Reformer Pilates is booming in popularity, with our colleagues at Marie Claire raving about it and Vogue calling it a celeb-favorite workout. The reformer is a piece of equipment, roughly the size of a single bed, with a sliding platform to sit or kneel on; straps, springs and pulleys that add resistance to movement; and a bar at one end for support. It's a complicated-looking contraption and honestly, when I first saw it, I thought it resembled a medieval torture device, but having learned a bit more about reformer Pilates, I was intrigued enough to consider trying it at some point.
However, I recently got the chance to speak to Pilates instructor Rebecca Dadoun, who has some words of wisdom for people like me with limited experience of Pilates—“start on the mat,” says Dadoun. Reformer Pilates is great, she explained, but it’s like jumping in at the deep end of the pool when learning to swim.
