Does Pilates count as strength training?

Your abs are on fire, your legs are shaking on the reformer, and by the end of class it feels obvious that you just did strength work. Partly, you did. But there is a gap between getting tired and giving your body a reason to change, and that gap is what this article is about.

Women's Health tackled the same question in August 2026. Brooklyn Pilates instructor Amy Wilkinson told the magazine that Pilates can build muscular endurance and a small amount of muscle early on, especially if you are starting after a sedentary stretch. Those gains tend to plateau, she said. The magazine put that down to Pilates moves not usually being taken to failure and to a method that doesn't build in a load that keeps climbing. The research gets more specific.

What 12 studies in adult women found

In September 2026 the journal Sports published a meta-analysis by Bajčetić and colleagues at the Faculty of Sport and Physical Education, University of Novi Sad, Serbia. They pooled 12 studies covering roughly 540 adult women who followed structured Pilates programs, and the studies looked at body composition, flexibility, muscle strength, balance, functional performance and respiratory function.

Some results were clear. On average, Pilates lowered body weight by 3.99 kilograms and body mass index by 1.22 points. Flexibility on the sit-and-reach test, where you sit with legs straight and reach toward your toes, improved significantly too. If your goal is to move more freely and lose some weight, Pilates delivers.

Where Pilates made no significant difference

Here is the less familiar part. Once the data were pooled, there was no significant effect on lean body mass, the part of your body that includes muscle. The same held for body fat percentage, waist size, waist-to-hip ratio, grip strength and vertical jump. These outcomes were measured. The pooled effect just wasn't significant.

There is a fair caveat, though. Looking at the studies one by one, the studies suggested gains in muscle strength, endurance, balance, functional ability and breathing, so Pilates is not useless for strength. What didn't show up in the pooled analysis was a significant gain in lean mass or grip strength.

How hard a class actually works your body

The second piece comes from the journal Systematic Reviews. In January 2026 it published a review by Vitor and colleagues at the State University of Northern Paraná in Brazil, built on six studies that measured how much energy the body burns during a Pilates session.

Energy use is expressed in METs. One MET is what you burn sitting still; 3 METs is three times that. Using only the most reliable studies, a typical session came in at about 3.0 METs, or roughly 2.9 calories per minute, which is light to moderate intensity. The authors stress that the evidence is thin, mixed and of low to very low certainty, so treat those figures as ballpark numbers rather than a measure of your own class.

One detail stands out. Sessions with rest periods of 60 seconds or less between sets and exercises were linked to higher intensity. That is not a proven formula. Still, the direction makes sense: keep the breaks short and the session gets more intense.

Why muscle needs a load that keeps rising

Muscle grows when you ask it for something it still finds hard, and that demand has to increase over time. In the same Women's Health piece, trainer Amy Kiser Schemper called this progressive overload: adding weight, reps, frequency or intensity so your body has to adapt. The magazine added that Pilates doesn't usually build in that kind of progressive overload.

The World Health Organization's 2020 guidelines, summarized in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, call for adults to do muscle-strengthening activities at moderate or greater intensity that involve all major muscle groups on two or more days a week. A demanding Pilates class can fit that description. What it usually lacks is a load that goes up, and it helps to know how to pick a weight at the gym.

What this research can't tell you

Start with who was studied. Only adult women took part, about 540 in total, in studies published between 2007 and 2025 that differed widely in program, length and quality. The authors themselves urge caution because of that spread. If you are a man, these results don't describe you directly.

Then there is what was compared. The meta-analysis shows what a Pilates program does on its own; it does not put Pilates head to head with weight training. The fact that lean mass didn't change in these women does not, by itself, tell us how much muscle something else would have built. And the intensity review rests on just six studies.

Making room for Pilates and weights in your week

If you enjoy Pilates, keep it. It improves flexibility, helps with weight and is a workout you actually show up for, which counts for a lot. The idea is to add to it, not to replace it.

Add two days a week of strength training with a load that keeps rising. A squat or leg press, a dumbbell deadlift, one pushing move and one pulling move will cover the basics. When the last two reps of a set start to feel easy, add a little weight. If you are not sure where to begin, strength training after 40 can start lighter than you think. At Gym Triple X, the weight room is there for those two days.

In class, if you use a reformer, ask for more spring resistance once an exercise stops challenging you, and keep the breaks between exercises short. That nudges the session closer to strength training while it stays Pilates.

Splitting your week between two kinds of training is easier when someone watches how you move and tells you when it is time to go heavier. If you would rather not figure it out alone, a personal trainer on the Costa del Sol can help you fit both into your week without overdoing it.