Is Pilates Strength Training? How to Teach a Strength Based Reformer Pilates Class

My clients kept coming in asking me the same question.

"Is Pilates strength training? My doctor says I need to get stronger. Everyone keeps telling me I need to lift weights. Can I do that here?"

And I always answered honestly..

"Sort of. What we do is closer to muscular endurance. Which is slightly different."

That answer sat with me for a long time. Because the more I looked at what I was actually offering in my classes, and what my clients actually needed, the more I realised that "sort of" wasn't good enough.

This post is the longer answer. The one I wish I'd had earlier in my teaching career.

Can Pilates Be Strength Training?

Yes. But not automatically.

This is the nuance that most conversations about Pilates and strength miss entirely. Pilates can build strength. But whether it does depends entirely on how it's programmed

Traditional Pilates programming, high reps, light springs, constant variety, minimal rest, is primarily training muscular endurance and movement quality. Both of these are genuinely valuable outcomes. But they are not the same as strength adaptation.

Strength adaptation requires three specific things:

1. Proximity to failure Your client needs to be working close enough to muscular failure that the last few reps are genuinely challenging to perform.Hard enough that ONLY one or two more would be impossible. This is sometimes described as leaving 1–3 reps in reserve (RIR).

2. Sufficient volume Research suggests a minimum of 2–3 sets per exercise for strength, and 10+ sets per muscle group per week for hypertrophy. One pass through an exercise in a 50-minute class is unlikely to meet this threshold.

3. Progressive overload Load must increase over time. More load over time consistently as the individual improves, week after week. Without progression, clients can maintain their fitness and strength levels but they stop improving and getting stronger.

Most traditional reformer classes don't consistently meet these three criteria. That's not a criticism, it's just honest. And honesty is where good programming starts.

Why Most Pilates Instructors Don't Know This

Here's the thing I want every instructor to hear: this is not your fault.

Teacher training teaches us to teach Pilates. It doesn't teach resistance training principles. It doesn't cover progressive overload, proximity to failure, or how to program for specific training outcomes like strength versus endurance versus hypertrophy.

So we graduate and we teach what we were taught. We progress our clients, heavier springs, more complex movements, harder variations, and we tell them they're getting stronger. Because we genuinely believe they are.

And in some ways they are. They're improving at Pilates movements. Their coordination gets better. Their control improves. Their endurance builds.

But mechanical tension, the kind that drives genuine strength adaptation and bone density improvements, often isn't reaching the threshold required.

That's a curriculum gap, not a character flaw.

What a Strength Based Reformer Pilates Class Actually Looks Like

Teaching strength in Pilates doesn't mean abandoning what makes Pilates, Pilates. It doesn't mean turning your studio into a gym or becoming a strength coach.

It means applying evidence-based strength principles to the Pilates you already teach.

Here's what that looks like in practice: 1. Programming for Movement Patterns

Rather than programming for "full body flow," choose a exercises that cover the main movement patterns. Upper Body Push & Pull & Lower body squat and hinge. Plan a block/cluster around each movement pattern T

2. Programming Straight Sets First

Before moving to supersets, get comfortable programming straight sets — 2–3 sets of the same exercise with adequate rest between sets. This is the foundation of strength programming and something most reformer classes skip entirely.

A simple structure: Exercise 1: 3 sets x 8–12 reps,

3. Tracking Load and Progressing It

This is the step most instructors skip and it's the most important one.

Write down what spring your clients used. Write down how many reps. Next week, aim to do more. Half a spring heavier. One more rep. Holding a Dumbell. This is how you measure progress.

4. Teaching Clients to Own Their Progression

One of the most powerful shifts in strength-based Pilates teaching is moving clients away from waiting to be told what spring to use, and toward understanding their own training intensity.

Teach them what proximity to failure feels like. Empower them to go heavier when the last rep feels easy. This in itself is so empowering for our clients and can be an absolute game changer for you and your clients.

Can Pilates be strength training? Yes.

With the right programming, a reformer class can absolutely build strength.

But it requires intention. It requires programming that matches the outcome you're promising your clients.

The reformer is a brilliant tool for strength training. Most classes just aren't programmed to use it that way.

That's not the end of the story. It's the beginning of a better one and it's why I created a course to help Pilates Instructors understand how to program for strength!

Beyond The Burn - An Online Strength Course for Pilates Instructors

I spent a long time doing a deep dive. Merging my physiotherapy knowledge with strength science. Reading the research. Understanding what progressive overload actually requires. Figuring out how to apply all of it within a reformer class structure without losing what makes Pilates, Pilates.

What came out of that process is Beyond the Burn, a course I built specifically for reformer instructors who want to teach strength-based classes with confidence, backed by evidence, and without abandoning their Pilates foundations.

It's not about becoming a strength coach. It's about knowing enough to program with intention, so when your client asks if they're getting stronger, your answer is yes. And you can back it up.

Who This Is For

If you're a reformer Pilates instructor who:

• Has clients asking for strength training or telling you their doctor recommended it

• Have clients who want to get stronger but don't want to go to the gym

• Feels uncertain about whether your programming is actually building strength

• Wants to understand the science behind what you're teaching

• Is ready to shift from traditional high-rep programming to evidence-based strength programming

Then this is the gap that needs closing. And it's closeable.

CHECK OUT BEYOND THE BURN HERE

Steph Neal is a physiotherapist, Pilates instructor, and educator. She is the founder of Pilates HQ and the creator of Beyond the Burn — a strength programming course for reformer Pilates instructors. The June cohort is open now.