you Jennifer.

[Nadine in NY]

Jennifer W wrote: "So I don't usually read ebooks, but I just had a thought and it worked! I opened up an ebook on my kindle app, there's a search feature. I typed in "pilates" and it tells me if it's in the book. I'..."


you're doing the lord's work. I've got approximately one bajillion ebooks ... I guess I could stand to search a few, too. (Update: I just searched the first dozen or so unread ebooks I have, and ... bupkis.)

[Jennifer]

Can confirm that Pilates is one of the fitness trends that Alison tries in The Secret to Superhuman Strength!

For people who are open to expanding this prompt to other fitness trends and are looking for a genre fiction option - I read Candelaria for the cult prompt this year + one of the characters is in a wellness cult and she teaches spin classes.

[Acidic Quagga]

If we're including Yoga:


Sacred Fire My Journey Into Ashtanga Yoga by Kino MacGregor

It's also only 113 pages long, so it's a quick one to tick off the list.

[Jennifer W]

Nadine in NY wrote: "Jennifer W wrote: "So I don't usually read ebooks, but I just had a thought and it worked! I opened up an ebook on my kindle app, there's a search feature. I typed in "pilates" and it tells me if i..."

Lol, I don't read or own many, I found 2 with pilates and 2 with yoga that I added.

I was talking to my brother and he checked and verified that A.J. Jacobs' tries pilates in his book Drop Dead Healthy: One Man's Humble Quest for Bodily Perfection, so I might go that route.

[Laura Ruth]

Jennifer wrote: "Can confirm that Pilates is one of the fitness trends that Alison tries in The Secret to Superhuman Strength!

For people who are open to expanding this prompt to other fitness tren..."

I don't know if it mentions her love life, but I would think anything by Alison Bechdel would also count as a sapphic comic.

[Dea]

Dubhease wrote: "I would rather have to do a one hour Pilates class (in my out of shape body) than have to come up with a book to read for this prompt."

Reading about fitness is boring to me, so SAME

And I am down for adding yoga as an alternative, because this seems so niche. A lot of prompts this year feel niche!

[Dea]

So Lagree is a trademarked term. It's kind of irritating that Popsugar is pushing a prompt that basically profits one specific corporation, even if indirectly.

[Denise]

Jennifer W wrote: "So I don't usually read ebooks, but I just had a thought and it worked! I opened up an ebook on my kindle app, there's a search feature. I typed in "pilates" and it tells me if it's in the book. I'..."

I tried that. And I have about 500 books on my Kindle. I got ONE hit and it was a character saying "oh there's a pilots studio, we could take classes together" but no further evidence of said classes.

[Jennifer]

I found my book! As usual, for prompts I think are terrible I will use a children’s book.

[Joanna G]

Just read The Spare Man which was a lot of fun, but a number of the characters attend a group exercise class. I think it's yoga, which only works for those extending it, but will double check later in case it's pilates.