Five reformer myths, busted

The reformer looks like a piece of equipment that needs explaining. Springs, straps, a carriage that slides. Most people who walk past our window have an opinion about it before they have ever laid on one. Here are the five things we hear most often at the front desk, and what is actually true.

1. It is only for dancers

Joseph Pilates built his first spring based apparatus for people recovering in hospital beds. Dancers found it later, and they were good at showing it off, which is how it got its reputation. Look around a class here and you will see runners, cyclists, people who sit at a desk all day, people in their seventies, and people who have never done a class of any kind before. The reformer does not ask you to be graceful. It asks you to be precise, which is a different thing and much easier to learn.

2. The springs do the work for you

This is the one that surprises people most. The springs give resistance in both directions. Pushing the carriage away is work, and letting it come back under control is work as well, often the harder half. A lighter spring is not an easier setting. Take the footbar work in Reformer Foundations: drop to one spring and suddenly you have to hold everything yourself, with nothing to lean into. Your teacher will sometimes lighten your springs as you get stronger, and you will feel it.

3. You need to be strong or flexible before you start

You do not, and waiting until you are is a good way to never begin. The reformer is one of the few pieces of equipment that adapts to the person on it rather than the other way round. The footbar moves, the headrest drops, the straps shorten, the spring load changes in seconds. A beginner and someone who has trained for ten years can do the same exercise side by side on completely different settings and both be working hard.

If you are coming back from an injury or you are pregnant, tell us before you book so we can put you in the right class. That is not a formality, it changes what we set up for you.

4. It is not a real workout

Nobody leaves out of breath the way they would after a spin class, and the room stays quiet. That fools people. What you get instead is time under tension, small ranges held under control, and muscles working that you had not thought about since school. The soreness usually arrives the next morning, in places you cannot quite name.

It is also worth being honest about what it is not. Pilates is not cardiovascular training. If you want your heart rate up for thirty minutes, run, swim, cycle. The two go together well, which is why so many of our members do both.

5. Everyone will be watching you

They will not. Everyone in the room is concentrating on their own carriage and trying to remember which strap goes where. Our classes cap at eight people, so the teacher has time to come to you and adjust something quietly rather than calling across the room. Most people say the second class feels completely different, because by then the machine is no longer a puzzle.

Still curious

The honest answer to most of these questions is that one class will tell you more than any article. Your first class with us is free, mat or reformer, whichever you fancy. Come in trainers or grippy socks, arrive ten minutes early, and let us do the rest.