Sushmita Sen
Sushmita Sen

This is one powerhouse of a woman who has inspired me from the moment I first laid eyes on her and heard her beautifully articulate a relentless love for poetry and reading! Sushmita Sen personifies beauty and brains! One thing I’ve concluded is that there’s an unforgettable majestic air to Sushmita, which really keeps you encapsulated. You may have already read all about her upcoming film Nirbaak and her plans for the future. In saying that, here’s what the timeless beauty revealed to Team MM about all things fitness during our catch up!

Your favourite sport?

Football. I love the spirit and aggression with which football is played! I’m a huge Man United fan. I’m one of those rare people who supports two teams. I also support Barcelona. I love my cricket too, but I’m more of a twenty over kind of girl. I like sports in general!

How did you first get into Aerial Silk?

Actually, it got into me! I didn’t even know about it, other than watching some beautiful shows like Cirque du Soleil. Aerial silk is born from the circus. Traditionally it was done by those who wanted to be suspended when they do yoga or they do calisthenics. Anything you can do on the floor, you can do four feet above the ground – it’s just that it takes a very different kind of core strength! I met a teacher who told me I had a bad back. She asked if I was doing anything to strengthen it and I told her I’d been doing plenty of physio for nearly nine years! She then asked me if I’d tested the strength and whether I could hang like a bat! She asked if I wanted to try and I said ok, after which i took off my ceiling fan and we replaced it with silk – that’s how it began! For the first time i realised that I hadn’t been using a hundred percent of my core! It made me feel so strong – you could hit me with anything and I wouldn’t feel it. I just fell in love with it and a year and a half later, I was doing it like I was born to do it! It keeps my body and mind fit.

Sushmita Sen on Comedy nights with Kapil
Sushmita Sen on Comedy nights with Kapil

Are there any particular exercises you perform?

It’s all about anti-gravitational strength. Initially we start on the floor but you can do things mid-air like the dolphin. You can eventually do back flips, front forward postures, suspensions. Everything has a name including ones that are named superman and spiderman! Though everything is done according to your capacity of being able to hold a position. I don’t believe in repetition, I believe in holding a posture. I do about ten to fifteen alternates between stretching and postures and it makes me feel insanely strong! There are a hundred and fifty other things you can also do, but I like to master something and get comfortable with it before I move on. If you wake me up at 2am in the morning and say ‘do that’, I can do it with my eyes closed! It’s like muscle memory. It’s absolutely life changing… and it’s sexy… it’s very sexy! A woman has to feel sexy when she’s exercising and as for men, I’ve always found men who do aerial silk very sexy.

What does your fitness regime consist of?

You can’t have your body getting used to something boring or mundane so I do interval training. I don’t believe in treadmills so I do it on the road! Whatever shock bumper you have, it’s natural. I don’t like equipments actually. I don’t like anything that gets you dependent on an instructor, the space or equipment. It’s your body and your DNA is different. You should ‘feel’ what your body needs, no one has to tell you that. You only need about twenty five to thirty minutes of cardio and another fifteen minutes of stretching. That in itself can be a pretty exhaustive and beautiful workout! After 35, if you want a toned body, light weights can help to give you that firmness. Then again, I’d rather be lifting my own weight than lifting a weight separately. Lifting your own body weight has a different kind of impact on your system – even your immune system!

Sushmita Sen and Mary Kom spar at the event
Sushmita Sen & Mary Kom

What’s one food you could eat for the rest of your life?

Sushi. Without batting an eyelid! When I want to stay fit, I could live on sashimi, specificially, for the rest of my life! For breakfast, lunch, brunch, dinner, everything! I might have been Japanese in some previous life.

What about desserts?

Till I was about 22, I had a sweet tooth! I was ‘mishti’ crazy. Being bengali, it was such a big part of what I grew up with. But somehow, I guess something triggered in my subconscious – I must have read somewhere that sugar is like poison. At the time I was curious, but as you get older you realise that sugar does more damage than even sodium! I thought it would be near impossible to give up, and in the interim, when I was nine kilos overweight, my nutritionist at the time asked me ‘How hell bent are you on having sugar?’. So of course I replied saying ‘Very! Everything must have sugar!’. Next, she tells me ‘We’re taking sugar off your diet completely!’. I thought I’d definitely cheat! But she reassured me that it would be a struggle for seven days but on the eighth day you would kiss the ground you walked on. And I did! It was hell for seven days but once you tell your body something and reinforce it, it follows. I haven’t touched sugar since and it’s taken care of half my problems! I don’t go drastically overweight, ever.

And do you have any kind of cravings in particular?

I haven’t had any as such but I must say this. When it comes to your health and your fitness, one of the core things you want to stay away from is feeling a sense of lack for anything. This whole calorie driven world we live in, like checking a box for calories while shopping, is a bit too much. If I really want to have something, I will taste it! Never say no to yourself and give yourself anything you want. But then you automatically know that you’ll be satisfied with even a bite, because you’re not living a life of lack. And as for younger people, much younger people, those in your teens and early twenties – please eat and indulge in everything under the sun! Because as you get older, you will have inevitable restrictions.

Could you tell us a little about Inhale?

Inhale is by virtue what it sounds like. It’s a concept of disciplining your mind, not your body! You don’t come to a gym for a beefed up body and muscles with state of the art equipment. You come to a space and ask yourself, whether you can push yourself towards a challenge. You’re given motivational, aspirational targets. For example, if you joined an aerial silk class, you wouldn’t be able to touch the aerial silk for 21 days. You’d just be staring at it! You’d be doing everything on ground. But the day you’re allowed to touch it, you’ll be able to do it! It inspires you or it makes you give up before you’ve even tried. Disciplining the mind takes a lot of patience. Inhale is about being inside you. Hale is health, like hale and hearty. So your inner health which is dictated by you and your specific ability to withstand any amount of pressures that you may be put through. Different people have different breaking points and we push you towards yours and see how far you can go! We use calisthenics, yoga and aerial yoga. Ballet is for kids. Anything that has breathing involved in it basically. So if you’re not doing the breathing right, we stop the exercise and start again. This is what helps you discipline your mind – your ability to control your breathing. It’s almost meditational but it changes you from the inside out. So the outside you, becomes a byproduct. The target age group for inhale is ‘from the moment that your limbs can move’ till ‘the moment that your limbs can move’! This helps you discover yourself in a way. The controls are in your hands!

Sushmita Sen
Sushmita Sen

I swear I could have listened to this phenomenal lady talk all day! She concluded by telling me that I should also join aerial silk classes – which I most certainly plan on doing. Sushmita went on to tell me how amazing a blood rush is! And once you start looking at the world upside down, it gives you another perspective altogether. I don’t doubt that whatsoever. Definitely worth doing!