In 2026, the ultimate exercise humblebrag isn't a Peloton in your home office, or even a sub-three-and-a-half-hour marathon time. It's a pilates habit. Stars such as Miley Cyrus, Dua Lipa and model Lori Harvey have pledged their allegiance to this low-impact, high results method that can be traced back to a First World War internment camp. New studios seem to be cropping up each month, accompanied by pastel Instagram graphics, soft lighting and oval mirrors. Scroll through social media and you'll see the hypnotic videos of well-groomed women in matching athleisure sets and slicked-back buns, executing pulses and planks, leg extensions and low squats on a long rectangular machine that bears a strong resemblance to a medieval torture device.
As a discipline, pilates is enjoying a boom time. In 2024, fitness platform ClassPass revealed that pilates was its most popular class type, and in 2025, a report from America's Sports and Fitness Industry Association found it was the fastest-growing form of exercise in the US, with participation rates shooting up by 40 per cent since 2019. An estimate from business analysts at IBIS World suggests that the UK pilates and yoga industry is now worth £1bn. Its devotees speak of long, lean muscles, better posture and flexibility, but these benefits don't necessarily come cheap. In London, the going rate for a session on the pilates reformer – the aforementioned torture device – tends to hover around £30.
Concerns Over Dilution and Safety
But as pilates continues to rise in popularity, concern is brewing among longtime practitioners. Is the fast-growing demand – coupled with poor regulation – resulting in a dilution of the practice's original method? Does it risk being reduced to an aesthetic performance light on actual value? “What's fantastic about this boom is that more people are being exposed to pilates,” Stacy Weeks, a pilates educator and studio owner based in Cornwall, tells me. “That's amazing, and you cannot take away from it. But some people are being exposed to things that aren't pilates, and thinking that that's pilates.”
Joseph Pilates, the founder of the method, was a bodybuilder, circus performer and boxer. Born in Germany in 1883, he later moved to England, but when the First World War broke out, he was interned in Lancaster and on the Isle of Man. In prison, he developed an exercise system called “Contrology”, focusing on core muscles, breath and spinal alignment. He emigrated to New York in 1926, where he and his wife Clara set up the first pilates studio, attracting ballerinas, opera singers and actors like Katharine Hepburn and Laurence Olivier. He set out 34 movements in his 1945 book Return to Life Through Contrology.
For decades, pilates was popular as rehabilitative exercise. In the late Nineties and early Noughties, it became the toning method of choice for wealthy, stylish women, namechecked in Sex and the City and Desperate Housewives. But by 2015, an article in New York magazine warned of a “Pilatesapocalypse”, with the discipline being superseded by barre and spin classes.
The Social Media Effect
The shake-up came during the pandemic. Author and pilates instructor Eloise Skinner explains that the fitness industry shifted online, and “Instagram fitness just completely blew up”. Pilates, with its ties to ballet, “looks really lovely on camera”. When the world returned to normality, a new cohort of at-home pilates fans entered studios. Alexandra Johnson, founder of PhysioFit Pilates, has seen demand so high she's launched classes for teenagers. But she is wary of how pilates is presented on social media, with instructors “doing handstands or splits” or using weights on the reformer. “They're posting these crazy exercises, some of which are not pilates, they're just acrobatics,” Weeks agrees.
There's also “a particular look” on social media that has become synonymous with pilates – “crop tops, ponytails, matcha”. It's Instagram-friendly and performative, “almost like a status symbol”, as Johnson puts it. But this prevalence of slim bodies can make it feel exclusionary, emblematic of the Ozempic era. “I could have a 75-year-old in my class along with a 35-year-old,” Johnson says.
Regulation and Training Issues
Teaching standards have become an industry-wide headache. In April, Michael King, founder member of the Society for the Pilates Method, told The Guardian that “the sector can feel like the Wild West”, as some instructors “may lack sufficient training”. Some chains cram up to 25 reformers in one studio with just one instructor. “From a safety perspective, that is deeply concerning,” he said.
Short training courses that can be completed in a weekend are prevalent. “For comparison, a really good quality pilates qualification will take you nearly a year,” Weeks says. “Just the mat work alone is a minimum of six months.” The reformer was designed for small groups, but “with these large reformer studios popping up all over the place, the standard of equipment is dropping, the standard of training is dropping, and it's not pilates any more,” she adds.
Hannah Murphy, founder of Globe Fit Training Academy, says high demand has led to “a lot of unqualified teachers teaching reformer”. Skinner notes that while yoga has a standard 200-hour training, pilates lacks consistency. Some instructors train for years with reputable programmes like Stott or BASI, while others train online. “Sometimes it doesn't even matter because the person might be an influencer [who] already has their own platform,” Skinner says.
Problematic Influencers and Gender Stereotypes
More concerning is the rise of pilates-adjacent influencers who push conservative ideas about gender roles. Some content creators claim pilates is a particularly feminine exercise, compared to weightlifting which could make you “bulky”. Others imply pilates is a way of “staying hot for your husband”, a form of feminine labour. One viral video caption read: “How class sounds knowing my bf's CC is attached to my monthly membership.”
Male influencers also tout a pilates habit as a green flag for the perfect, docile woman. “If your girl does pilates, wife her up immediately,” one viral video from US influencer Christian Bonnier posited, implying a “pilates woman” will be too busy toning her core to go out partying.
Beyond the Instagram hype, pilates can be truly life-changing – and you don't need a matching workout set to reap the benefits. The teachers I speak to firmly believe pilates should be for everyone. As Grace Lillywhite, a specialist in ante- and post-natal pilates, says: “So many people go to pilates because they've got injuries, but they're being trained by people who don't really understand injury.”
