Weight to go: Pilates or resistance training? How to choose which fitness regime will benefit you the most

When it comes to exercise people often compare pilates versus weight training. This is actually debated a lot, especially amongst females who dominate the pilates. Around 90 per cent of the pilates population are women. People are curious, which is better, can you get the same results as weight lifting.

The truth is both pilates and weight training have lots of benefits but are definitely not the same. I always feel when it comes to what is better it is more about what is better for you to do to be consistent and achievable.

For the uninitiated, Pilates is a low‑impact form of exercise that focuses on controlled movements, core strength, posture and flexibility. Classes can be mat‑based or use equipment like the reformer, tower and the emphasis is on precision, breathing and alignment.

Pilates is excellent for strengthening the deep core muscles, improving spinal stability and helping with balance and body awareness. It is also widely used in rehabilitation and for people with joint issues, because it is gentle on the body while still being challenging in the right way. Pilates uses springs, these are your weights on the reformer, you change them to give you more support or more challenge so your muscles and core work at the right level for you.

Weight training, also known as resistance training, does use external resistance such as dumbbells, barbells, machines or resistance bands to overload muscles and make them strong. By gradually increasing the weight, repetitions or difficulty over time, you will build stronger and bigger muscles and stimulate your bones to become denser and more resilient.

This type of training is one of the most effective tools we have for improving metabolic health, supporting healthy blood sugar levels and protecting against loss of muscle and strength especially as we age. To put this simply, weight training really is amazing for your muscles, bones and metabolism.

So which is better for your bones, body shape and strength, well if your main goal is to get significantly stronger, change your body composition to have more muscle and less fat, as well protect your bones as you age, weight training clearly is the better choice.

You can work the large muscle groups such as glutes, thighs, back, chest with enough load to trigger real muscle and bone adaptation. Research consistently shows that resistance training improves muscle mass, bone mineral density and overall physical function.

Pilates does improve your strength and definitely your endurance especially around the core and the small muscles that are stabilising you can get better posture, balance and it can help those with back pain. While this is all excellent for our health, the research does show that when you compare pilates to other forms of exercise, it does not match the traditional strength training for increasing overall size and strength. Pilates is more foundation strength than strength building.

I know many women who hope for the same results with just doing pilates but this does depend on what your goals are. If your goals are better core strength, being more flexible, feeling connected to your body and better posture then pilates will deliver all that for you. The thing is that pilates is more enjoyable and something you can sustain rather than going to the gym for many women. This really does matter in the greater scheme of things. Consistency is so important.

If you are after increasing muscle mass, maximise bone density, and getting the strongest possible protective effect for metabolic health and healthy ageing, Pilates alone is just not enough sadly. You will get some strength gains, but there is a limit to how much load you can apply in most Pilates settings compared with what you can do with weights, you can’t add more springs to the reformer.

When it comes down to what you should choose, well the best choice is not one or the other rather a combination of both, this is really powerful. A good plan would be to two or more days per week for weights and two or more classes of pilates.

This way you are enhancing your stability, posture, movement, flexibility while supporting muscle, bone and your metabolic health.

If you only had time for one I would suggest weight training would be the better choice but if you needed to focus on pain, posture or core then start with pilates first then moving to weight training would be the right path.