Why Pilates has become the workout defining modern wellness

There was a time when Pilates occupied a relatively quiet corner of the fitness world. It was associated with dancers, rehabilitation, precise mat work and those who understood that a workout did not have to leave you exhausted to be effective. That has changed dramatically. Walk through London, New York, Los Angeles or Miami today and Pilates has become part of the architecture of modern wellness: beautifully designed reformer studios, early morning classes, carefully considered activewear and an entire ritual that often extends from movement to matcha, sauna, stretching, massage and a slower approach to recovery.

The numbers suggest this is much more than an Instagram moment. Pilates was the most-booked workout globally on ClassPass for the third consecutive year in 2025, with reservations rising 66 per cent year on year. Reformer Pilates bookings increased 71 per cent, while mat Pilates grew an extraordinary 114 per cent. More than 27 million Pilates searches and 15 million reservations were recorded on the platform during the year. Perhaps most interestingly for the increasingly mobile wellness consumer, a third of ClassPass bookings made outside a member’s home market were for Pilates.

So why has a method with roots stretching back more than a century suddenly become one of the defining workouts of the 2020s? Part of the answer is aesthetic. Pilates translates exceptionally well to social media: beautiful studios, elegant movements, reformers and the now familiar Pilates lifestyle have made the practice highly visible. Yet reducing its popularity to aesthetics misses what has given Pilates staying power. At a moment when wellness is moving away from the idea that harder must always mean better, Pilates offers something more sustainable: controlled resistance, mobility, balance, body awareness and strength without relying on constant high-impact training.

For the Modafirma wellness edit, we have selected four studios that capture this new Pilates culture particularly well, one in each of four cities where wellness increasingly forms part of the way people live, work and travel.

London: Heartcore | Reformer Pilates Parsons Green

Best for: The London Pilates institution

London has embraced reformer Pilates with extraordinary enthusiasm, but Heartcore remains one of the names worth knowing. Rather than treating Pilates simply as an exercise class, the brand has built an experience around movement, instructors, community and thoughtfully designed studios. Its Parsons Green location, for example, is rated 4.9 in current local listings, reflecting the strong following the brand has established in the capital.

What makes Heartcore particularly relevant to the way we think about wellness at Modafirma is the combination of physical challenge and considered surroundings. The modern Pilates studio is increasingly becoming a third space between home and work, somewhere people return to several times a week rather than visit sporadically. Heartcore captures that shift. The attraction is not simply the reformer itself but the ritual of arriving, concentrating intensely on movement for an hour and leaving feeling recalibrated.

London’s wider appetite for reformer Pilates also illustrates how dramatically the category has expanded. The boom has brought an important caveat: instructor quality matters. UK industry experts have raised concerns about rapid instructor certification and inadequate supervision as reformer classes proliferate, making properly trained teachers and attentive instruction an increasingly important consideration when choosing a studio.

New York: New York Pilates SoHo

Best for: Downtown Pilates with a distinctly New York point of view

If London made Pilates part of the contemporary wellness routine, New York helped turn it into culture. New York Pilates SoHo on Howard Street sits naturally within SoHo’s world of fashion, design, beauty and creative businesses. The studio currently carries a 4.9 rating from more than 200 reviews, but its appeal goes beyond popularity. This is Pilates presented through a recognisably downtown New York lens.

That distinction matters because the new generation of Pilates studios understands that people no longer separate fitness quite so neatly from the rest of their lifestyle. The studio someone chooses can reflect the same taste that influences the hotel they book, the restaurant they visit or the clothes they wear. New York Pilates has successfully occupied that intersection between movement and contemporary city culture.

New York is also a natural home for the format because Pilates works remarkably well within an intense urban schedule. A class requires concentration. For 45 or 50 minutes, attention moves away from screens, messages and the external pace of the city and towards breathing, alignment and precise movement. In an environment built around speed, that concentration may be almost as valuable as the workout itself.

Los Angeles: Speir Pilates West Hollywood

Best for: Contemporary Pilates with serious technique

Los Angeles has an almost unrivalled ability to turn emerging wellness behaviours into global movements, so choosing one Pilates studio is difficult. Our pick is Speir Pilates West Hollywood, a studio that combines contemporary fitness with the principles of classical Pilates. Its West Hollywood location is currently rated 4.8, while the brand describes its method as contemporary classical Pilates infused with strength and built around form, alignment and progression.

That makes Speir particularly interesting in a city saturated with fitness concepts. The method is not based purely on chasing intensity. Classes incorporate reformer work alongside formats focused on areas such as strength, stretching, barre and jumpboard training, allowing Pilates to become part of a broader movement practice rather than an isolated workout.

