Reformer vs mat Pilates: which should you choose?

When people say they do "Pilates," most don't realise there are two distinct types. People who actually do Pilates know the difference. Mat and reformer share the same principles, control, breath, alignment, core activation, but the experience of doing them is not close to the same.

So which one should you pick? Rather than declaring a winner, here's exactly how they differ, so you can choose based on what you actually want out of it.

What mat Pilates actually is...

Mat Pilates is done on the floor, using your own bodyweight as resistance. It's built from the original bodyweight exercises in Joseph Pilates's Contrology method, developed nearly a century ago: controlled movement, precise breathing, and deep core engagement. Think of exercises like the hundred, roll-ups, and single leg circles.

Its biggest strength is accessibility. All you need is a mat, or often not even that. You can do it in a studio, in your living room, or from a video on your phone. It has a long track record for building core strength, improving posture, and developing body awareness.

What reformer Pilates actually is...

Reformer Pilates uses a machine with a sliding platform (the carriage) attached to adjustable springs. Joseph Pilates developed the reformer himself, as part of the same original system as mat work. As the story goes, he built the first version while interned on the Isle of Man during the First World War, rigging springs to hospital beds to help bedridden fellow internees regain strength and movement, an early version of what he later called the Universal Reformer. Those springs can add resistance or assist a movement, which opens up a much wider range of exercise than bodyweight alone allows.

Because the carriage moves, your body can travel through longer ranges of motion than a static floor position permits. And because the springs are adjustable, the same exercise can be made easier or harder in seconds, without changing the movement itself.

The real differences

	Reformer Pilates	Mat Pilates
Resistance	Adjustable springs, can assist or challenge	Bodyweight only
Range of motion	Extended, the carriage creates longer arcs	Limited to floor position
Exercise variety	Hundreds of exercises across multiple positions	Broad, but bodyweight limited
Where you can do it	Usually studio-based, home reformers exist but are a bigger investment	Anywhere, just a mat
Cost	Higher, studio classes	Lower, especially with our guided studio mat classes
Progression	Springs allow small, precise increases in resistance over time	Progression comes from harder variations and control, effective with consistency
Injury and rehab suitability	Can work well for some conditions, spring assistance allows load to be reduced	Can work well for some conditions, floor-based positions suit others better

If you're managing an injury or a specific condition, speak to your instructor or a physiotherapist about which approach suits you, the right choice varies from person to person.

Which is easier for beginners?

We recommend starting with mat. It teaches you the core repertoire, the hundred, roll-ups, leg circles, and the control, breath, and alignment behind them, without a machine adding load or variables on top. That foundation makes everything you do on the reformer afterwards click faster, because you're learning new equipment on top of movement patterns you already understand, rather than trying to absorb both at once.

Mat also wins clearly on accessibility. If cost or location is the deciding factor, it's a completely valid place to start and stay.

Does Pilates build strength?

It's worth answering this properly, because "strength" gets used loosely and personal trainers and Pilates instructors don't always mean the same thing by it. From a training perspective, strength adaptation, and muscle growth specifically, depends on progressive overload: gradually and continually increasing the demand placed on a muscle over weeks and months, usually by adding external resistance. That's how traditional weight training builds size and maximal strength over the long term.

Reformer springs do add resistance, and moving up through spring levels does follow the same basic principle. But spring resistance eventually has a ceiling, unlike a barbell or dumbbell, where you can keep increasing weight indefinitely. That's part of what makes reformer such a sustainable, long-term practice, suitable at any age and any stage of training. So if the goal is to keep building muscle size or maximal strength long-term, you'd need to bring in resistance that keeps increasing beyond it.

The good news is you don't have to choose, our REBUILD. class brings weights into the reformer format, so you can keep progressively overloading in exactly the same way a strength programme does, rather than relying on springs alone.

What the reformer, and Pilates generally, is genuinely excellent at is something different: deep core strength, and the smaller stabilising muscles around your joints, the ones that control and support movement rather than produce big, visible force. Think transverse abdominis, pelvic floor, rotator cuff, the muscles around the hips and spine. Training these well improves posture, joint control, balance, and how efficiently your bigger muscles fire during any other activity, from running to lifting to daily life. That's real strength, just not the kind that shows up as bulk.

So the honest answer: Pilates builds functional, stabilising strength very effectively, and reformer adds a genuine training stimulus mat alone can't fully replicate.

Which is better for flexibility?

Both develop flexibility well. The reformer can make it easier to work through a longer range of motion within the exercise itself, rather than adding separate stretching afterwards. Mat-based stretch sequences can achieve comparable results with consistent practice.

Can you do both?

Yes, and plenty of people do exactly that. Mat and reformer work brilliantly together, mat sharpens breath and core control in a stripped-back setting, while reformer adds load and range on top of it. Neither one is a lesser version of the other, they're just different tools for different days.

The spring system doesn't just add resistance. It changes the entire relationship between your body and the movement.

Why Renegade teaches both.

We think mat and reformer are equally beneficial, just suited to different people and different goals, so our timetable is built around both. That includes classical mat and reformer sessions rooted in Joseph Pilates's original method, alongside more modern, dynamic classes that bring in weights and a stronger conditioning focus, with a faster pace.

Want to give it a go? Don't know where to start?

If you've never tried reformer before, our FOUNDATIONS. class is the place to start. It's a first-timer reformer class where we go through all the basics together, everyone in the room is in the same boat, so there's no pressure and no guesswork. Once you're comfortable on the machine, you're ready to move into our full timetable.

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