SOUTH OF ENGLAND — Industry groups and instructors have called for formal regulation of the Reformer Pilates industry in the United Kingdom, where the number of businesses rose by nearly 1,000 percent between 2024 and 2025. The industry remains without formal regulation, and the rapid expansion has coincided with a shortage of qualified instructors and the rollout of intensive in-house training programs to meet demand.

Pilates Foundations, a teachers' association, warned that classes are "potentially dangerous in the hands of someone who has had a short period of training." Documented cases of injuries have occurred in Reformer Pilates classes. Reformer Pilates focuses on controlled movement targeting muscles not typically engaged in other exercises, and done safely it can improve posture, increase flexibility, and tone muscles throughout the body. Joseph Pilates invented the Reformer during World War I by adapting hospital beds with springs to help rehabilitate patients.

Rebecca Hosking, a Pilates instructor who teaches at Maison du Pilates in Bournemouth, said more should be done to regulate the industry. "There's so many training providers now, you seem to be able to get a training in a very short amount of time," she said. Hosking added, "I was definitely trained in an era where it was quite a remedial approach to teaching Pilates," and said, "There is always evidence evolving and changing" and "You never stop training as any exercise professional."

Nicki Fussell, a Pilates instructor who has been teaching since 2001 and has led more than 10,000 classes, called for baseline standards across the sector. "It would be amazing if the industry could introduce minimum training standards," she said. Fussell took her exams in Polestar over a two-year course involving more than 200 hours of work, and she said every client should check their instructor's qualifications.

Fussell also said that people taught by under-qualified instructors might get injured. "I'm a big believer in Pilates for everyone, but I would hope, which is what you do see, an inexperienced instructor often then goes and retrains with a good organisation because they feel out of their depth or they get told what to teach," she said.