Los Angeles also demonstrates just how diverse Pilates has become. The Los Angeles Times’ guide to the city’s Pilates scene included 26 studios, spanning different interpretations of the method. The old question of whether someone “does Pilates” is increasingly being replaced by another: what kind of Pilates?

Miami: 727 Pilates

Best for: Pilates with a strong design sensibility

Miami’s wellness culture has evolved far beyond hotel spas and beachfront workouts. The city has become an increasingly sophisticated fitness destination in its own right, and Pilates sits at the centre of that movement. ClassPass data for 2025 identified Pilates as Miami’s most popular workout, mirroring the broader global trend.

Our Modafirma choice is 727 Pilates on NE 61st Street. The studio’s atmospheric interior immediately distinguishes it from the conventional white-box fitness environment. Darker woods, rich tones and a residential sensibility create a space that feels considered rather than clinical. It represents something increasingly important in wellness: environment matters.

A beautiful room does not make a workout more effective, of course, but the best modern wellness businesses understand that habit formation is influenced by experience. If a space feels good to enter, if the ritual around exercise is enjoyable and if the community makes returning desirable, movement has a better chance of becoming part of everyday life rather than another short-lived resolution.

Why is everyone doing Pilates?

The simplest explanation for Pilates’ resurgence may be that it sits at the intersection of several things people currently want from fitness. It can be challenging without being relentlessly high impact; it prioritises control and technique; it can complement strength training, running and other sports; and its emphasis on concentration gives it a mind-body dimension that many conventional gym workouts lack.

Research provides support for several benefits, although some of the more extravagant claims made about Pilates online should be treated cautiously. An umbrella review examining 27 systematic reviews found evidence suggesting benefits including improvements in balance and sleep quality and reductions in pain and disability in certain populations, while noting that the certainty of evidence ranged from very low to moderate and that better-quality research is still needed. A separate systematic review reported potential improvements across measures including flexibility, strength, mobility, balance and quality of life in women, again with the qualification that further high-quality research is required.

There is also growing interest in the psychological side of the practice. A 2026 systematic review and meta-analysis covering 32 trials and 1,264 participants examined outcomes including anxiety, depressive symptoms, wellbeing and quality of life. After adjustment for outcome type, the researchers found a statistically significant pooled effect, although substantial variation between studies means the findings should not be interpreted as evidence that Pilates is a treatment for mental-health conditions. What the research does reinforce is the idea that movement, concentration and physical wellbeing are not entirely separate experiences.

The new Pilates ritual

Perhaps the more interesting cultural development is what happens around the class. Pilates is becoming the anchor for a much broader wellness ritual. The traditional fitness model was relatively simple: arrive, exercise hard, shower and leave. The emerging model places movement alongside recovery, nutrition, sleep and mental wellbeing.

The data reflects this change. ClassPass reported that global wellness reservations rose 37 per cent in 2025 alongside a 36 per cent rise in fitness reservations. Massage remained the most-booked wellness treatment, sauna bookings increased 40 per cent, sports recovery grew 50 per cent and stretching was the fastest-growing wellness appointment, rising 143 per cent.

This makes the ideal Pilates ritual surprisingly uncomplicated. Before a class, hydration and enough time to arrive without rushing are more useful than an elaborate routine. After the session, walking rather than immediately jumping into a car or taxi can extend the feeling of movement, while adequate hydration and a balanced meal containing protein, carbohydrates and plenty of whole foods support recovery. On other days, strength training can complement Pilates rather than compete with it, particularly because a complete fitness routine should not rely on any single exercise discipline.

Recovery is becoming part of the pleasure, too. A sauna, massage or dedicated stretching session can sit alongside Pilates when personally appropriate, while quieter rituals such as a long walk, an early night, reading, skincare or simply leaving the phone alone for an hour can accomplish something equally valuable: creating a transition from exercise back into everyday life. The important point is not to turn wellness into another exhausting checklist. A ritual should make life feel better, not become another performance metric.

From workout to way of life

The most interesting thing about the Pilates boom is ultimately not the reformer. It is what the movement represents. Wellness is becoming less about occasional extremes and more about practices people can realistically repeat. Pilates fits that philosophy because progress often comes through consistency, control and incremental improvement rather than spectacle.

That may explain why the practice has survived its transformation from a century-old movement method into one of the most fashionable workouts in the world. The aesthetic may have helped Pilates travel through Instagram and TikTok, but aesthetics alone do not produce millions of repeat bookings. The real luxury is increasingly the ability to feel strong, mobile, rested and well enough to enjoy your life.

From Heartcore in London to New York Pilates in SoHo, Speir in Los Angeles and 727 Pilates in Miami, the studios worth knowing are not simply selling an hour on a reformer. At their best, they are creating spaces where movement becomes ritual, ritual becomes habit and wellness becomes something integrated into everyday life rather than reserved for the occasional retreat.

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