I realised something needed to change when I nearly toppled over trying to tie my shoelaces. I was on a busy high street, with people rushing past holding shopping bags, when I saw my open shoelace spooled on the ground. I bent down to deal with it and felt gravity move against me. Only a quick flail of my arms stopped me from faceplanting. When I raised myself back upright, I felt a sharp pain in my lower back. This can’t be right, I thought.
Bracing my foot on a bin to finally fix my shoelace, it dawned on me. I’d become rusty. My core strength was nonexistent, as was my flexibility. Years behind a desk had taken a toll, not helped by an after-work routine of watching TV or playing video games on the sofa. But after getting home and doing some research (yes, from my sofa), I found a potential remedy: pilates.
Originally known as contrology, this so-called “mind-body exercise” was created by a former boxer roughly a century ago. Joseph Pilates, a German national, came up with the series of exercises while detained as an “enemy alien” on the Isle of Man during the first world war. In the 1920s, he moved to New York City and set up a studio near a dance school, where it was discovered by ballerinas seeking to soothe their overworked joints.
As well as boosting flexibility, I read that pilates could help with injury recovery. I’ve had shoulder pain since the start of the year, so this seemed another reason to give it a try.
I’m late to the party, though. The UK pilates and yoga market is now worth a reported £1.1bn, and although the practice has long been dominated by women, men are increasingly taking notice. As the Wall Street Journal reported this week, “Gym bros are going to pilates – and leaving shaking like a chihuahua.”
Sports stars including LeBron James, Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham have sung pilates’ praises, alongside the actor Glen Powell and the singer Harry Styles. The reggae star Shaggy has become so fond of reformer pilates, with its bed-like exercise machines, that he is considering buying some for his homes in Florida and Jamaica. “You’re touching muscles you didn’t know you had,” he told the New Yorker mid-exercise. “Jesus Christ!” His praise (or warning) is ringing in my head as I venture to my first class.
But before heading off, I have to sort out my attire. Pilates may once have been “more of a male discipline”, in the words of Hernan Castro-Vidal, who runs the Pilates Nutrition studio in south London, but it’s become associated with images of impeccably groomed “pilates princesses”, showcasing their carefully chosen, colour-coordinated outfits on social media. My wardrobe is much less stylish. When it comes to the gym, I usually throw on an old T-shirt – but this won’t do if I’m to become a “pilates prince”.
I manage to dig out a wrinkled gym vest, but, despite numerous attempts, it appears resistant to my iron: perhaps I should just embrace the term “pilates pauper”.
Week one: ‘After 20 minutes, I am pleading for the class to be over’
I start with reformer, not just the most fashionable form of pilates, but also the easiest-looking. As far as I can see, you just strap your hands and legs into some felt hoops and let the machine do the work. Walking into a mid-afternoon class at my local gym, however, I still feel intimidated. There are more than a dozen machines in the room, looking more intricate than I expected now I can see them close up. And my classmates – about 50/50 men and women – appear to know them inside out.
Before getting strapped in, we are told to touch our toes while maintaining a steady balance. I falter a few times, getting flashbacks to my shoelace mishap, but eventually get the hang of it. Then the fun part begins. We are told to lie on the machine, remove some coloured springs to adjust the resistance, place our toes on the foot bar (a horizontal pole at the end of the contraption) and push, lengthening our bodies. Not too difficult, I think, but things are just getting started. After doing the same movement with both heels, we are told to raise one leg into the air, bent at the knee, and push the foot bar again. We look like a roomful of half-arsed ballerinas, but I can feel a burn starting. Swapping legs, we do the other side before things ramp up.
The next 40 minutes are a bit of a blur, though the most traumatic exercises I recall include the hundred, where we place our hands in the hoops and, keeping our legs in the air, pump our arms up and down, which leaves my core burning, and leg circles, where we place our feet in the hoops and raise them towards the ceiling before lowering them and widening to make a circle. It looks simple but, after the fifth circle, every bit of my lower body is on fire. I struggle to keep up and the instructor comes over repeatedly to correct my form. After 20 minutes, I am pleading for the class to be over.
The next day is where things really come into focus. I struggle to stand and parts of my body I never knew could be targeted are burning. It may have looked easy – but far from it.
Week two: ‘The appeal is starting to dawn on me’
After my large class, it’s time for something more intimate. At Castro-Vidal’s studio, I join a session with three others, one woman and two men. I arrive after work, with the aches from last week’s class just about subsiding and, to be honest, I’m dreading it.
Castro-Vidal says he has seen a sharp rise in men signing up for pilates, with many influenced by “celebrities and footballers”. Most are nervous about diving head-first into a group class, and opt for private sessions at first. Out of the 15 clients he sees for private classes, 12 are men. “They’re a little bit shy and they don’t want to join a group session yet,” he says. I, however, am thrown into the deep end and plonked on to a reformer machine after a brief warmup. The exercises are similar to the previous class, but Castro-Vidal corrects my form throughout, pressing down on my stomach while angling my body on the machine to ensure my core is correctly engaged, and holding my feet down when they are on the verge of slipping off the foot bar. It makes a world of difference. In the larger class, keeping pace with everyone else was top of my mind.
