Pilates has flooded everyone’s social media, and celebrities, influencers, and even the buffest football players are jumping on the bandwagon to take classes.
Pilates topped the list for the most globally booked workout class in 2024 for the second year in a row, according to fitness subscription platform ClassPass.
But even with everyone popping in to take spring-based workouts classes, two of them are often grouped together, causing confusion.
The Pilates movement has also influenced an obsession with its hotter, younger cousin, Lagree, which offers a very different experience, according to the creator of the workout method, Sebastian Lagree.
“First of all, there’s no ‘Lagree Pilates’ — that doesn’t exist. It’s either Lagree or Pilates. Lagree is not a version of Pilates,” Lagree said.
Lagree: Origins and Implications
Lagree is always passionate about defending his workout method. He started teaching Pilates classes in Los Angeles in the late 1990s to financially support himself and his acting career. But his time teaching Pilates didn’t last long.
“After the first 30 days, I got so freaking bored teaching it,” Lagree said.
He began to recognize that Pilates would not help his clients achieve the toned, lean look they desired, so Lagree applied strength-training techniques from his background in bodybuilding and weightlifting to create the Lagree method.
To help teach his new method, he created a new machine called the Proformer, inspired by the classic Pilates reformer. He designed it to accommodate more intense, strength-based workouts.
This hybrid approach offered a unique combination that mixed the intensity of weight training with the aesthetic appeal of Pilates. Resistance bands are connected to the Performer machine as people do curls and lunges to get a sweaty, challenging workout session that promises muscle-building results.
“People think it’s Pilates. And halfway through, they’re like, ‘Okay, this is not Pilates. What the fuck is going on?’” Mikael Padilla, studio owner and head trainer of Lagree Underground in LA, said.
While Pilates offers a low-impact, low-intensity form of movement, Lagree is a high-intensity workout that pushes muscles to failure, aiming to build strength.
“Lagree is circuit training, it is based on muscular endurance primarily because when you do Lagree, you get very strong, but very tight,” Lagree said.
“It’s apples and oranges,” Padilla said. “There are some similarities, but they’re very different. When Lagree was created, it was created along the lines of being very low-impact, easy on the joints, like Pilates, but more of a workout like bodybuilding.”
The Pilates Evolution
Pilates was created in the early 1920s to help injured soldiers rehabilitate from their injuries by using controlled movements to build strength, flexibility, and overall physical health.
“It’s a therapy for your joints.” Sebastian Lagree said.
Joseph Hubertus Pilates initially called Pilates “Contrology,” and it was popular with dancers, actresses, and elite social circles, but struggled to gain validity in the medical world.
It wasn’t until after Joseph Pilates passed away in 1967 that a new generation of instructors began opening studios in the 1980s and developed formal training programs for teaching.
Pilates later experienced a resurgence in the 1990s, coinciding with the boom in group fitness classes. Practitioners were committed to the original “Classical Pilates” method, which prioritized structure, control, precision, and intentional breathwork.
But now, people are expanding on the basic form and making it their own.
“There’s a lot of other spring-based workouts that often get lumped in,” Sarah Martz, CEO and Owner of Coreology, said.
Various workout studios use the reformer, Megaformer, or create their own reformer-inspired machines to lead a workout that’s not quite Pilates or Lagree, yet these classes use principles from both methods and make them their own.
“There are many different ways you can exercise using spring-based resistance, and it’s interesting to see over time, trends come and go, and science evolves,” Martz said. “It’s a mistake to get stuck in one protocol as the fitness industry evolves in general.”
Martz said she and her husband created their own version of a reformer called the XFormer to fit their studio’s need,s and now it has also been adopted in studios around the world.
She said it gives the other studio owners an opportunity to “ develop and use [a machine] for their own exercise protocol that is outside of the Lagree restrictions.”
Equipment Differences
Lagree typically uses the MegaFormer, which was inspired by the Pilates reformer with five key differentiators.
- Size: Lagree’s MegaFormer is larger (124-130 inches) compared to traditional Pilates reformers, accommodating taller and more athletic clients.
- Functionality: Pilates reformers are designed for lying down exercises, while the MegaFormer is meant for standing exercises like squats and lunges.
- Accessories: The MegaFormer has more handles, cables, platforms, and attachments compared to traditional reformers.
- Spring System: Lagree has redesigned the spring location and mechanism, allowing for easier and automated spring changes during workouts.
- Back platform: While the reformer only has a front platform, the MegaFormer also has a back platform, so clients have to work against the resistance instead of with it, making it a much more difficult workout.
So which one is better?
Neither is necessarily better than the other- in fact, Sebastian Lagree has repeatedly said “I love Pilates!”
If you are looking to hop on the trend and take a Pilates class, make sure you know what you are signing up for. Lagree is inspired but is going to a totally different high-intensity workout, where you will leave sweating and shaking. On the other hand, if you are recovering from an injury or want a lower-intensity method, Pilates is right for you.