How hard is a Pilates class for a runner?
Researchers rate how hard an activity is in METs, multiples of the energy you use sitting still. The 2024 Adult Compendium of Physical Activities, the reference list they work from, calls 1.6 to 2.9 METs light, 3.0 to 5.9 moderate and 6.0 and above vigorous. It lists traditional mat Pilates at 1.8 METs and Pilates in general at 2.8. On the same scale, jogging at a pace you choose is 7.5 and running at 10 minutes a mile, about 6 minutes 13 seconds a kilometre, is 9.3. A typical class asks your heart and lungs for less than half of what even an easy jog does.
A 2026 review pooled the six studies that have measured Pilates sessions directly, all in healthy young adults and mostly on the mat. Its most reliable estimate was about 3.0 METs, and the authors placed Pilates in the light to moderate range, with low to very low certainty. Only one of the six compared the reformer with the mat directly: 2.5 METs against 1.8, in 18 physically inactive young women.
Rest may matter too. In the same review, sessions with rests of 60 seconds or less averaged about 3.4 METs and sessions with longer rests about 2.0, but the authors say no reliable conclusion can be drawn from that comparison of five studies against two. We found no measurement of the fast, athletic reformer classes some studios run, with short rests and heavy springs under the legs. If yours leaves you breathing hard, treat it as harder than these figures suggest.
METs measure the energy your whole body uses. What matters for the next run is whether the class tired the muscles that run. In one study of 16 men, leg-press repetitions were down 4 and 8 hours after aerobic training while bench press was not, and the authors judged the effect localized to the muscles that had worked.
That study tested the opposite order, aerobic work before lifting, but it is the closest evidence we found. A class built on bridges, lunges, footwork and calf raises spends the same legs your run needs. One built on the trunk, arms and shoulders mostly does not.
Pilates before or after running?
We found no study that tested a Pilates class before a run against one after it, or measured how long legs take to recover from a class. What follows is our view, built from the measurements above and from what is known about fatigue staying local.
On a key run day, run first. Intervals, a tempo run and the long run are the sessions you most want to do well, so give them fresh legs. A gentle class later in the day, or the next day, costs them nothing. A leg-heavy class beforehand risks starting the session with tired calves, glutes and hamstrings.
Long holds are one more reason. A 2013 meta-analysis of 104 studies found that holding static stretches just before a test lowered strength by about 5.4% on average, and least when the total time spent stretching was 45 seconds or less. It measured strength, power and jumping, not running, and most of a Pilates class is not static stretching. But a class that ends in long, held stretches belongs after a hard run rather than before it.
On an easy run day, either order works. An easy run is not asking for your best, so a gentle class can go before it or after it. If the class is the athletic kind, run first and take the class later.
On a day with no run, the class has the day to itself. That is what the 2018 trial below did: its runners took both of their weekly mat classes on the days they did not run.
| Class | Key run day (intervals, long run) | Easy run day | No-run day |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gentle mat class: slow, on the floor, longer rests | After the run, or another day | Before or after, either works | Fits well. The 2018 trial put its classes here. |
| Athletic reformer class: fast, short rests, heavy springs on the legs | Another day if you can. If not, after the run, with hours between. | After the run | The best place for it, away from your key runs |
Pilates and running on the same day is fine. If the class works your legs hard and the run matters, run first or give the class its own day: in the study of 16 men, leg-press repetitions were still down 8 hours after aerobic training and back to normal at 24. For lifting rather than a class, the order and the gap are covered in running and lifting.
Does Pilates make you a faster runner?
The trial behind the headline
The strongest evidence is one randomised trial from Brazil, published in 2018. It recruited 32 men who had run for at least six months and raced 5 km; the trial accepted ages 18 to 28 and both groups averaged about 18. All had run for no more than nine months, mainly twice a week. All of them followed the same 12-week track programme of two runs a week. Half also did two one-hour classical mat Pilates sessions a week, on the days they did not run. Of the 32, 28 finished: 13 with Pilates and 15 controls.
The Pilates group's 5 km time went from 25.65 to 23.23 minutes, about 2 minutes 25 seconds faster. The controls went from 25.33 to 24.61, about 43 seconds faster. The Pilates group also ran more economically at 12 km an hour, using less energy per metre, with less activity in the trunk and hip muscles. The paper's title calls the men trained runners; its methods call them recreational. A correction notice later added an author to the byline and changed none of the results.
