What actually happens in your first reformer Pilates class

You have probably seen the photos by now. A long padded bed on wheels, springs underneath, straps at one end, and somebody lying on it looking entirely at home. It is a strange-looking piece of kit if nobody has ever explained it to you, and the question most people are really asking is not "what is reformer Pilates". It is "will I be the only one in that room who has no idea what she is doing".

So here is the whole thing, from the moment you arrive to the way your legs feel walking back down the stairs. No mystery, and no kit list you do not already have.

A reformer is a sliding bed with springs underneath, and that is genuinely most of it

The carriage is the padded platform, and it slides forwards and back along two rails. At one end there is a footbar you press against. At the other, long straps with handles you can hold or loop round your feet. Underneath the carriage sit colour-coded springs, and those springs are the only thing making the work harder or easier.

That is the machine. There is nothing to programme, no screen, and no settings to get wrong.

What the springs also do — and this is the part almost nobody expects — is hold you. When you lie on the carriage with your feet on the bar, the machine is supporting your spine, your head and your pelvis while your legs do the work. Nothing is asking you to hold yourself up off the floor. The reformer holds you while you work, and for a lot of people that is the difference between movement feeling possible and movement feeling like one more thing to brace against.

More spring usually means easier, not harder

This one catches everybody out, so it is worth saying plainly.

On a great many reformer exercises, adding springs adds support. The carriage becomes steadier and the machine does more of the stabilising for you. Take springs away and you have less to push against, so your own deep muscles have to work harder to keep everything travelling in a straight line.

Which means that when an instructor leans down and changes your springs mid-class, she is not passing judgement on you. She is setting the machine up so the exercise does what it is meant to do in your body. You can ask her why. She will be pleased you did — understanding the reasoning is what turns a class you attend into movement you actually own.

Your first class starts about ten minutes before it starts

We ask you to arrive ten minutes early, and it is not to be officious. It is because that ten minutes is where the class becomes yours.

You will be asked about your body. Whether anything is currently sore, whether you have a back that grumbles or a knee with opinions, whether you are pregnant or recently postnatal, whether you have had surgery. Then your instructor will set the carriage length and the springs for your height and your build, and show you where to put your hands and feet before anyone asks you to move.

Two practical things. Grip socks are required for reformer classes — the carriage moves, and bare feet on a moving surface is not a risk worth taking. If you do not own a pair, we keep plain ones at the studio, so please do not let it be the thing that stops you booking. And the Tower studio is on the first floor, which means around eighteen steps turning two corners. If stairs are difficult for you, please say so before you book: our Studio Circuit classes run downstairs and do very similar work on equipment that comes to you.

You will spend a good deal of the class lying down

A typical fifty minutes moves through footwork — lying on your back, feet on the bar, pressing the carriage away and drawing it home — then work with the straps for your legs and arms, then some kneeling, sitting or standing exercises depending on the class.

It is not the kind of class where you finish red-faced and gasping. It is quieter than that, and considerably more demanding than it looks. Your legs will shake somewhere around the third set of footwork. Your deep abdominals will burn in a way that is oddly satisfying. The effort is in control rather than speed, which is exactly why it suits a body rebuilding strength rather than chasing it — and strength work of this kind is part of what the NHS recommends for adults each week.

Nobody is watching you, because everybody is concentrating

Our reformer classes are capped at six. That number is not a marketing line — it is how many people one instructor can genuinely see, correct and adjust in fifty minutes.

It also means the room is quiet and busy at the same time. Everyone is horizontal, everyone is counting, and the woman on the machine next to you is far too occupied with her own springs to be forming a view about yours. By your second class the instructor will know your name and which shoulder is the one that plays up.

You do not need to be strong, flexible or experienced to start

The phrase we hear most often, from women standing in reception with their coat still on, is some version of "I should probably get a bit fitter first". You do not need to. That is what the class is for.

Reformer | Foundation exists precisely for a first reformer class — it is where the machine gets explained rather than assumed, and there is no prerequisite for it at all. Every exercise has a version that fits the body in front of it: springs changed, range shortened, a strap swapped for the bar. Movement gets adapted to the person, never the person to the movement. You can see what runs when on our class schedule, and there is more on each of the four class types on the reformer Pilates page.

You will feel it the next day, somewhere you were not expecting

Inner thighs. The sides of your ribs. The muscles between your shoulder blades that you had rather forgotten about. Ordinary muscle soreness that settles within a day or two, and a fair sign that something has been asked to work that had not been asked in a while.

What you should not feel is anything sharp, or pain that is worse the following week rather than better. If something during a class feels wrong rather than hard, say so at the time — that is part of what having a physiotherapist in the building is for, and a physiotherapy assessment is often the more useful place to begin if there is a specific injury sitting behind the question.

When you are ready

The simplest way to try the reformer is three classes for £45, valid for 21 days from your first booking. Book Foundation first, come in your comfiest leggings, and let us do the rest. Whenever you're ready, we're here.

Ailsa Bell MSc BSc is a Chartered Physiotherapist and Pilates teacher at Nutrio Physio & Pilates, 594 Brook Street, Broughty Ferry. HCPC registered (PH127188), CSP member (112899). This blog is general information and not a substitute for individual clinical advice — if you have a specific injury or condition, please get in touch and we'll point you to the right starting place.