Pilates is everywhere right now, which I love because it means more people are moving, becoming interested in strength and paying attention to how their bodies feel. However, we need to note that there is a big difference between simply doing Pilates exercises and actually understanding what you are trying to achieve with them.

Pilates shouldn’t just be about getting through a sequence, feeling the burn or doing the most advanced version of an exercise. Done well, it should help you build strength, mobility, control, coordination and a much better understanding of your own body, and importantly, you should be able to take those benefits outside the studio and into everyday life.

Here are five things I wish more people knew about Pilates.

1. Good Pilates is about more than feeling the burn

There is nothing wrong with feeling your muscles working, but a burning sensation isn’t necessarily proof that an exercise is effective.

What I’m much more interested in is how you’re moving. Can you control the movement? Can you breathe? Are you using the muscles we’re actually trying to target, or are you compensating somewhere else just to complete the exercise?

Pilates can be incredibly effective for building strength and muscular endurance, particularly because we can work with control, different ranges of motion, tempo, resistance and stability. But you need to give the body enough challenge to create adaptation.

Sometimes that means adding resistance but sometimes it means slowing an exercise down, changing the range, reducing your points of contact or progressing to a more demanding variation. 

The goal isn’t to make everything harder for the sake of it, the goal is to give your body the appropriate challenge.

2. Form matters, but there isn’t one ‘perfect’ body position for everyone

I think we need to be careful with the idea of perfect form. Bodies are different and our proportions, mobility, strength, injuries and movement histories are different, so an exercise won’t necessarily look identical on every person.

What matters is understanding the intention of the exercise.

A good teacher should be able to explain what you’re working, why you’re doing it and where you should broadly be feeling it. If you are constantly feeling an exercise in your neck, lower back or hip flexors when that isn’t the intention, for example, something may need adjusting.

I always want clients to leave a class knowing a little more about their bodies than when they walked in. Even taking a minute during a class to explain why we’re doing a particular movement can completely change someone’s experience of it.

3. Progression is essential if you want to get stronger

One of the biggest mistakes I see is people doing essentially the same workout, with the same resistance and intensity, week after week and expecting their body to continue changing.

Our bodies adapt which is a good thing, but it also means we need progression.

That doesn’t mean everyone needs to be doing complicated Instagram-worthy exercises on the reformer, and it’s important to note that an exercise that is more advanced-looking doesn’t automatically mean it’s more effective.

Progression can be very simple: increasing resistance, adding repetitions where appropriate, improving your range of motion, changing tempo, increasing time under tension or progressing an exercise once you can perform the current version with good control.

Sometimes the smartest progression is actually going back to something simpler and doing it better. If you can’t control the foundations, adding complexity isn’t necessarily going to give you a better workout.

4. A good class should teach you, not just exhaust you

Sweating, shaking and leaving a class exhausted can feel satisfying, but none of those things automatically tell you whether it was a good Pilates class.

Look for a teacher who actually teaches.

They should be observing the room rather than simply performing the workout themselves. They should offer modifications and progressions, explain exercises clearly and understand that not every exercise is right for every body.

Cueing matters enormously too. A great teacher doesn’t need to bombard you with twenty instructions at once and the best cues are often simple, specific and delivered at the right moment.

I also think education is such an important element of teaching movement. When I train teachers, I want them to understand anatomy and movement, but also communication, behaviour, confidence and critical thinking. You need to be able to look at the person in front of you, understand what you’re seeing and adapt rather than just repeat a memorised sequence.

A good class should make you feel like you’ve worked, but it should also leave you feeling more connected to and knowledgeable about your body.

5. Don’t chase the hardest variation

Social media has made Pilates incredibly visible, but it has also made some of the most complicated and visually impressive exercises seem like the goal. They’re not.

You don’t get extra points for standing on a reformer or getting your leg behind your head. If you’re holding your breath, losing control or compensating everywhere just to achieve a shape, you’re probably missing the purpose of the exercise.

The best version of an exercise is the one that challenges you appropriately while allowing you to maintain control and understand what you’re doing.

This is where I think we need to separate movement from training. Moving your body is always valuable, but if your goal is to build genuine strength, your sessions need intention and progression. You need enough stimulus for your body to adapt, alongside recovery, nutrition and consistency.

Ultimately, Pilates isn’t magic and it doesn’t need to be. It is a brilliant movement and training method when taught well, and it can sit alongside walking, cardiovascular exercise and other forms of strength training as part of a balanced approach to health.

The biggest thing I would tell anyone starting Pilates is to stay curious. Ask your teacher what an exercise is for, pay attention to what you feel and don’t worry about what the person on the reformer next to you is doing. Finally, don’t assume harder is always better.

The aim isn’t just to become better at Pilates, it’s to use Pilates to become stronger, more confident and more capable in your own body, and to take that with you into everything else you do.

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Top image credit: Sienna Aurora