Madge's quest to look like her daughter

AS SHE comes to the end of her workout the tiny blonde lets out a guttural scream that echoes around her bespoke gym.

Madonna turns back the clock Madonna turns back the clock

She hasn’t injured herself. Instead she has simply pushed her body to its limit.

That woman, drenched in sweat, crying and shaking from the intensity of the workout, is Madonna and it is her latest push to defy the passage of time.

Even though she is probably one of the fittest 50-year-old women in the world the pop legend is still not satisfied. She must be better, the best, perfect. No matter what it takes...

“Madonna will go to any lengths and sacrifice whatever she has to,” says a source close to the singer.

“She is putting herself through a gruelling time and sacrificing so much to get there.

“She has lost her marriage, she doesn’t see her children nearly as much as she’d like and she has no close relationships apart from those high up in the Kabbalah religion she follows so devoutly.”

Madonna on stage Madonna on stage

Fresh from a divorce from 40-year-old film director and pub-owner Guy Ritchie and hitting the half-century, the singer’s current world tour is her most important yet.

Madonna is aware that all eyes have been on her to see if she can still cut it as a pop star despite her advancing years and she is determined to silence those detractors who have had the temerity to suggest that the queen of reinvention is finally past her sell-by date.

Her recent photo shoots have left little to the imagination. In one she paraded all her hard work in a bizarre outfit of what appeared to be bandages, a tiny thong, fishnets and knee-high boots.

In another for Louis Vuitton (she is the face of the luxury goods brand) she is shown reclining with her leg in the air and wearing the briefest of pants.

It did not quite receive the blanket approval that she, or Louis Vuitton, may have hoped for, with some unkind headlines reading: “Madonna in old bag shock.”

Such comments, while clearly hurtful, will, say friends, just push her to train harder still and while we have come to expect hard work and extremes from the singer (she is said to be at the highest standard in yoga) her regime reads like boot-camp punishment.

Each day she faces an eight-to-10-hour slog to stay in tip-top shape for her year-long Sticky & Sweet tour, which kicked off in Cardiff last August.

Not only that, she wants to achieve the most spectacular reinvention of them all: to appear 30 years younger all over.

“She wants a complete makeover, a new face, new body and she wants to be a totally new woman when she goes on stage,” adds the source.

“She wants to rock the world with her show and look better than she did at 20.

“When she comes on stage she wants to be a bionic woman. She does not want to be subject to old age. She wants time to stand still and, if anything, go backwards in terms of her looks.”

It is said that the star wants to be as lithe and fit as Mick Jagger but look even better.

Her training includes very fast aerobic exercises for up to 90 minutes; running; step machine; bike and circuit training.

In her bid for perfection she barely stops between each set of exercises and refuses to let her heart rate come down.

She does heavy weights to develop her shoulders, biceps and triceps and does stomach crunches and abdominal twists for an hour at a time despite the burning pain.

Such is the intensity of the “burn” she often bursts into tears and lets out a flood of emotion.

This, she has told friends, frees up yet more energy so that she can channel it back into an even more rigorous regime.

As well as this high-intensity work she also does two-to-three hours a day of dancing and choreography and two hours of intensive yoga in the morning and evening.

Clearly, with such a schedule there is little time for food. She eats very small quantities according to when she is training and her diet is strictly macrobiotic with pulses, nuts and seeds on the list.

As well as her exercise regime there is a beauty routine that underlines her desire to stop time.

“It is an issue she talks about a lot and she puts all her energy into the regime that will enable that to happen,” says the source.

“She has had regular glyco peels to refresh her face and keep her wrinkles at bay. She likes skin peels as they are anti-ageing without the need for surgery. It helps her look wrinkle-free and youthful.”

Prior to the Oscars Madonna was pictured with red patches on her face and it is thought she had work done so she could appear as young as possible next to her latest squeeze, 22-year-old model Jesus Luz, who escorted her for the night.

“It doesn’t matter whether she goes through pain and has to endure red-raw skin, Madonna needs to look like a woman in her 30s and the skin peels strip away the signs of age... but only until the next time and the next,” explains the source.

Her fixation with youth has been seen of late in her choice of Jesus, who is 28 years her junior.

Then just last week she seemed to have ransacked her 12-year-old daughter Lourdes’s wardrobe for a Kabbalah fancy dress party.

“She looks at her daughter, her young partner and the dancers in her troupe and all the young women out there and she sees fresh, youthful skin and she is merging all of them in her mind,” the source continues.

“She doesn’t want to be an old woman. The thought freaks her out. She wants a chiselled body that is faultless. Madonna is always looking for flaws. Any loose skin or part of her body that isn’t as muscular as she wants it to be is seen as a flaw.”

The Star recently laughed off comments from a journalist at a press conference who suggested she looked 21 not 50.

“That’s because you’re standing far away,” she replied rather disingenuously.

While her body may be as near to perfection as is possible, sources close to the singer fear she is losing touch with her emotions.

The star has said: “I train and do yoga and eat sparingly for my body. The Kabbalah is for my soul.”

But where, some are asking, do her children Lourdes, 12, Rocco, eight, and her three-year-old adopted son David figure in the equation?

Madonna has openly admitted her tenacity is what has seen her amass a £30million fortune and remain at the top of her game for all these years but for how long can she hold back time?

According to experts there could soon come a day when Madonna will simply have to scale back her training for the sake of her health.

“Madonna has to consider two factors: she is getting older so she is losing muscle mass naturally but she still wants to get fitter so needs to do more exercise,” said personal fitness trainer Janey Holliday,

“The two do not mix. She is already doing a lot of exercise, any more and even with her entourage of trainers, masseurs and dieticians she may not be able to cope.”

For now, however, Madonna is not prepared to let up.

“My talent is in my ambition and my determination,” she has told friends.

“It isn’t my voice or dance, it’s my mastery of everything and my control of my life.”

Perhaps it is just this control which could finally lead to the undoing of pop’s ultimate perfectionist.

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