That’s the question Cody (from Anatomy of Pilates) and I went after on a recent Substack Live. Cody comes from kinesiology and strength coaching. I come from engineering. So instead of the usual surface-level social media argument about whether Pilates is or isn’t strength training, we got to slow down and actually unpack what those terms mean and where they meet on the reformer.
A few things we got into:
What progressive loading is, what the 10% rule is, and why it doesn’t translate cleanly to springs
Why classical Pilates already has progressive loading baked into the repertoire — even if no one calls it that
The footwork-vs-bodyweight-squat question: are springs heavy enough to actually build strength?
How the shape of a spring’s force curve — light at the start, heavy at end of range — changes the loading stimulus compared to a weight stack
Where Pilates and strength training genuinely overlap, and the parts of Pilates that have nothing to do with strength and shouldn’t be measured against it
The gap in initial Pilates teacher training around exercise science, and why it helps to understand the box before stepping outside of it
If you’ve been wondering what to believe across the Pilates vs. strength training debate, this conversation is for you. Cody is one of my favorite people to think out loud with. It gets nerdy in the best way.
If you aren’t following Cody already, you can find her on Substack and Instagram.
