What Is High Intensity Pilates?

As individual workouts, pilates and high-intensity interval training (HIIT) can significantly improve your physical fitness, strength and general wellbeing. But there are even more benefits to combining HIIT and pilates into one dynamic, full-body workout. The popularity of high intensity pilates is on the rise, particularly for those who struggle to integrate a balance of cardio, strength training and flexibility exercises into their fitness regime. For all things pilates and HIIT, we’ve consulted the expertise of FS8 to unveil the advantages of this blended workout so you can maximise your fitness results. 

What is HIIT pilates? 

High intensity pilates is an amalgamation of HIIT, reformer pilates and traditional mat pilates. This means combining the short, intense interval movements of a HIIT workout with slower, controlled pilates movements on a mat and reformer machine. The aim of HIIT pilates is to improve strength, muscle tone, mobility and flexibility while getting your heart and adrenaline pumping. This is achieved by reducing rest periods between pilates sets and by integrating HIIT movements alongside pilates movements. With HIIT pilates, you’re getting the best of both worlds: a full-body, sweat-inducing workout that targets all muscle groups. 

The benefits of combining HIIT and pilates 

As separate forms of exercise, pilates and HIIT offer great benefits for the body. Let’s break it down:  

What does pilates do for you? Pilates focuses on whole-body alignment, increasing mobility, flexibility, balance, and strength of all major muscle groups. It also helps with easing aches and the prevention of musculoskeletal injuries.“¹

What does HIIT do for you? HIIT exercise is more intense but in shorter bursts, helping you to burn more calories in a short amount of time, decrease body fat, increase your metabolism, and boost strength and endurance.² 

A well-rounded fitness program should include a mixture of moderate and high intensity exercise.³ Though there are many mat and reformer pilates benefits, it’s important to integrate cardio into your fitness routine to improve your cardiovascular health and fitness. As for HIIT, these workouts can be quite strenuous on your muscles and joints, and working out too hard and too often can lead to burnout.4 When we combine pilates and HIIT, we get versatility in our workouts. High intensity pilates helps to: 

• Burn fat and increase your calorie expenditure 
• Improve cardiovascular health
• Build full-body strength, mobility, flexibility and balanced
• Enjoy more efficient workouts 

Burn fat and increase your calorie expenditure  

While there is certainly merit to pilates and weight loss, this form of exercise does require more dynamic movements to achieve notable weight loss. Adding a HIIT element gives you an intense pilates workout that helps burn more fat and calories alongside the toning and strengthening benefits. HIIT is known to amplify fat burn during workouts and post-workout since it can help boost your metabolism.5 Interval training and pilates are also great for preserving lean muscle mass so you can burn more calories at rest.6 

Improve your cardiovascular health 

Cardio exercise can feel like a challenge at times, but it’s essential for the healthy function of your heart and lungs and controlling blood pressure.7 High intensity pilates is perfect for individuals who usually favour low-impact workouts or resistance training since the fusion of movements helps get your heart rate going like other typical cardio workouts. Regular HIIT pilates works to improve cardiovascular endurance and your overall fitness so you can harness long-term health benefits.  

Build full-body strength, mobility, flexibility and balance  

One of the few drawbacks of a HIIT- only fitness routine is the toll it can take on your joints and muscles. This is important to recognise since the body will naturally lose muscle and bone density as we age8, putting us at greater risk of injury. By combining pilates and HIIT, you’re working on flexibility, balance, mobility and posture as well as strength so you can safeguard your body against injury, all in one comprehensive workout.  

Enjoy more efficient workouts 

Regular and consistent physical activity is essential for long-term health and wellbeing; it’s recommended that adults aged 18-64 perform at least 2.5 hours of moderate intensity exercise and at least 2 days of strength training each week.9 For many, these stats might seem intimidating, and having limited time to work out is a common deterrent from exercise. One of the leading benefits of performing a high intensity pilates workout is the blend of cardio and strength exercises so you can efficiently target multiple areas of fitness and reach these weekly goals. 

What can I expect from high intensity pilates workout? 

Starting a new workout class can be overwhelming, so our FS8 fitness experts are here to demystify the process so you know what to expect from a high intensity pilates workout. Our FS8 Blast Classes are the ideal blend of strength and cardio training so you get that full-body toning, heart-pumping workout. This group fitness class is formatted with short blasts of pilates movements that engage and tone your abdominal, back, hip and leg muscles. This is alternated with dumbbells, pilates rings and chi ball exercises to bolster your strength training. This is a high energy, low-impact workout that perfectly encapsulates the benefits of HIIT pilates.  

When can I see results?  

FS8 studios offer a flexible training approach so you can seamlessly integrate as many high intensity pilates workouts as you like into your schedule. Your fitness goals and consistency will influence the length of time it takes to see pilates results, but we recommend workouts of 50-60 minutes several times per week to help sustain your habits, improve form and see results sooner. If this schedule is maintained, most individuals will notice physical changes after 10-20 classes.

We hope you’re excited to integrate high intensity pilates into your fitness routine. Up next, discover how you can stay motivated to work out. 

^{1  https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/pilates-health-benefits}

^{2 https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/nutritionsource/high-intensity-interval-training/}

^{3 https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/exercise-programs}

^{4  https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/exercise-programs}

^{5 https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/10/well/move/hiit-high-intensity-interval-training.html}