SWEAT AND WILD
Y OU know you’ve got your finger on the pulse of the fitness world when Madonna comes to you for the latest moves.
“She always calls me for advice,” says Carlos Leon, the actor and trainer who dated Madge in the mid-’90s and fathered their now-20-year-old daughter, Lourdes. He says he still considers the singer one of his best friends and sends her customized workout videos she can use while traveling abroad.
“She’s always asking, ‘What’s cutting edge? What’s good out there?’ ”
For now, he says, that would be the Primal Method, the workout he and aerobics guru Jeff Bell are launching Oct. 1 at their gym, Belleon, which has a new location in the Flatiron District.
It’s an eclectic 30-minute class that combines circuit training with yogalike transitions and movements that an animal, such as a bear or crab, might make.
“One of my favorites is the lizard crawl,” says Bell, 61. “You’re literally imitating a lizard — it’s a deep-core, shoulder and hip exercise.”
Yes, NYC’s hot new workout involves crawling around the floor like an animal.
The Primal Method sprung out of Bell’s interest in yoga, which he began practicing after years of intense exercise and several bicycling accidents left him injured.
It includes a circuit of exercises meant to burn fat and improve flexi- bility. Participants might be asked to scuttle across the floor on all fours — which is surprisingly challenging on the obliques. Then they’ll experiment with a spin borrowed from Brazilian capoeira dance, or a crouching crawl inspired by Bell’s 1-year-old daughter. The moves are combined in a yogalike sequence with elongating transitions.
“It’s about [taking] groundbased movement into standing movement and being able to create a flow between the two that becomes much more natural,” Bell says.
He met Leon, now 51, at a gym about 20 years ago, and they teamed up to create the circuit class known as Belleon in 2010. The pair has a winning chemistry, what with Bell’s longtime fitness know-how and Leon’s, well, way with ladies.
“He’s had to become really innovative, especially with women,” Bell says of his business partner, noting that Leon has also worked with female stars such as Salma Hayek to prepare them for movie roles. “So he’s really mastered getting women into peak condition.” Leon also teaches postnatal mommy-and-me classes.
You won’t hear the whir of treadmills at their gym, where most traditional exercise machines have been replaced with wall-mounted resist- ance bands and medicine balls. And although there isn’t much heavy lifting, clients occasionally leave classes in tears, Leon and Bell say, pointing to the release of endorphins that can trigger unexpected emotions. Primal Method classes will be kept to 30 minutes and will focus on highintensity intervals — the quick spurts of exercise that recent research has shown is optimal for cardiovascular health and amping up the metabolism to burn calories for hours post-workout, something Bell says is particularly important to his clients. “People are looking for an edge on how they can get to that [svelte] look and that performance without killing themselves for three hours at the gym,” he says. “That half-hour . . . is intense; it’s no joke,” Leon says. “I guarantee you we’re one of the hardest classes without any weights in the city.” Leon, who also works with celebrity clients such as Ryan Seacrest and Adrian Grenier, adds that the shortness of the class means that instructors expect attendees to put their all into the workouts. Even the few breaks they’ve built in are designed to strengthen. “When you think you’re tired and you’re ready to throw up,” Leon says, “you’re only at 60 percent.”
The Primal Method launches Oct. 1 and costs $34 per class. Belleon, 161 W. 22nd St.; 646-590-3631, BelleonGym.nyc
Carlos Leon attended the “Evita” premiere with thengirlfriend Madonna in 1996.