After 22 years of teaching Pilates, I’ve noticed that many clients—whether they’re beginners or experienced—often ask the same question: “Should I do matwork or Reformer classes?” Every week, I explain that Pilates isn’t about choosing one over the other. The real magic lies in how the mat and apparatus work together as a complete system.
At our studio, we’ve made it a priority to keep matwork and apparatus integrated. We deeply believe in Joseph Pilates' original vision—his 34 mat exercises and the transformative power of the apparatus. Every time a client asks, I remind them: to truly benefit from Pilates, you need to experience it as a whole, not in isolated parts. Practicing Pilates in bits, like pieces of a puzzle, won’t give you the remarkable results that the method offers. Remember, Pilates was never meant to be practiced in pieces; it was designed as an integrated system for maximum impact.
In our mission to create a truly transformational experience, we use all the tools and assets Pilates provides. So, it’s not about choosing mat or apparatus—it’s about understanding how they work together and what each one uniquely contributes to your practice. When combined, they offer more than just exercise; they enhance the quality of your life, adding vitality and strength.
Curious to learn how? In this article, I’ll share the true value of teaching Pilates as a whole. Let’s dive into how integrating matwork and apparatus can transform both your practice and your clients’ lives.
Beyond Mat vs. Apparatus: Teaching Pilates as a Complete System
When it comes to teaching Pilates, it's not about choosing between matwork or apparatus. Pilates is a complete system, a holistic method that integrates movement, life, and a deep connection between body and mind. It connects your physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual selves, helping you not just feel better but think, act, and live better. The method reshapes your body into what it was meant to be, putting you in control of your own well-being.
To truly experience the richness of Pilates, you need to embrace all its tools—both the mat and the apparatus. They are designed to work together, each with its own unique purpose and benefits. Teaching or practicing just one limits the incredible potential of the method. The real power of Pilates shines when we combine matwork and apparatus, creating a seamless and transformative experience for our clients.
Exploring Mat Pilates: Understanding Subtle Forces and Benefits
Mat Pilates, originating from Joseph Pilates' "Contrology," involves a series of 34 exercises that engage body weight in a dialogue with gravity. The mat teaches your body to respond to the invisible and subtle forces of gravity—a force we deal with every day to remain upright and balanced. This practice requires a deep understanding of how your body moves and performs with this invisible force constantly acting upon it. The matwork is about hearing your body’s needs with subtlety: How does your body organize itself when gravity pushes down on you? How do you learn to move efficiently and with control when there is no external support and you have to find all the help you need inside of you?
Matwork’s beauty lies in its simplicity—it requires no equipment, just your body and the floor. Yet, it is highly demanding. You are constantly challenged to find strength and balance from within. The mat cultivates body awareness, full body strength, and precision, making it an indispensable foundation for anyone looking to truly master the art of movement. It teaches us to perform in the face of everyday forces that we may not even realize we are dealing with. This demanding training of the body is profound but often difficult for clients that just started practicing.
Understanding Apparatus Pilates: The Purpose Behind Each Piece
Where matwork forces you to manage subtle forces, apparatus Pilates provides an environment that makes the body's work more precise and clearer with proper HELP. Each piece of equipment was designed by Joseph Pilates to bring out specific qualities and faculties in the body, having support. The apparatus allows you to feel, with precision, what your body needs at any given moment—whether that’s support, challenge, or alignment.
The Reformer: Shaping and Reforming Your Body
The Reformer is Joseph Pilates’ most versatile piece of equipment, designed to reform the body universally, meaning that anybody will benefit from the use of this piece of apparatus. Through the combination of gliding forces and the resistance of the springs, it moves your body through all joints and body parts with just the right amount of support or challenge. The Reformer creates a balance between strength, flexibility, and control, helping clients glide through movements while shaping the body from the inside out. It is this versatility that makes the Reformer one of the most beloved apparatuses in Pilates studios worldwide—it can target all areas of the body, ensuring a full-body approach in every workout. But with that said, I truly don’t believe in Reformer classes only as the Reformer was never designed to be used for group classes to entertain clients.
The Cadillac: Freedom of Movement with Control
The Cadillac, or Trapeze Table, was Joseph Pilates’ masterpiece. It offers a unique environment where the body is given the space to expand and move freely, yet with control. The Cadillac teaches you to create proper tone in your body without rigidity, much like a gymnast who maintains both tone and flexibility. It is a powerful tool for creating tensegrity—allowing the body to stretch and strengthen in all planes of movement while maintaining optimal space in all joints for freedom of movement. It’s about finding the space one needs in their body to feel light, freed from tensions and yet empowered from within.
Spine Corrector, Ladder Barrel, and Baby Arcs: Mobilizing and Realigning
These pieces of apparatus are crucial for mobilizing the joints, particularly the spine. They work like a personal chiropractor or osteopath, using compression and decompression to align the spine, hips, knees, and shoulders. The Spine Corrector and similar apparatus help correct misalignments, encouraging the spine to move more freely while restoring the body’s natural curves. Their function is to open up the body, releasing tension and promoting proper posture and alignment through decompression.
