Pilates isn’t recent—the truth is, it’s nearly 100 years old!—but currently, increasingly folks are turning to this type of low-impact exercise. Case in point: Pilates nabbed the title as hottest workout of 2023, in line with ClassPass’s annual reportbeating other fan-favorites including yoga, cycling, and barre.
If you’re thinking about giving it a shot, you could be wondering: What of workout is it, exactly? Is all of it about flexibility and balance, or does Pilates “count” as strength training too? (After all, for those who’ve ever seen the core-centric “100” move, as an illustration, it actually looks like it does a number in your abs.) We touched base with some Pilates experts to assist us break down which boxes it ticks—and the way you may fit it into your exercise routine.
So is Pilates considered a strength workout?
Originally developed as a rehab tool for World War I soldiers, Pilates places a strict emphasis on mobility, stability, proper form, body alignment, and mind-muscle connection. This makes it an incredible workout “for anyone who wants to enhance their on a regular basis functional movement habits or their sport,” Lynda Gehrmanowner and director of BASI Pilates Academy in New York City and a Pilates teacher trainer, tells SELF. You can do that through specialized resistance machines, just like the Reformer, or on a mat using just your individual body weight (and possibly a prop or two, like light weights, rings, or exercise balls).
If you strength train, you’re probably already conversant in some common Pilates moves, which include planks, squats, lunges, glute bridges, arm circles, leg circles, and crunch variations. So it holds to reason that Pilates is a type of strength training…. Right?
Yes, but with an asterisk. While research has found Pilates to be effective for constructing each strength and muscle—two outcomes we generally consider with strength training—it’s probably helpful to dig slightly deeper.
For one, within the broadest terms, strength training may be defined as anything that simply makes your body —principally, anything that enables your muscles to finish tasks at hand just slightly bit easier, Pilates instructor Laurence Agénor, DPT, cofounder and clinical director at The Wellness Den by Cynergy Physical Therapytells SELF. This is where Pilates, in addition to other activities like yoga, barre, and general weight lifting, all qualify, Dr. Agénor explains.
Pilates places a specific emphasis on eccentric muscle contractions (once they are lengthened under load, like lowering right into a squat) to construct strength, Gerhman says—think moves like leg circles and the elephantwhich hit your hamstrings while they’re stretched. But because Pilates exercises also require numerous stability, either your core or your limbs are just about also working isometrically (when the muscle holds still under load, like hanging out in the underside of a squat) whenever you’re performing any movement. Finally, Pilates also uses concentric contractions (when your muscle shortens under load, like whenever you rise up from a squat), so it encompasses the entire three major contractions vital to assist your muscles get stronger.
