Maggie Schlegel
Last updated January 13, 2025

Is Pilates Strength Training? Inquiring Minds Want to Know!

Pilates isn’t just a workout – it’s a lifestyle. If you aim to focus your exercise on core strength, flexibility, and controlled movements… then you likely have come across Pilates. But is Pilates strength training? This isn’t a cut-and-dry topic…

That’s why today at Sultivate, a Reformer Pilates Studio, we’re talking all things reformer… and all things strength training. Let’s cut through some of the confusion, together.

We’ll start with the basics – what is Pilates?

What is Pilates? Where it fits on the training spectrum…

Pilates is a low-impact exercise style that primarily combines:

Strength
Flexibility
Body awareness

With a very colorful (and interesting) history – it was designed to emphasize precise, controlled movements. To engage your major muscle groups AND your stabilizing muscles.

Whether you are practicing Mat Pilates or the very popular Reformer Pilates, there are 6 main principles at the heart of all Pilates exercises:

Concentration
Control
Centering
Precision
Breath
Flow

The result? A workout to strengthen your muscles, improve your posture, and increase your mobility.

In short… Pilates is an amazing exercise system for increasing your ability to breeze through your everyday life activities.

One of the core features of Pilates is its ability to challenge your muscles – whether with spring resistance or just your own body weight. The Pilates exercises create tension in your movements that require your muscles to engage and work harder.¹

Just because a movement is slow and controlled… doesn’t mean it isn’t challenging. In fact, that very aspect of the slow, controlled movements often causes your stabilizing muscles to work harder than they would in traditional workouts.

Now that we know some of the key principles of a Pilates workout, let’s discuss the key principles of Strength Training.

The Definition of Strength Training

Strength training, aka resistance training, is designed to build muscle mass, increase muscular endurance, and increase overall strength.

Typically strength training uses resistance – weights, resistance bands, strength machines, or body weight – to create tension on your body to stimulate muscular change.²

While Reformer Pilates may use some increase in tension on your muscles through the weighted springs of the reformer, it more often uses progressions of an exercise to increase the difficulty of your muscles and movements.

Strength training is the opposite. While there may be a progression of a strength training exercise to increase its difficulty – more often, strength training uses progressive overload (increased weight) as the main method to increase muscular strength.

Some of the ways Strength Training impacts your body are:

Hypertrophy – increasing the size of your muscle fibers.
Strength development – enhancing your ability to lift or move heavy objects.
Power generation – combining speed and strength for more explosive movements.
Muscular endurance – improving the ability of muscles to sustain prolonged activity, even when tired.

The key to strength training effectively is the idea of “progressive overload”. Changing up your strength training routines to increase:

The amount of weight used for resistance.
The exercises you complete.
The muscles you target.
The speed you exercise with.

This progressive overload pushes your muscles past their current abilities forcing them to become stronger and endure more.

Traditional strength training tends to break exercises into sets and repetitions. A set will include a few different exercises each with a certain number of repetitions.

As an example, 1 set could include:

Squats: repetitions x 20
Lunges: repetitions x 10 each leg
Side lunges: repetitions x 10 on each leg
Sit-ups: repetitions x 25

Then you would repeat that same “set” 4 times with rest times in between each set.

The focus is typically to work a specific muscle group to fatigue… incorporating the progressive overload to build strength.

In contrast, Pilates is much more likely to include flowing sequences of controlled movements. And while you may repeat a movement multiple times, the structure of the workout is very different.

With this in mind, the next question we need to ask ourselves is, how do Pilates and strength training correlate?

Is Pilates Strength Training?

With its emphasis on controlled movements and building muscle endurance… where does Pilates fit in on the strength training spectrum?

The truth is, while there are no absolute answers, Pilates could be considered foundational to your strength training journey.

Pilates places a key emphasis on building your core and stabilizing muscles. The muscles that support your posture and build your functional strength.

Without these muscles to support your larger muscles – aka vanity muscles – you’ll have difficulty building to max strength without injuring yourself.

Let’s take a look at some of the hallmark goals and exercises of Pilates to gain more clarity…

Core strength is a main goal – these are the muscles that stabilize all your movements. They are closely associated with your trunk. Think abdominals, pelvic floor, etc.
A focus on isometric contractions – holding a muscle under tension without changing its length. This engages your deep stabilizing muscles, often overlooked in other strength training. An example is a plank (aka bridge) which uses a position to build strength rather than a movement.
Lighter resistance – Mat Pilates typically just uses body weight. The Pilates Reformer does use springs as a form of resistance, but they are not able to mimic the amount of weight you can increase in a true strength training workout.
A focus on functional strength – the ability to increase the ease with which you go through your daily life. This includes easier lifting, bending, and twisting… reducing the risk of injury.
The emphasis on muscle endurance and flexibility – through exercises which incorporate sustained or slower movement patterns.

All of this adds up to the fact that Pilates isn’t a replacement for Strength Training if your goal is to grow your muscles exponentially. But it does make an amazing complement to your strength training program.

