A $120B Business: How Pilates Became Popular, Joseph Pilates
Key Takeaways
- Joseph Pilates developed the low-impact workout to rehabilitate prisoners.
- The exercise entered the mainstream in the U.S. in the 1990s.
- Here’s how the practice evolved over the years, and what’s driving its latest spike.
Whether you’ve taken a Pilates class or not, you’ve no doubt heard of the exercise, which has enjoyed several spikes in popularity over the last century — including one that’s endured in recent years.
Pilates and yoga studios make up an estimated $120 billion market as of 2025.
Joseph Pilates, who was born in Germany in 1883 and trained as an acrobat and gymnast, developed the low-impact workout, which can improve muscle tone, flexibility and strength, and rehabilitate injuries.
In the early 1910s, Pilates and his performance troupe worked in England, where he still lived when World War I began. Pilates was imprisoned by the British as a German national classified as an “enemy alien.”
During his time in an internment camp, Pilates led injured inmates in rehabilitative exercises which could be done from a hospital bed, and led to the now-widespread practice.
Image Credit: New York Pilates
How Pilates became mainstream — and a business — in the U.S.
Pilates’ journey in the U.S. kicked off when its founder brought the practice to Manhattan in 1926. The technique gained ground among professional dancers, then went mainstream in the late 1990s, per Vogue.
Additionally, although the exercise’s popularity has ebbed and flowed in the decades since, it hasn’t lost its grip on devotees who gravitate toward its low-impact approach and health benefits.
In fact, the exercise is perhaps more ubiquitous than ever before, inspiring not only classical and contemporary studios, but also a host of Pilates-adjacent spinoffs.
Heather Andersen, a former ballerina who co-founded the contemporary pilates studio brand New York Pilates with her husband Brion Isaacs, got her start in the industry as an instructor around 2008, primarily teaching private classes.
Image Credit: New York Pilates. Heather Andersen.
Andersen and Isaacs opened their first New York Pilates studio in 2013.
“At the time, if you were wanting to participate in Pilates, you had to go and book a private session, which has all sorts of hurdles — finding an instructor, scheduling, it’s expensive,” Andersen tells Entrepreneur. “I thought that you should be able to go take a reformer class in the way that you could go take a yoga class in New York City at any time of day or night.”
The reformer apparatus, a bed-like frame with a sliding carriage, was also created by Pilates, and features springs and ropes for resistance to aid in the signature full-body, low-impact workout.
The business of pilates and its spinoffs — and what keeps people coming back
New York Pilates is a contemporary studio focused on proper technique, form and functional alignment, Andersen says. When Andersen opened the first studio, she still considered reformer Pilates a somewhat niche activity, and says it was a “really wild experience” to see it rise in popularity as quickly as it did.
New York Pilates currently has eight studios across New York City and the Hamptons, with plans for two more locations underway.
Kat Anta, who started taking Pilates when she was 15 years old as a dancer with lower back pain, then fell in love with the practice and followed it into a career, has taught at New York Pilates for several years, and is also the education manager.
“ It’s a very broad [client] demographic, especially here at the Flatiron location, and I really enjoy that,” Anta says. “I get a chance to work with lots of different people with different bodies, whether they’re super athletic or maybe dealing with an injury. It’s a little bit of everything, which makes teaching fun.”
Anta notes that she teaches an open-level class, which offers modifications and advancements to suit different fitness abilities and goals. “Pilates is adaptable to your needs and your body,” Anta explains, “and I think that’s what keeps people coming back.”
Image Credit: New York Pilates
Building a business that centers on progress, growth and community
Additionally, Anta says that working with her students and seeing their growth day after day, week after week, is her favorite part of the job.
Andersen emphasizes a simple but critical fact: Effective Pilates instructors have a passion for interacting with people — and a studio is only as good as its instructors, and the community that results.
Some of the fastest-growing studios and brands that fall under the “Pilates-inspired” umbrella are able to raise money and expand rapidly because their instructors don’t necessarily require the same rigorous training and certification, Andersen notes.
New York Pilates has yet to take any outside investment, predominantly using debt financing and cash flow to grow.
“The product is real people showing up with