How Kate keeps her famous figure in shape

She’s known for her incredibly svelte figure and given the Princess of Wales’ sport nature, it’s no surprised that she’s in incredible shape at 41. 

Kate yesterday spoke about embracing an active lifestyle during a visit to England’s wheelchair rugby league team to celebrate their World Cup title, revealing she fits in exercise whenever she can, including bouncing on the trampoline with her children. 

An avid sportswoman, Kate was captain of the hockey team of St Andrew’s prep school in Berkshire, when she studied from 1986 to 1995, and is also a keen tennis player. 

She’s also enlisted personal trainers to help her stay in shape, including the so-called ‘figure magician’ Louise Parker, whose methods she reportedly followed after giving birth to Prince George. 

SPORTY MUM  

Speaking to England wheelchair rugby league team yesterday, the mother-of-three revealed how she’s encouraged her children to be competitive about sports, and how she takes every chance she gets to squeeze in exercise into her daily routine. 

She also revealed she loves to join in with her children when they play sport. The mother-of-three said: ‘I do it all: whenever I can squeeze in exercise I do, even jumping on the trampoline with the children before school.’

After hearing about Kate’s sporty side, the players invited her in for a training session – an offer she couldn’t turn down.

‘I’d love to come and play,’ she said. ‘There’s no excuse now. We’re going to have to have a family training session.’

Kate, who took over the Duke of Sussex’s former role as England’s rugby league patron in February last year, spoke to players, their partners and the coaching staff in the palace’s garden room before posing with the World Cup trophy.

Mother-of-three Kate met with members of the World Cup winning national team in the Garden Room at Hampton Court Palace 

TENNIS 

Kate’s love for a game of tennis is well-documented and she was often spotted playing the sport at the Hurlingham Club in Fulham, where annual membership costs from £1,600-a-year, when she and the Prince of Wales were based at Kensington Palace in London. 

Kate was a regular at the private members’ club and took tennis lessons for a number of years, becoming a ‘good minor athlete’ with a ‘nice top spin’, according to one report. 

She has also brought her children to practice at the club with her on occasion, treating them to ice-cream afterwards. 

The Prince and Princess of Wales are also said to make the most of their tennis court in Anmer Hall in Norfolk. 

The mother-of-three is an avid tennis players who often frequents the Hurlingham Club in Fulham, and enjoys her own private tennis court at Anmer Hall, her and the Prince of Wales’ Norfolk residence (pictured on the court in 2021)

Kate has been training with tennis players in her free time, and even impressed British ace Emma Raducanu during a game in 2021 

In 2021, she faced off against British ace Emma Raducanu for a friendly spar, and impressed with her impeccable game. 

The 18-year-old tennis prodigy declared that she was ‘very impressed’, adding: ‘Her forehand was incredible!’ 

The pair met at an official ‘homecoming’ organised by the Lawn Tennis Association following Miss Raducanu’s historic victory at Flushing Meadows in New York earlier in September that year. 

Kate is also a good friend of tennis champion Roger Federer and the two have been reported to have faced each other across the court privately. 

Such fans of the sports are Kate and William that it was even said that the Prince of Wales and Federer challenged each other at game of table tennis at Pippa Middleton’s wedding.

Like her husband, Kate is an avid tennis fan and is a frequent fixture at Wimbledon in her role as Patron of the All England Club. 

ADVICE FROM THE ‘FIGURE MAGICIAN’ 

Following the birth of her eldest son in 2013, Kate Middleton is said to have followed the Louise Parker Method, which coaches people to think about weight loss as a lifestyle change rather than a diet and favours Mediterranean ingredients.

In her book, The Louise Parker Method: Lean for Life, she explained her programme in more detail as a lifestyle change and wrote: ‘I loathe dieting. I’m actually on a mission to end it.’

Kate is known to have turned to celebrity personal trainers in order to keep trim, Pictured during a visit to the Team Heads Together London Marathon training day,  in 2017, at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park

Among the principles she instilled in her clients were positive thinking, self-care and living well, eating three balanced meals a day and ‘intelligent’ exercise – such as the Princess of Wales’s CrossFit workout.

The practice was created by a Californian trainer called Greg Glassman. 

It aims to turn its many followers into muscle machines with a ruthless combination of resistance training, weights, running and squats.

Kate has reached, through fanatical practice, ‘almost army fitness level,’ a source revealed. 

The trainer, dubbed the figure magician, explained in 2017: ‘The secret to permanent weight loss is this: there is no secret!

‘There’s not a cleanse, a detox, a ‘superfood’ on the planet that will give you lasting results.’

She promised that her programme is one that you will only ever need to follow once and that will keep the weight off for good.

Her Louise Parker Method uses a simple set of principles that re-sets your lifestyle and gets you the body you want, permanently and effortlessly.

She said: ‘It’s a real-life solution to permanent weight loss and optimum health while allowing all the pleasures of life – in moderation – to keep you sane and healthy. It is not about calorie counting or deprivation.’

She added: ‘Don’t think of this as a bootcamp or a diet. It is the start to a new normal with consistency at the heart of it.

‘During my programmes, I teach clients to get the best possible fat-burning results, in a way that’s so sustainable that our style of eating is going to become a habit.

However, after a difficult few years in which her mother died from lymphoma and the business was hit by the pandemic, Louise announced on Instagram that she was closing up shop last October – but promised her business would return in some form.

She wrote: ‘With much regret, my company I set up in 2007, has moved out of our Walton Street home. Our family company did not survive Covid nor the breakdown of our marriage.