The Wunda Chair and High Chair: Stability and Pull Yourself Together
The Wunda Chair and High Chair are the ultimate tools for building stability in the body. By working on a small surface area with spring resistance, these apparatuses challenge your ability to pull yourself together, from the outside to the inside, creating a body that is compact and stable. The Wunda Chair is small and compact, while the High Chair, with its added authority, offers even greater resistance and support. These chairs teach the body how to find stability and strength, pulling your forces together toward the inside.
Baby Armchair: Strengthening the Arm-to-Core Connection
The Baby Armchair focuses on developing a strong connection between your arms and your organs. It teaches you to use your arms as extensions of your inner strength, supporting your ribcage and narrowing your waistline. This piece of apparatus helps you feel the inner lift, strengthening the connection between your hands, heart, and belly. It is an excellent tool for refining upper body control and alignment, making the most use of your hands.
Ped-o-Pul: Perfecting Posture and Lift
The Ped-o-Pul is a vertical piece of equipment that aligns your body from the feet up to the spine. It encourages proper posture through inner lift, improving alignment from the arches of your feet all the way to the base of your skull. This apparatus is ideal for those looking to enhance their posture and spinal alignment, making it a powerful tool for anyone struggling with slouching or poor body mechanics. It allows people to integrate that their body is deeply interlinked from feet to head in all movements in activities of daily living.
The Magic Circle, Toe Stretcher, Foot Corrector and Others: Specialized Tools for Precision
Joseph Pilates also created smaller apparatuses such as the Magic Circle, Toe Stretcher, Foot Corrector, Weighted Shoe and Breath-a-Sizer to target specific areas of the body. These tools are designed to enhance movement precision and create balance in areas that are often neglected, such as the feet or the breath. Each piece has a unique purpose, and together they provide the refinement needed for full-body integration.
Integrating Mat and Apparatus for a Full-Body Experience
It’s critical to understand that Pilates was never meant to be taught in bits and pieces. Teaching group classes on a single apparatus, such as the Reformer, often reduces Pilates to isolated parts of the entire Method, ignoring the full potential of the methodology behind Joseph’s teachings. Joseph Pilates envisioned his clients moving from one piece of apparatus to another with clear purpose, using each one to develop specific faculties and then integrating them into matwork. The mat teaches you to engage with the subtle forces of gravity, while the apparatus provides the support and resistance needed to refine those skills.
True mastery of Pilates comes from understanding how to blend mat and apparatus into a seamless, full-body experience. That is what a fully equipped studio stands for in my perspective. Each piece of apparatus has a distinct purpose and quality that it brings out in the body—whether it's creating stability, enhancing alignment, finding freedom or mobilizing all joints. To offer clients a complete Pilates experience, it is essential to integrate both matwork and apparatus into your teaching practice.
So the question should not be Mat vs Apparatus but Why and What to use to serve your clients progress with the Pilates Method, having access to all the tools and apparatus Joseph Pilates has created with clear intend!
Tips for Blending Mat and Apparatus for Optimal Results
When planning a session, you can start with matwork to assess how the body is interacting with gravity and subtle forces. Matwork will clearly show you where the body needs more support and where the body has sufficient capabilities to be further stimulated for greater progress.
Then move to the apparatus to refine, support, and challenge specific areas of the body. A well-rounded class will often include at least two - three pieces of apparatus alongside matwork, targeting different planes of movement, joints, and faculties in the body. Personally, I always finish the session with Joseph’s standing work, as this helps the client integrate what they’ve learned into functional movement outside the studio.
By understanding the purpose of each apparatus and how it connects to the matwork, you can provide your clients with a Pilates experience that goes way beyond average. When the session is carefully structured, with the right combination of apparatus and the right intent, Pilates continues to work in the body long after the client leaves the studio.
An effective well-structured and well-integrated Pilates Session will continue to do its magic, supporting your client’s body up to 72h after their stimulation with their session. My teacher always told me that my Pilates Class truly started once I was leaving the studio taking my Pilates with me into my daily activities of living.
Final Thoughts
The question of "mat versus apparatus" misses the point. Pilates is a complete system, and both are essential to fully experience its transformative power. Each apparatus brings out different qualities in the body, and when integrated with matwork, the method becomes an art that threads all elements together for the client’s benefit. Understanding how to use these tools in synergy ensures that your clients leave with a fully integrated, empowered body.
Only fully comprehensively taught teachers have a chance to understand these synergies in people’s experience with the Method. And only when used as a fully integrated movement Method can you expect to have truly transformational results with clients making the impossible possible.
It takes dedication, commitment and investment for a Pilates teacher to fully master the artistry of creating results for clients to transform their lives. Choosing to only be trained in the one or the other piece of the puzzle of the method not integrating all the tools and assets Joseph Pilates has grated will keep you limited in your power to transform people’s lives.
If you're searching for a community to inspire and uplift you in your Pilates teacher training, I invite you to join the Inner Circle for ongoing support and professional development. The Inner Circle is a community that nurtures your growth and celebrates your successes, whether you just got your first Pilates certification or are completing further Pilates education. Join us as we continue to inspire others in our studios!
In the end, remember that your Pilates journey is uniquely yours. Embrace both mat and apparatus Pilates, rekindle your passion, and continue inspiring healthier, happier lives. Here’s to your continued success in the beautiful world of Pilates!
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