Intimate secrets of Nicolas Sarkozy’s fitness regime

Let’s ponder the perineum. We all have one; it’s “the surface region in both males and females between the pubic symphysis and the coccyx”. In case that leaves you none the wiser, it’s basically the bit that goes from your anus to your vagina if you’re a woman, and from your anus to the base of your testicles if you’re a man. A place, in other words, where the sun don’t often shine. Got it? No? The best way to find it, experts say, is to imagine you’re bursting for a pee, and trying very hard indeed to hold it in.

Go on then. Imagine . . . and clench. There, you’ve got it.

And why are we interested in it? Because according to Nicolas Sarkozy’s personal trainer, Julie Imperiali, the French president has shed 4kg and shrunk two trouser sizes since she got him working the muscles of his pelvic floor 10 months ago. What’s more, if he is anything like her other clients (who include France’s first lady, Carla Bruni), the innovative exercise regime – based on controlling and strengthening the perineal muscles – will have improved the presidential sex life somewhat, too. “Problems of premature ejaculation are often due to the perineum,” she says.

Because we’re a bit sqeamish about all this kind of thing in Britain, the most you might find are references on certain websites to the fact that the perineum contains an unusually high concentration of nerve-endings, and is therefore classed (in the Kinsey Report) as a male erogenous zone. For women, reference to the perineum is usually confined, here and in the US, to a long-running debate about whether perineal exercise and massage prior to childbirth can help prevent tearing (the jury’s out).

It seems, though, that the French understand the value of this particular body part: most mothers in France are prescribed a programme of 10 specialist perineal re-education sessions by their GP, with 60-100% of the costs borne by the state. The aim is threefold: to get everything back in shape for the next child; to stop involuntary leaks when sneezing or laughing; and, in the words of a leading French medical website, to “restore the full quality of sexual relations”.

Maybe Nicolas and Carla are on to something.

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