Today, the pace is slower, but every movement feels like it’s hitting the right place. That’s not to say it isn’t utterly exhausting. Halfway through, I feel myself buckling, but with Castro-Vidal’s keen eye on me, I persist. I stretch my body out on the machine, and this time the hundred isn’t the ordeal it was before. I even raise my legs towards the ceiling with ease.
At the end of the session, I’m beat, but I’m able to move my bad shoulder with much less pain. The appeal of pilates is starting to dawn on me. “We need to differentiate between workout classes and the true essence of pilates,” Castro-Vidal tells me. For him, classes with dozens of people might be a good taster for reformer pilates, but they’re not the real deal. “It’s not just a workout – it’s a discipline. It can even become a way of life,” he says. He believes “six people is the maximum number to be able to provide attention to everyone”.
Alongside me in the class is Divanka Wijendra, a 43-year-old GP. He used to attend Hiit (high-intensity interval training) classes and did CrossFit, but as age crept up on him, he thought: “I don’t think I can keep up with the intensity.” This is a trend he has observed among his male friends. “People are enjoying the slightly slow pace of it compared with the intense Hiit style of training,” he says.
This shift is industry-wide. In 2018, about 14,000 gyms around the world were affiliated with CrossFit. In 2025, this figure had dropped to less than 10,000. At the same time, pilates, especially reformer, is booming. In the UK, the business insurance provider Protectivity reported a rise of more than 900% in applications from reformer instructors between 2024 and 2025.
Wijendra’s interest was piqued by social media. “On Instagram, it was always popping up on the algorithm and I started to see a lot more people doing it. There were a lot of funny videos of men trying to do it and getting it a bit wrong.”
His first session with Castro-Vidal left him feeling achey and stretched. “I was thinking: ‘Oh, my God, this is quite tough” – but he persisted because he “enjoys a challenge”. Six months on, his core is stronger and his posture has improved. “I can definitely bend down and touch my toes,” he says. I’ve still got some work to do to match him.
Week three: ‘My body is once again on fire’
After two high-octane weeks, I book a machine-free mat pilates class and hope for some respite. Oh, how wrong I am. I join a class of eight, including one other man, lying on the mat, placing a ball between my shoulder blades and doing what feel like crunches on overdrive. I’m familiar with most of the exercises that follow, but without the machine, I’m relying on my own balance, strength and flexibility. I topple to my side many times. After 40 minutes of gut-busting stretches, arduous leg raises and (I never thought I’d say this) some mercifully tame planks, the class is over. It’s far harder than reformer and my body is, once again, on fire. But if I’d done my research, this wouldn’t have come as a surprise.
“We recommend reformer to people who struggle to do mat to help them to get stronger,” says Stephanie Tam, a pilates instructor at Third Space. She has been an instructor for eight years and teaches only mat pilates.
“Mat is the original. It’s what pilates started as,” Tam says, calling it the “best form of exercise for everyone”. When she started teaching, she didn’t see men very often, but now they are a common sight in her classes. “I love it when men come,” she says. “I think a lot of them expect it to be really easy and then they try it and see how challenging it really is.”
Despite the shared exercises, the two variants of pilates feel distinct. Reformer is great for feeling flexible, but mat feels like a true test of my abilities. I enjoy the challenge and I can see myself doing both in the future.
Week four: ‘I am beginning to feel at one with the machine’
After three weeks, have I graduated to a “pilates prince”? I look more like one, having treated myself to a trio of fancy workout vests. But it’s time to test myself with a final session. I return to the reformer class I joined in my first week, in a conquering mood. Like the others in my class, I am beginning to feel at one with the machine.
Before getting started, it’s time to warm up. I bend down and manage to touch my toes without toppling over. Hurdle one complete. Now the hard graft. We begin with pushing ourselves up with our toes and heels on the foot bar. Easy! Then some leg raises. My confidence falters a bit here and I fail to keep a fixed position, but I bounce back after readjusting and taking things at my own pace, ignoring the veterans around me. Next up is the hundred. It’s tough, but nowhere near as arduous as the first time around.
Before I know it, the 40 minutes are almost over. My body aches, but not nearly as much as before: it seems I’m getting used to it. We finish with “hunchbacks”, our hands sprawled against the ground touching our toes before rolling our spines upwards until we’re standing. Class is over.
Did a month of pilates change me? My stomach certainly feels firmer. I can also bend down and touch my toes with good balance: an untied shoelace will take me down no longer. Doing the splits is a long way off but my morning stretches feel more elongated and my posture is slightly improved, though my spine is hardly ruler-straight. And what about my shoulder? I didn’t expect pilates to be a magic bullet, but there’s less pain.
Will I be posting my #pilatesprince snaps on social media? I’ll hold off for now. I haven’t transformed into a pilates obsessive – but I can see myself taking a class every few weeks.