As Pilates reformer classes and those Instagrammable fitness workouts have become more popular over the past few years, so has the hype about how good they are for you. “Make lines that are long and thin!” Get your butt up! Get your obliques! Some teachers who know how to use social media would have you believe that you’ll have six pack abs almost overnight. And since strong has mostly taken the place of skinny as the goal of working out (thank goodness, am I right?), who wouldn’t want to leave class with great bis and tris as proof of all their hard work? But how true are some of these claims about getting bigger muscles and growing certain body parts? Does Pilates really help you get stronger in a big way? Or should we pay more attention to the other benefits it has for the body? This is everything you need to know about how Pilates muscles grow. Rachel Miller, PT, DPT, is a physical therapist, a certified Pilates instructor, and the founder of the Pilates PT. Shannon Ritchey, PT, DPT, is a physical therapist, a fitness trainer, and the host of the podcast The Dr. Shannon Show.
Different Types of Pilates
More from Women’s Health How Kate Ferdinand Made Her Body Play video Video poster Back to Playlist Play Forward Playlist Go Fullscreen Silence The kind of Pilates you do will affect whether or not it can help you build strong muscles. It’s hard to say in general what Pilates can and can’t do for your body. Joseph Pilates came up with the method a hundred years ago, but the word “Pilates” isn’t a trademark, so any fitness instructor can say they teach it, even if they haven’t gone through a special training program. There are classical Pilates studios that stick closely to Joseph Pilates’s original teachings and techniques. There are also contemporary Pilates studios that have updated and modernized many of the exercises. These studios may be more intense or include other types of aerobic exercise or strength training. Any of these changes would change how effective a certain class is for building muscle.
You can do Pilates on a Pilates exercise mat, a reformer, a tower, or a chair, among other things. And they all work out your body in their own way. What to Read Next These four exercises are very important for body recomposition after 50. Here’s why they work so well:I’m a 53-year-old personal trainer, and these are the 10 training mistakes women over 50 should not make. Oprah Winfrey talks about how she stays fit and strong at 72. For example, the reformer uses spring resistance system to make some exercises harder and help with others. Adding resistance to an exercise in Pilates doesn’t always make it harder, like it does in strength training. And don’t forget all the studio offshoots that use Pilates inspired equipment to make you do choreography that makes your muscles shake. So, yes, there is a lot to think about when you talk about Pilates.
How Classical Pilates Works Muscles
This is what classical Pilates training does to your muscles. We will use the same mindset as the person who created Pilates: one based on precision and control, with exercises that can be done on a mat or with equipment. Rachel Miller, PT, DPT, a physical therapist and certified Pilates instructor, says that Pilates exercises are usually done slowly and with fewer repetitions to focus on quality over quantity. Shannon Ritchey, a physical therapist and fitness trainer, says that Pilates exercises usually work slow twitch muscles because they are done slowly and with few repetitions.
Ritchey says that those kinds of methods usually work on the smaller muscle fibers that help muscles last longer. In Pilates, “muscular endurance” means being able to hold positions for longer. In short, you’re making your body stronger gradually. There may be times, though, when you work the fast twitch muscles in a Pilates class. Let’s say you’re doing the classic ab exercise called criss-cross (which is basically bicycle crunches) and your teacher tells you to go twice as fast. That short, quick burst of effort might be enough to work those fast-twitch fibers.
Miller says that you might also be able to work on type two muscles by adding a prop like a jumpboard (a platform that lets you jump while lying down on the carriage) to your reformer work. But in most cases, those times will be few and far between. Now let’s find out the truth about whether Pilates muscles grow.
Can Pilates Build Muscle
Now, it’s important to say that building muscle endurance is not the same as building muscle, which is also called hypertrophy. To get hypertrophy, a number of things must happen. To begin, traditional training for hypertrophy involves working the muscles to failure in thirty reps or fewer. Ritchey says, “If you’re not getting close to muscular failure point, even if the exercise feels hard and burns and you shake and tremble, science shows that you probably won’t see much muscle growth because the load is too light.”
You probably won’t see much muscle growth results from Pilates if you don’t use enough weight. That being said, if you go from not moving much to moving and exercising every day, you might see small body improvements in your body at first. The Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies also published an uncontrolled clinical trial that found that women who had been sedentary before starting Pilates had thicker abdominal walls. The researchers from the first study did the same thing to measure possible hypertrophy of the quads and glutes, but they found a “small, nonsignificant difference” between the before and after.
Ritchey says that when you go from having something to having nothing, you usually see what are called newbie fitness gains. But at some point, you’ll reach a plateau and need to work harder to keep seeing results. And that’s where Pilates gets tricky: more spring tension resistance can make an exercise easier, but even for the exercises where spring tension makes it harder, the load is limited.
“If you want to compete in bodybuilding or bench press 200 pounds, Pilates alone won’t get you there on its own.” Miller says that Pilates is almost the opposite of strength training because lighter weights harder for people. To make any muscle bigger, we have to push it. But there is a limit. We only have few resistance springs. Miller’s main point is that “Pilates alone won’t get you to your goal of entering a bodybuilding competition or bench pressing 200 pounds.”
Benefits Beyond Muscle Growth
Pilates has a lot of overall health benefits that go beyond changing your muscles. Even though Pilates alone won’t make you swole, there are still a lot of good things about signing up for that Saturday reformer class. Miller says, “I love the idea of strengthening dynamic stretching at the same time,” which is a part of many Pilates exercises on the equipment. “I feel like there is also a focus on making the body balanced properly.”
Ritchey agrees: “One of the best things about Pilates is that it helps you control your muscles and become more aware of your body, especially if you go to a good teacher. The cues are very clear. The body positions clear. You’re told what you should be feeling, how to feel it, how to breathe, how to move, and how to connect with your body.”
There is also a lot of research that shows Pilates may help with aches and pains. A 2021 meta-analysis found that Pilates was better at relieving lower back pain than other types of exercise that only focus on one thing, like general strengthening and aerobics. Ritchey says that not all back problems same, so what helps one person may hurt another.
How To Combine Pilates With Strength Training
You don’t have to give up Pilates if you love how it makes you feel and your main goal is to build more muscle. Ritchey says that you just need to be smart about how and when you add it to your routine. She says that if you want to build muscle properly, you should start with a hypertrophy routine and then add in everything else you want to do with the time you have left.
Ritchey says to work out each muscle group weekly two or three times a week, with the goal of doing four five sets each week. After that, do at least moderate intensity cardio, like walking or biking. She also suggests adding a little bit of high intensity interval training (HIIT).
Then, on your day off, you can do Pilates as a way to support recovery process. Focus on getting better. Ritchey says, “If you’re going to a class that’s really hard on you, it might not be enough or the right exercise type to build muscle. It could also be getting in the way of your recovery and your overall results.”
Miller says, “I think Pilates is a great addition because it will strengthen deep core, help you with your movement patterns better, lower your risk of injury, and improve your performance in a number of sports. So, even though Pilates won’t change your muscles from head to toe in two months, there are still many reasons to keep doing it.”
