Fitness for the stars

Leena Mogre lets out the secret behind the hot bods of Bollywood.

When John Abraham relegated cardio workouts to the "only for girls" category, Leena Mogre, his personal trainer at the time, decided to take him to task for it. "I gave him a really rigorous cardio workout and in 20 minutes he was panting. Now he knows!" laughs Leena. She did the same thing with Ranbir Kapoor when she first started training him. "He was very irregular and to teach him a lesson, I gave him a very intense workout. He didn’t even survive 15 minutes. He was serious from that day onwards," she recalls, which is evident from the toned abs (and, since it was censored we can only assume, his butt) that we see him flaunting in Saawariya.

It’s Leena’s job to be tough on the stars because they would never achieve any results otherwise. And they acknowledge that their personal trainers are some of the best friends they have because they tell them things as they are. "I have such a good rapport with John that if I see him on the street, I can tell him to pull up his shirt to see if his six-pack is as it should be," she says, "And though I’ve stopped training him, he can carry on without a trainer now because he knows so much about fitness. He can even give others tips. I’m glad he’s graduated to that level."

The concept of Bollywood stars having personal trainers started with Madhuri Dixit back when she was preparing to shoot for Hum Apke Hain Kaun. "She was the only star at the time who realised the importance of being fit," says Leena. What she admires about Madhuri is that she also realised that fitness had to become part of her lifestyle. "She insisted on carrying a step, dumbells and a music player whenever she travelled because she knew that she had to sustain her fitness levels." What kind of workouts did Madhuri do? "Mostly aerobics, especially since she was training for a movie in which she had to do a lot of dancing. Not weights, she didn’t like weights," recalls Leena.

And the fact that so many Bollywood stars are hitting the gym despite the fact that they have crazy shooting schedules shows how much emphasis the industry places on how stars look. "People weren’t so much into fitness earlier. Now they know that it’s important and that they have to maintain it. They have to work out because, on the big screen, every flaw gets magnified," says Leena. She says that Sameera Reddy lost eight kilos in two months and that Shamita Shetty had to change the way her body looked for Mohabbatein: "Sameera was able to lose that much weight because she’s got great energy and fitness levels she can do cardio for two hours! And because Shamita was very thin before the shoot for Mohabbatein started, she needed to put on muscle weight."

So who has the best bod in B-Town? "Hrithik. He’s worked hard on his body and totally transformed it for Dhoom 2. He looks like a Greek god! And Bipasha’s my pick of the girls," says Leena. She also gives Shah Rukh Khan full marks for getting a six-pack at his age. "Once you’re past 40, your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and body-fat percentage increase, which makes his achievement all the more remarkable."

And when asked who needs to work out the most, Leena promptly answers, "Ayesha Takia!" Hardly surprising, considering she’s a self-confessed foodie and her boyfriend, Farhan Azmi, owns a restaurant. But Ayesha has great potential and needs to work all the more because of that, says Leena, "I like her body, but she has to lose some percentage fat. She’d look amazing if she did. She has the shape, she just needs remodelling."

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com