Read it for what it is: 28 young men with less than a year of running behind them, and a control group that did nothing extra. It cannot say whether any two extra sessions a week would have done the same, or whether experienced runners would gain as much.
The result that did not reach significance
A 2023 trial gave 34 novice runners, 20 men and 14 women with a mean age of 27, either a 12-week home mat programme three times a week or no programme. It measured knee valgus, the knee drifting inward while the foot is on the ground. The Pilates group's knee drift fell by 5.1 cm, but the controls improved by 1.3 cm, and the difference between the groups was not statistically significant. The programme was done at home, so the authors could not check how fully or how well it was done.
The study with no control group
A 2017 study put 40 recreational runners through six weeks of clinical Pilates with an instructor. Their scores on a modified movement screen rose from about 13.5 to 17.0, and had not changed over the six weeks before the course. There was no separate control group, and a movement screen is a test of movement, not of running.
What has the broader evidence
For running economy, the measure the 2018 trial moved, strength training in the gym has more behind it. A 2016 meta-analysis of 5 controlled trials in 93 competitive middle and long distance runners, all with a VO2max above 60, found a large beneficial effect. The programmes were 2 to 4 lower-body exercises, mostly at 40 to 70% of one-rep maximum, plus up to 200 jumps and 5 to 10 short sprints, two or three times a week for 8 to 12 weeks. Those were highly trained runners, a group in which we found no Pilates trial at all.
One positive trial in young men new to running, one result that did not reach significance in novices, and one study with no control group. We found none in experienced runners, none on the reformer, and none that set Pilates against gym strength work head to head. Pilates may help a newer runner. It has not been shown to beat lifting and jumping.
Can Pilates replace strength training for runners?
For general health it can count: the NHS lists Pilates among its muscle-strengthening activities. The listing is the NHS's own, and whether a class is enough strength work for what you want has its own page: is reformer Pilates strength training.
For running faster, the studies above point one way. The running-economy gains in highly trained runners came from lower-body lifting, jumps and short sprints, not from a class. Our view: keep the class for what it gives you, and if speed is the goal, add lower-body strength and some jumping. Where that lifting goes against your runs is in running and lifting; where it goes against the class is in reformer Pilates and weights.
A week with three runs and two classes
Here is one way to arrange it. It is a general example, not a plan, built from the order and intensity evidence above: the key runs get fresh legs, the athletic class sits well away from them, and the gentle class shares a day with the easy run.
| Day | Session | Why it sits there |
|---|---|---|
| Monday | Rest | Nothing on it. |
| Tuesday | Interval run | A key run, with nothing leg-heavy the day before. |
| Wednesday | Athletic reformer class | The day after the intervals and three days before the long run, so its leg work has time to settle. |
| Thursday | Easy run and a gentle mat class | Neither asks for your best, so they share a day in either order. |
| Friday | Rest | Nothing on it. |
| Saturday | Long run | A key run, two days after the last class. |
| Sunday | Rest | Nothing on it. |
To copy the trial more closely, put both classes on days you do not run. If your studio's athletic class falls on the evening before your long run, move the long run a day later or take a gentler class that week. If a HYROX race is part of your running year, HYROX and running covers the race, and the crossovers page has other pairings.
On You, under SPORTS STACK, tap + ADD. Add Run from SPORTS, then your class from GROUP CLASSES, where Pilates and Reformer Pilates are both listed. Your studio's timetable decides when a class happens, so it starts on Fixed days and you pick its days before you save. With Pro or during your trial, your coach plans around your runs rather than on top of them. A class counts as training you have done, so with Pro or during your trial your coach adjusts what it gives you instead of adding on top. More in Add a sport or a class.
In a class's settings, Coach warm-up and cool-down offers a short activation routine to do before it, with Pro or during your trial, since the class brings its own warm-up. More in Sport settings.
Want one of your coach's sessions on another day? Tap Reschedule and pick it: a session you move stays where you put it. More in Move, copy or delete a session.
In your coach's sessions, exercises are shown as clean illustrations: the movement on a plain background, with nothing extra, so you see what to do at a glance. The team is exploring video and moving images. More in Exercise illustrations.