With Big Box Gyms Circling Pilates, Your Reformer Makes Its Move

Your Reformer’s new InstructorPro platform and education suite arrive just as HVLP and big-box operators begin making serious moves into reformer Pilates

The Pilates boom has been well-documented, but what’s coming next may be even bigger, as high-value, low-price gym (HVLP) and big-box operators are mapping out their own Pilates strategies, ready to catapult what was once a boutique specialty into the mainstream.

For those keeping score, it’s already underway: an upcoming Crunch Fitness gym in McKinney, Texas, will be home to a dedicated reformer Pilates studio; 24 Hour Fitness has been piloting its own Pilates format at select clubs while amenity-rich HVLP player Amped Fitness and World Gym have made similar investments.

Your Reformer co-founder Ben Stallworthy knows the conversations well — many are happening directly with the Pilates equipment and content company he founded with his wife, Emma. Though Your Reformer is not yet disclosing specific partnerships, the interest is broad, the pair said.

“They’re all going through that transition,” Ben said of the numerous operators weighing how much floor space to allocate to the fast-growing modality. “It’s a really exciting time to make reformer Pilates more accessible for more people.”

The Australian company, which serves more than 1,000 businesses across 50-plus countries, recently launched InstructorPro alongside a suite of Pilates education solutions, in preparation for what the Stallworthys see as the modality’s next major growth phase.

The InstructorPro platform gives instructors and operators a drag-and-drop class builder with professionally filmed exercises and the ability to customize springs, timing, props and transitions, addressing what Emma Stallworthy describes as some of the industry’s most pressing pain points, including instructor recruitment, consistency and scalability.

“I think we’re very, very well aware of the shortage of instructors globally,” she said. “Not being able to keep up is a real problem for studios and businesses.”

The other part of the launch — the educational component — offers certification programs for instructors and master trainer workshops for ongoing education, another area of opportunity, Emma noted, particularly in the U.S.

“There’s not a lot of contemporary fitness-style training — it’s still quite classical, full repertoire,” she said.

The proof of concept of scaling Pilates in larger formates, Ben added, is already visible in Australia, where HVLP operators have moved well past the consideration stage.

“The quickest growing operators in the Australian market right now are the ones that have found a sweet spot in HVLP, but then having a level two membership that’s attracted high yield to the club,” he said. “Not only that, they’re attracting a brand new member that they’ve never brought in before. They’re getting their female utilization up as well.”

Your Reformer’s platform allows operators to tailor the experience to their own branding, and some are taking it a step further with a low-labor model.

“We’re definitely seeing plenty of entrepreneurs who, seeing the metrics of a 24/7 reformer Pilates studio, are starting to open them and scale them,” Emma said. “Some have roaming instructors, some have no resourcing at all and it’s all about the tech.”

They also see plenty of room to grow. Ben cited rapid growth in the U.K. — “no signs of that slowing down,” he said — as well as Europe and Japan as evidence that Pilates has moved firmly past trend status.

And as former health club operators, the Stallworthys never doubted the staying power of reformer Pilates.

“We’d seen some of our lower-paid members willing to upgrade their membership to the highest yield, and then we saw the retention effect it had,” he added. “It wasn’t like people were just trying it and not staying with it. The more people are trying , the more they continue to stay. It makes sense — it’s going to continue to expand and grow because of the benefits.”