Let me give you an honest answer. If you’re over 40 and wondering if Reformer Pilates alone will keep your muscles and bones healthy, it depends on what you mean by "enough." Reformer Pilates is great for control, flexibility, good movement habits, and practical strength. But if you want to build maximum strength and keep your bones strong, you’ll need to add heavier, gradually increasing resistance over time.
This isn’t a criticism of Pilates. I’ve spent my career in this field, so I get why it’s easy to think the Reformer is all you need. But it’s really about the right tool for your goal, and the Reformer may not be the complete answer.
What Your Reformer Does Exceptionally Well
The Reformer offers benefits hard to find elsewhere. It helps you develop control, range of motion, and functional strength. These skills help you catch yourself if you slip, get up from the floor easily, and move smoothly through a wide range of motion. This foundation for good movement is something traditional strength training often misses.
Keep practising it. Build on what you’ve learned. The important thing is to know what the Reformer is meant for and what it isn’t. It wasn’t made to provide the increasing resistance needed to maximize strength and help your bones adapt. That’s not a flaw; it means it’s a different tool for a different purpose.
Is Reformer Pilates Enough to Build Muscle After 40?
To build and keep muscle, you need to make your workouts harder over time. This is called progressive overload. Your muscles need a reason to adapt, so as you get stronger, you must increase resistance. That’s why resistance training becomes more important as we age Wang et al. 2026). Research shows regularly challenging your muscles with more resistance helps maintain strength and muscle function.
Let me be honest, not just as a Pilates fan but as someone who practices it. Many Reformer exercises are challenging. However, some, especially for the lower body, don’t provide enough resistance to push strong muscles like traditional strength training does. The springs add resistance, but there’s a catch. As a spring stretches, its tension changes—light at one end and heavy at the other. This makes it hard to measure and increase the load clearly. Sometimes it’s too easy when you need a challenge and too heavy when you need control.
Does Feeling the Burn Mean You’re Building Strength?
That burning feeling means your body is working hard, but it doesn’t reliably show how much load your muscles or bones get. In a tough Reformer session, much of what you feel comes from controlling movement, balance, and coordination. This is part of what makes Pilates valuable, but it’s not the same as gradually increasing weight on your muscles. You can finish a session feeling shaky and tired, but your bones might still not get the challenge they need.
Bones respond best to strong, quick forces, which are hard to create with springs alone. Just because something feels hard doesn’t mean your bones and muscles are getting the right amount of load.
This matters more after 40. As we move through perimenopause and menopause, hormonal changes can accelerate bone loss, so maintaining bone strength becomes central to long-term independence. The honest answer is current evidence doesn’t show Pilates reliably increases bone mineral density in postmenopausal women: a 2022 meta-analysis found no significant improvement at the lumbar spine, total hip, or femoral neck (Gonçalves de Oliveira et al., 2022).
Context is important. The studies were small, with few randomized trials and some limits in their design. So I don’t take this to mean "Pilates doesn’t work." Instead, I see Pilates as great for many things, but building bone density needs a special kind of challenge Pilates might not offer.
What Does the Research Say About Strength Training and Bone?
The LIFTMOR trial shifted this conversation. Postmenopausal women with low bone mass trained twice a week with heavy resistance and impact work — including five sets of five reps at challenging loads. Researchers saw improved bone density at the spine and hip and better physical function, with no increase in injuries under supervision (Watson et al., 2018). That’s significant, because these are exactly the women usually told lifting heavy is too risky.
To be clear, this doesn’t mean everyone over 40 should start lifting as much as possible. The study used a specific supervised program. It shows that gradually increasing resistance and impact training can strongly benefit bone and strength.
Pilates and Strength Training Aren’t Competing
They serve different purposes. Lifting weights or using your own bodyweight gives your muscles and bones a challenge you can measure and increase over time. Pilates is excellent for control, range of motion, movement quality, and functional strength. If I had to choose, I’d pick practical strength and flexibility over just building muscle size. But what I prefer and what’s enough alone are two different things. Something can be truly valuable without meeting every need.
How to Add Strength Without Giving Up Your Reformer
The common advice is to keep doing Pilates and also find a place to lift weights. That’s not bad advice, but it means two routines, two places, and more time. For most people, the second part doesn’t happen—not because they don’t want to, but because life is busy.
So we created a solution. Hybrid Strength Classes on Freedom On Demand mix Reformer exercises with a few simple hand weights you can keep at home. To be clear, these aren’t just Reformer moves with a weight added, which would weaken both effects. Instead, the sessions switch between Reformer work and focused strength training, especially for the lower body where springs aren’t enough.
You can keep doing the Pilates you know and trust while adding the extra resistance your muscles and bones need. There’s no need for a second gym membership, another instructor, or a separate session. It’s all in one place. Different methods, but a complete approach.
What This Means for Your Training After 40
I don’t believe that getting older has to mean losing your abilities. In over 25 years of clinical practice, I’ve seen how staying active helps people stay strong, capable, and independent. The goal is always more years of real strength—the ability to do what you want, when you want, for as long as you can. That means training your whole body.
It would be easier to say that Pilates is all you need. But that wouldn’t be honest, and real results require honesty. The goal isn’t just to do more Pilates; it’s to help you stay strong, capable, and independent for as long as possible. That’s why we created our new Hybrid Strength Classes on Freedom On Demand.
Strength Hybrid Classes are available at Freedom On Demand Now
References
Watson SL, Weeks BK, Weis LJ, Harding AT, Horan SA, Beck BR. High-Intensity Resistance and Impact Training Improves Bone Mineral Density and Physical Function in Postmenopausal Women With Osteopenia and Osteoporosis: The LIFTMOR Randomized Controlled Trial. J Bone Miner Res. 2018;33(2):211–220. doi:10.1002/jbmr.3284
Gonçalves de Oliveira R, Ueno Anami GE, Aparecida Coelho EA, Campos de Oliveira L. Effects of Pilates Exercise on Bone Mineral Density in Postmenopausal Women: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis. J Geriatr Phys Ther. 2022;45(2):107–114. doi:10.1519/JPT.0000000000000309
Wang et al. The intervention effects of resistance exercise on sarcopenia in older adults: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Geriatrics. 2026.
