If you’re the kind of person who loathes hitting the gym after a 10-hour day in the office, then the Laura Kate workout is for you. Created by the Dubai-based Laura Kate, a 31-year-old Australian fitness instructor, the workout is downloadable via her website for Dh59 and offers women the opportunity to exercise anytime, anywhere.
“Many of us have long commutes to work or are committed to long hours in the office, resulting in limited time spent on our health. I wanted to create a video workout, one that women would look forward to doing. Experience and enjoyment is a key to the success of maintaining your health. If exercise becomes a chore then, of course, we have no motivation to do it,” explains Kate.
Kate says the 20- and 40-minute workouts “sculpt bodies into the form of a dancer” and “lengthen limbs into those like a yogi’s”. “A key characteristic of the Laura Kate method is combining the best of a variety of disciplines,” she explains. “This prevents the need to dedicate one session to yoga, one to weights, one to cardio. With this workout, you have strength, tone and flexibility all combined.”
Who wouldn’t love to be as lithe and graceful as a dancer? But how exactly does the workout make this happen?
According to Kate, a key characteristic of her method is the presence of “instability”, which requires the engagement of smaller, stabilising muscles to re-establish balance within each posture.
“Strengthening these muscles not only engages more muscle groups, requiring the body to work at a higher rate, but also aids in drawing in the larger, more dominant muscles, in turn preventing width and bulk,” she says.
During her time as a personal trainer, Kate noticed that athletes had unique physiques that were specific to their sport, living examples of how we are all moulded by our movements. With this in mind, over 10 years at her studio in Australia, she sought to uncover the best of a variety of disciplines, which, when integrated together, would give a toned feminine physique.
So far, Kate says she’s seen a positive uptake by both expats and locals.
“For the local women, I imagine the workout is highly attractive because it allows them to do their workout in the comfort of their own home. For expat women, I think one of the main reasons for their interest is because of the ever-increasing incidence of being time-poor,” she explains.
• For more information and to download the video visit www.laurakateaustralia.com