‘I have so much to be thankful for. A team who made everyday fun and meaningful. I thank you all. I thank all our brilliant clients, from all over the world. There were days I’d stand in this spot, thinking I was the luckiest girl alive.

‘I still am. I would like to offer my word to every client I have been honoured to meet along the way. DM me. I will honour your programmes and continue to look after you. I thank you all for putting your faith in my method. I’ll be back.’

Fitness ‘junkie’ 

One royal insider told the Mail on 2016: ‘Kate is an exercise junkie. Pippa and Kate take their toned physiques extremely seriously. And mother Carole, in her 60s, is in extremely good shape.’ 

When it comes to her fitness go-to, Kate’s secret is ‘The Plank’, a hard-core exercise that requires no equipment.

‘It tightens her muscles,’ says the source. ‘There are three elements, the basic plank, the side plank and the prone sky dive, all of which are positions Kate can hold for 45 seconds or longer and repeat at least ten times each.’

So what do they involve? The basic, or ‘front’ plank means you hold a position similar to a push up, resting on forearms and tiptoes, for the maximum possible time to strengthen your back, shoulders and abdomen.

Kate Middleton is also an experience rower. During hers and Prince William’s trip to the Caribbean in March 2022, she took part in a sailing expedition onboard a boat from the Bahamas Platinum Jubilee Sailing Regatta at Montagu Bay, pictured 

In 2007, sporty Kate took part in the Sisterhood rowing Challenge to raise money for charities, and was spotted training with her teammates on the Thames  

‘The side plank requires you to balance on your side, holding your body straight with feet together and one arm flexed directly under your shoulder.

‘Meanwhile, the prone sky dive plank is slightly less excruciating, as you have to lie on your tummy and gently raise your chest off the floor until your tummy muscles beg for mercy.’

That might be enough activity for most of us. But not Kate. There is also calisthenics and aerobic exercise, skipping, indoor rowing and intense interval training every morning, a regime which takes her an hour.

The active mother-of-three said she loves to exercise with her children whenever she can and will join them when they play sports. Pictured during a SportsAid event at the London Stadium in Stratford, London, in February 2020 

Kate is the Patron of the Rugby Football Union and has taken part in several training sessions with England’s teams, including the female team at Twickenham Stadium in February 2022

Her giant bouncy Swiss gym ball also gets daily use to maintain those toned abs, and according to one onlooker: ‘George is highly amused whenever he sees [his mother on it].’

It is thought Kate has relied on the guidance of her sister Pippa, 39, in order to find her fitness groove, and the two have been reporting to exercise together. 

One royal insider revealed that the two sisters were regular visitors of the Kensington Palace gym, focusing on cardio, lunches, squats and push-ups to stay trim and get ‘beach body ready.’

The Prince and Princess of Wales trying their hands at land yachting on the beach at St Andrews in Scotland in May 2021 

Kate has been known to enjoy a very varied rang of sports, from sailing to skiing. 

Before her marriage to Prince William, in 2007, she took part in the Sisterhood Challenge, a rowing event where women of all sporting abilities could take part to raise money for a selection of charities close to the organisers’ hearts. 

Sporty Kate was seen leading her team’s operation on the Thames in London during training. 

As a working royal, the Princess of Wales has also taken part in several sailing events, never hesitating to hop on board to ride the waves with experienced sailors. 

Kate is also an avid runner, and loves to go for a jog with her dogs. 

During an appearance on House of Rugby, Mike Tindall was asked which royals he’d include in his dream rugby team. ‘I’ve got the Duchess of Cambridge on one wing because she loves running, she can run all day. Engine!’ he replied. 

She is also a member of the Harbour Club, a swanky London gym costing £325 a month, on top of a £1555 joining fee. 

The establishment is also frequented by Prince William and was beloved by his mother Princess Diana, Hello! reported.  

Hockey 

Before she met the Prince of Wales, Kate’s first love was hockey, a sport she practice during her studies at her beloved St Andrew’s prep school, in Pangbourne, Berkshire, from 1986 to 1995. 

So strong was her love for the sport that she was captain of the team and has credited St Andrew’s for helping her discover her love sport. 

During a visit to the prep school in 2012, the Princess of Wales described her time at St Andrew’s as some of the ‘happiest years of my life.’‪

During her trip to the school, she opened its new Astroturf hockey pitch, and reflected on the active lifestyle she enjoyed while studying there.  

Kate took up hockey as a teen during her time at the St Andrew’s prep school from 1986 to 1995, and ended up being team captain. When she and William visited Sweden in 2018, she couldn’t resist taking part in a ice hockey game at Bandy hockey event in Vasaparken, pictured

Kate, right, and her sister Pippa playing hockey at Marlborough College in Wiltshire when the Princess of Wales was 18  

‘It was while I was here at school that I realised my love of sport. Sport has been a huge part of my life, and I feel incredibly grateful for the opportunities I had to get outside and play in such wonderful open spaces – though sadly there was nothing quite as glamorous as this in my time!

‘I hope that you all enjoy playing sport here as much as I used to, and make the most of these incredible facilities.’

Kate was something of Kate and her sister a star pupil at the exclusive establishment, just a short drive from her home in Bucklebury, where she won awards for both sport and music.

During her 2012 visit, she observed some the School’s ‘Progressive Games’, which are traditional games played indoors by the school’s teachers and students on St. Andrew’s Day.

Progressive games is a tradition stretching back since St Andrew’s School first opened. On St. Andrew’s Day, the staff set up a number of short, five minute games, and small groups of mixed-aged children progress around the games earning scores as they go. A winning team is declared at the end of the day.