NEW YORK — Just how does Madonna keep her body eternally youthful, defying the laws of gravity?
She has a secret weapon — named Tracy Anderson.
The stars swear by this New York fitness guru, and Anderson spoke to us right before her daily workout session with the Queen of Pop.
“I’m late — Madonna’s waiting for me,” Anderson said on the other end of the line as she headed to the Upper West Side, where Madonna lives.
It’s been like this for three years, six days a week, two hours a day. Anderson is largely responsible for honing one of the most famous bodies in the world.
Madonna just can’t live without her. Gwyneth Paltrow either. So they share.
“I met an incredible woman who changed my life. She’s an organic plastic surgeon, her program works. For real,” Paltrow wrote on her blog, Goop.com. She was singing Anderson’s praises on Oprah last Thursday, too.
“Tracy saved me,” Madonna recently told the New York Times. “After two caesarians, three operations for herniated discs and a fall from a horse left me with 10 broken bones, she’s the only one who got my body back on its feet.”
Anderson devotes her entire schedule to these two privileged clients.
“I’m very loyal, even if though I have a lo-o-o-ong list of celebrities waiting,” Anderson said.
Anderson, all five feet and 95 pounds of her, has surprising power. By sculpting Madonna and Paltrow’s bodies, two of the most-photographed women out there, she has influenced the ideal that women compare themselves and aspire to.
Anderson is proud of Madonna’s body, probably her greatest masterpiece. It could belong to a 20-year-old, while its owner is actually 50. Anderson doesn’t seem fazed by critics who call the star’s arms overly-muscled.
“I don’t take it seriously. Her body is exquisite and very feminine. If you see her in person she’s fabulous. It’s not a question of genetics but of hard labour,” she said.
“I don’t think a lot of men or women would be able to do her training. Knock on wood, but I still manage to find moves that challenge her,” said Anderson, who only this week managed to break her nose while training with Madonna on a machine she invented. “An elastic slipped and a metal bar hit me in the face. I had to have an operation.”
When Madonna was preparing for her Sticky and Sweet tour last year, Anderson moved in to train with her for nine months. Afterward, Anderson would hop on the train to the Hamptons for her session with Paltrow. She followed Madonna on tour and will be back on the road again in July for the tour’s European leg.
“She’s like a professional athlete. Her daily workout is even more important while on tour because in order to perform like she does every night, she has to train even harder during the day,” Anderson said.
So has the pupil overtaken the teacher yet?
“We’re not in a competition,” Anderson replied.
Madonna did, however, teach her how to eat better.
“I was like a doctor who smokes! I was stuffing myself with Oreos. She was horrified. Today I don’t eat any more processed food.”
Anderson was born in Indiana, where her mother still runs a ballet school. She started off as a ballerina, but saw that she couldn’t make it in the profession because of her weight.
“My father is obese and around the age of 19 when I moved to New York, I gained 40 pounds. That was a big deal for me. I tried everything — extreme workouts, diets. Nothing was working,” she said.
“After my son was born I was 60 pounds overweight. That’s when I decided to take control and find a program that worked. I did research for two years. I was obsessed.”
This entrepreneur has some good news of her own. She’ll be opening her first gym in the TriBeCa area of Manhattan next month, with Gwyneth Paltrow. Anderson is currently training 30 instructors.
Cost to sign up? Not cheap: $900 US a month, plus a $1,500 annual registration fee.
Those with lighter wallets can always fall back on her DVDs and the videos on TracyAndersonconnect.com.
So what, exactly, is Anderson’s program?
It’s a mix of Pilates, her own moves, dance, and exercise with elastic bands. There’s not much room here for sweating on a treadmill.
As far as Anderson is concerned, anyone can have a “teeny tiny dancer’s body.”
That is, if you want one.
