Guide: How To Start Adding Weight
How to Start Adding Weight to Your Pilates Practice
Note: I’m getting a lot of questions lately about Pilates and strength training, especially as Pilates has become more popular. I’ll try to break it down for you! Pilates absolutely builds strength. It improves muscular endurance, control, and stability in a really effective, low-impact way. But at a certain point, especially if your goal is to build muscle or support bone density, you need more load. That means heavier resistance. More external weight. Challenging your muscles in a different way. This is something I’ve been incorporating more into my classes by popular demand, and also because it works.
If you’ve been doing Pilates consistently and are ready for more challenge, here’s how to start thinking about adding load.
Start with a stable base. You’ll be able to lift more weight when your body is supported. Think stability first..then load.
Ex:
on the floor
on the reformer box
or when all springs are on
Add weight gradually. You don’t need to jump straight to heavy, increasing reps with the same weights counts.
Ex: Start by increasing slightly from what you’re used to, and build from there.The goal is to feel challenged, not overwhelmed.
Work closer to fatigue
Ex: If you finish a series like lunging and feel like you could easily do a lot more, it might be time to increase resistance. You want the last few reps to feel like work, while still maintaining control.
Keep your form
More weight only works if you can control it. If your lower back or hips start taking over, or you lose alignment, scale it back. Think Control first. Then intensity.
Use Pilates as your advantage
As a seasoned Pilates mover, you already have:
body awareness
control
stability
That makes adding weight safer and more effective.
Keep Pilates AND Strength training. You don’t need to replace your Pilates workouts. Just layer in more load where it makes sense. It’s not either/or…it’s both!