Use Pilates to build your functional core strength, improve your posture, enhance your body awareness, and prepare your muscles for more intense loads in your strength training workouts.

Let’s take a deeper look at this…

The Benefits of Using Pilates to Build Strength

Traditional Strength Training tends to take an isolated approach to building muscles. Each exercise typically focuses on one specific set of muscle groups. This can lead to a bit of a disjointed strength-gaining routine.

One of the core benefits of using Pilates to help build strength is the fact that it creates an integrated strength-building routine where all your muscles work together.

There are a lot of benefits to this approach.

Functional Strength Building – to Walk through your daily activities more easily.

One of the most unique aspects of Pilates is its focus on functional strength. Twisting, bending, and reaching are all heavily incorporated into Pilates – leading to a reduced risk of injury in real life.

While many exercise programs incorporate aspects of these movements… few compare to Pilates.

Core Stability

Another key aspect of Pilates is strengthening your deep core muscles. Almost every movement incorporated in a Pilates program involves your core muscles that support your spine and stabilize your body as you move.

It’s one of the Pilates principles in fact: Centering.

Muscle Endurance

Pilates emphasizes slow controlled movements and is great for building muscular endurance.³

This can help you tone and strengthen your muscles to be long lean, and effective over a long period.

Increased Flexibility and Mobility

Unlike many strength routines that can lead to stiffness and low range of motion because muscles aren’t put on tension at their fullest extent, often shortened to lift more, Pilates is different.

Pilates actively enhances flexibility and joint mobility as the movements elongate muscles and strengthen them.

Again this creates a lean, supple physique.

Mind-Body Connection

Thinking about what you’re doing with your body as you do it can be huge for your strength building.

Pilates isn’t just physical – it’s mental, too.

Breath control, concentration, and precision lead to a strong mind-body connection that allows you to fine-tune your movement and your posture.

A Complement to Strength Training

Can you see where we’re going with this?

While Pilates won’t get you the Strength gains you may be looking for with a normal Strength Training plan… it can greatly increase the gains you’re able to achieve if you add it to your fitness routine.

Where Strength Training Plans often drop the ball… Pilates is there to pick up the slack.

So how do you take advantage of the best of both worlds?

How to Combine Pilates and Strength Training Effectively

Combine Pilates and traditional strength training to create a balanced, effective fitness routine. Each method offers unique benefits – when paired together, they can help you achieve greater overall strength, improved posture, and enhanced flexibility.

Why A combo of Pilates and Strength Training is a good idea.

With the bonus of targeting large muscles and small stabilizing muscle groups – combining Pilates with traditional Strength Training just makes sense.

Build your power and muscle mass with Strength Training and refine your core stability, flexibility, and movement efficiency with Pilates.

A dual approach ensures your body remains balanced and reduces the risk of overtraining or developing muscular imbalances.

For example, pair a heavy lifting session with a Pilates recovery day to enhance muscle recovery and prevent tightness. Similarly, incorporate Pilates on rest days to add gentle movement and core activation, promoting blood flow and aiding in overall recovery.

How to create a weekly Fitness Plan you can maintain.

Here’s an example of a weekly routine that integrates both Pilates and strength training:

Monday: Strength Training – Lower Body. Examples: squats, deadlifts, lunges.
Tuesday: Pilates – Core and Flexibility, try our Reformer class for a full body workout.
Wednesday: Strength Training – Upper Body. Example: bench press, pull-ups, rows.
Thursday: Active Recovery – Light Pilates or stretching. Try our Relax Reformer class to get your heart rate up.
Friday: Full-Body Strength Training. Example: kettlebell workouts, and bodyweight exercises.
Saturday: Pilates – Stability and Endurance. Either our Reformer class or our Sweat class.
Sunday: Rest or take our Relax Pilates Class

This plan allows for strength training’s muscle-building benefits but also incorporates Pilates’ mobility and functional strength focus.

Have you heard the rumors?

If you’re worried combining Pilates and strength training might lead to overtraining or conflicting results, don’t be. When balanced correctly, these methods enhance each other. Pilates prevents the stiffness and reduced range of motion that can sometimes come with heavy lifting, while strength training builds the power Pilates alone can’t provide.

For beginners – start slow and listen to your body. Strength training three times a week with Pilates on alternate days is a manageable way to build a well-rounded routine without overloading your schedule or your muscles.

Pilates & Strength Training at Sultivate

Pilates is a great exercise system that builds strength, enhances flexibility, and improves body awareness – but it isn’t strength training in the traditional sense.

While Pilates relies on resistance and challenges muscles through isometric contractions and controlled movements, it lacks the heavy, progressive overload typically seen in weightlifting or resistance-based strength training programs.

Instead, Pilates shines as a tool for developing functional strength, core stability, and muscle endurance.

But combining Pilates and traditional strength training can help you enjoy the best of both exercise styles.

Strength training develops power and muscle mass, while Pilates enhances your mobility, refines your posture, and strengthens stabilizing muscles. Together… they create a balanced approach to fitness to help you: