How Alia Bhatt got her bikini body?

Trainer Yasmin Karachiwala on how she whipped Bhatt into shape

“About one year ago, I was having an anxiety attack,” says actor Alia Bhatt, in her characteristically animated way. The urgency was real—“I had one month to look sexy in a bikini.” The same bikini she’s sporting on the beach with Shahid Kapoor in her new flick Shaandaar.

The pounds weren’t the problem. “I had lost a whopping amount of weight,” Bhatt says, but bikini-worthy curves were proving elusive. “I was beginning to look like a boy! Which, for obvious reasons, is not sexy at all!”

Enter pilates pro and trainer to the stars Yasmin Karachiwala. “I think it’s safe to say the first time I met Yas [Karachiwala], I was a bit scared,” recounts Bhatt, “You would be too if you had been there. Fluorescent clothes, sprinting away on the cross trainer wearing the ATS (Altitude Training Systems) machine, which kind of makes you look like a monster or robot.”

Function over form

As a first step, Karachiwala recommended curbing cardio for the petite star. “She’d already become too thin and cardio was just going to eat away at her.”

The key was to not simply focus on making Bhatt look good in a two-piece but to teach her to move better and function better. “I realized that Alia was very unaware of the way her body should move,” says Karachiwala, “She was sloppy. She’s double-jointed and has a lot happening in her body. I needed to teach her how to take charge and control her movements. Over the last year, that’s what I’ve done. More than shaping her body to look as good as she’s looking right now, internally we’ve worked a lot on her posture, the way she walks and the way she holds herself.”

Bhatt is quick to acknowledge the improvement and changes she’s seen in herself. “From not being able to stand straight with my two feet on the ground, she now has me doing squats on the flat side of the BOSU ball.”

Getting rid of routine

“Every time she comes into the studio, we do a new machine, a new method of training,” says Karachiwala, “She never repeats a workout ever.” The trainer takes Bhatt through seven different pilates machines in any given week—the Reformer, the Cadillac, the Core Align (Bhatt’s favourite machine), Wunda Chair, Motor, Step Barrel, Bodhi and the Barre. There are hundreds of exercises you can do on each machine,” she explains, “That’s why [Bhatt’s] never bored!”

Combination training

Karachiwala changes Bhatt’s exercise regime based on her current fitness level. “We do a lot of pilates because her body reacts beautifully,” Karachiwala says, “But when she puts on weight, we do a better combination of functional training and pilates. When she’s lost weight, like right now, I just stick to pilates.”

Clearly Bhatt’s enjoying it. “Even though I had been working out before I met her, the gym was always a burden for me. A place I had to push myself to go to. But here, it’s the other way around. I have to push myself to not go to the gym sometimes.” Karachiwala corroborates, “If Alia’s not shooting, she’s in the gym six days a week. She’d like to come seven but I tell her to rest one day and take it easy.”