“Sex and the City” star Kim Cattrall might owe her figure to cardio, but she says physiyoga is the workout that saved her life.
A blend of physical therapy and yoga — which the 56-year-old actress nicknamed “fizzy yoga” — the practice is designed to heal and prevent injuries by restoring natural alignment in the body.
“When I meet someone for the first time, I do a physical therapy evaluation,” New York-based yogi Diana Zotos, who introduced Cattrall to physiyoga, told the Daily News.
“Then we customize a yoga program around that. It targets deficits, will strengthen muscles that are weak and stretch muscles that are tight, while focusing on the core.”
Zotos, a trained physical therapist for seven years, became a certified yoga instructor in 2009. Her physiyoga classes, which also include meditative breathing, are one on one and hands on. She began working with Cattrall about a year ago.
The British-born actress, currently in London for the three-month run of Tennessee William’s play, “Sweet Bird of Youth,” recently credited physiyoga with “saving” her during the grueling performance schedule.
“As I get older, I find that cardio is less important to me,” she told The Times of London. “What I want to do is more intense stretching. I’m not worried about injuring myself because a regular yoga instructor isn’t versed in the way of the body like a trained physio is.”
Cattrall said she hasn’t been as excited about a fitness trend since Jane Fonda’s aerobics classes in the 1980s. She even encouraged Zotos to rename the practice “fizzy yoga” because it sounds like more fun.
“She respects her body,” Zotos said of the blond star. “She uses her body in her day-to-day life to perform. What physiyoga has done for her is what it’s done for everyone — it’s helped her realize how to constantly make adjustments in the way she moves and uses her body, to protect it.”
Zotos adds that the practice can be “insightful” by teaching clients how they became injured in the first place, and how to prevent additional injuries.
“You learn to take ownership of your body,” she said.
Learn more about Zotos and her practice here.
rmurray@nydailynews.com
