Emotional Rescue

Pilates helped Lucie Becus say #timesup to her abusive husband.

- Beth Johnson

SOMETIMES I WONDER WHY IT TOOK ME SO LONG TO DISCOVER PILATES .After all, I’d been an athlete all my life. I was on my high school and college track and cross-country teams. I ran marathons. Even as I climbed the corporate ladder, I also taught spinning classes at a local gym as a hobby.

Then in 2008, out of curiosity, I took a Pilates mat class at the gym. I was stunned by how different it felt than my usual exercise routines. In just a few weeks I saw an improvement in my abdominals that had eluded me for years.

CORE CHALLENGED

Ten years earlier, when I was in my 20s, I had surgery to remove a section of my colon because of a bleeding ulcer. Less than a year later, I had a second emergency surgery when scar tissue from my first surgery wrapped around my intestines. All of my abdominal muscles were cut, and so I developed diastasis recti, where they separate.

For the next decade, I did about a bazillion crunches, trying to “fix” my abs. Then in 2008, when I took that first Pilates mat class, I realized it was what I had needed all along. My core started getting stronger without doing endless crunches. I was amazed. Pilates was also a perfect complement to my running and weight lifting.

GETTING SERIOUS ABOUT PILATES

By this time, I was vice president of a global branding company in my hometown of Cincinnati. It was certainly rewarding financially, and I’d won awards and grown the business. But I wasn’t passionate about it and dreamed of doing something more fulfilling. Pilates had helped me so much that I wanted to at least explore the possibility of a career teaching it.