Fitness buffs, if you haven't quite mastered Crow and your core is still a little wobbly despite years ‑- okay, months ‑- of Pilates, maybe Gyrotonic® and the Pulley Tower is what you've been looking for.

Yes, that really is the name of a workout, and it translates to "circular toning." But perhaps a more descriptive explanation is yoga on a machine. Gyrotonic is a series of motions and breathing patterns designed to tone your body, both inside and out, and is performed on a contraption rigged with weights, cables and pulleys offering resistance of 10 to 35 pounds.

"Basically, it looks like a medieval torture rack," jokes Vincent Macagnone, the owner of East Village Movements, a Pilates and Gyrotonic studio in New York City ‑- but that doesn't keep the likes of Madonna, Teri Hatcher and Edie Falco from the Pulley Tower.

And it shouldn't keep you either.

The Pulley Tower was specially conceived by Hungarian dancer Juliu Horvath to assist in postures and movements typically found in yoga, gymnastics, ballet and swimming. "It works first on your energy structure, then your skeletal structure and then your muscles," Macagnone says. "It's soft, but not passive. It restores the body really nicely. The breathing patterns that correspond with the movements really rinse the body. Like massage or acupuncture, Gyrotonic is release work, so after you're done, your body really starts to feel like it's free."

But before it feels free, it's going to have to work a bit, and that means doing exercises focusing on the thighs, hips, knees, hamstrings, upper body and abdominals. A typical session includes movements such as the "arch and curl," a motion that stretches your spine forward and back, making the letter C with each articulation; bicycle and scissor motions with your legs while your feet are connected to the Pulley Tower's cables; and "candle in the wind," where you put your hand around a pole and shift your spine the way a candle's flame would shift from one side to the next..