A group reformer class is often the better choice if you mainly want regular, enjoyable exercise, like training with other people and want the most sessions for your budget. Private one-to-one training makes more sense when the work has to be built around you: a sport-specific goal, an injury or a return to exercise alongside your physio, scoliosis, pregnancy or the months after birth, or a programme you want to keep progressing over months rather than repeating.
Peak Performance Private Pilates only runs private 1:1 and tandem 1:2 sessions, so it is worth saying plainly that a class suits many people well.
When is a group reformer class the right choice?
A group class works well when the goal is general: staying active, building some strength and mobility, and having a fixed time in the week that gets you moving. You pay less per session, so you can train more often for the same money, and the timetable and the people around you make it easier to keep turning up. A class you keep going to is worth more than private sessions you can only afford occasionally.
A large review comparing group and individual exercise programmes broadly supports this. Kritz and colleagues pooled 71 studies and found group programmes did at least as well as individual ones for how much physical activity people did, and slightly better for functional outcomes such as strength and flexibility once outlying studies were removed1. Both approaches can work. The review covered physical activity programmes in many populations, not private coaching against reformer classes, but it is a fair point in favour of training with others.
The trade-offs are structural. A class follows one plan for the whole room, the instructor’s attention is shared, and most group reformer studios run on reformers only. If you have no specific problem to solve, those limits may not matter.
When does private training make more sense?
When a standard plan would need so many changes for you that it stops being the same session.
Sport-specific goals
Each sport loads the body differently. A runner needs to hold the pelvis level on one leg for hours, while a golfer needs to rotate through the upper back with the hips controlled. A private programme starts from those demands and from your assessment, then fits around your training and competition calendar. Albert, a powerlifter who trains at the studio, described it this way: “It wasn’t about Pilates at all, it was about me and what was holding me back from achieving what I wanted to achieve.”
Injury, rehab and returning to exercise
After an injury, the right exercise often depends on what your physiotherapist has cleared and how your body responds that day. In a private session the range, the load from the Pilates equipment springs and the position can change from one set to the next. Your physiotherapist leads the rehabilitation, and the studio aligns with them on goals and programming so the sessions support their plan.
Scoliosis
Every curve is different, so a general class cue such as “lengthen the spine” can mean something different for each side of your trunk. The Scoliosis programme uses individual programming that incorporates the Scolio-Pilates approach. Albert, who has scoliosis, came partly to “manage my spine a lot better” for his lifting.
Pregnancy and after birth
What suits you changes from trimester to trimester and again after delivery. Positions, breathing and load need adjusting as you go, and progress after birth should follow your recovery rather than a class plan. One client, four months postpartum and with scoliosis, wrote that from the first session the workout was “completely tailored to my needs”.
Programmes that progress
A class has to work for everyone in the room, so its progressions tend to be general. A private programme follows a sequence: individual assessment, comparison with what your sport or goal asks of you, the programme itself, progressive loading, then reassessment. Each block builds on what you can now control.
Does the equipment make a difference?
It does for some goals. Group reformer classes usually use reformers only, which limits a session to what can be done on a moving carriage. Peak Performance sessions use full equipment: the reformer, the stability chair, the trapeze table (Cadillac), the ladder barrel and the spine corrector, plus accessories for strength and conditioning work.
That lets the exercise decide the equipment. A single-leg step-up on the stability chair puts close to full body weight through one hip, which is hard to load in the same way on a reformer. Extension over the ladder barrel or the spine corrector trains the upper back without the lower back taking over, and the trapeze table can support you through ranges you cannot yet control on your own. Sessions are also not purely Pilates. They combine Pilates principles with strength and conditioning principles and mix in strength and conditioning work depending on your goal, with more focus on control of movement.
Where does tandem training fit?
Between the two. In a tandem session two people share one coach and a programme built around a shared sport or goal, and pay less per person than one-to-one. It suits training partners at a similar level. Each of you gets a share of the coach’s attention rather than all of it, so if one of you has an injury or a quite different goal, one-to-one is the better fit.
What does the research say about one-to-one coaching?
Little research compares private and group Pilates directly, so this evidence comes from the wider training literature. None of it is about Pilates.
Well established. People respond very differently to the same programme. Mann and colleagues reviewed the reasons, including genetics, how hard a standard session is for each person, and differences in recovery, sleep and stress, and noted that a group average often hides a wide range of individual responses2. The review covered endurance-type training and does not show that individual programmes produce better results, only why one plan does not fit everyone equally.
Supportive, from motor learning. Wulf and colleagues reviewed the factors that help people learn movement skills. Cues directing attention to the effect of a movement generally worked better than cues about the body itself, and feedback mattered for motivation as well as information3. The same review found practising in pairs could also help learning, which is relevant to tandem sessions. The review was written for medical training and draws on studies of movement skills, not exercise programmes.
Small, but consistent in direction. Fisher and colleagues pooled 12 studies of resistance training with and without supervision. Supervision had a small overall advantage for performance and function, a moderate one for strength and little effect on body composition4. In an earlier trial, Mazzetti and colleagues found moderately trained men supervised by a trainer lifted heavier loads, progressed faster and gained more strength over 12 weeks than men doing the same programme alone. The trial was small, with 18 men in the final groups5. The comparison in both was supervised against unsupervised, not private against group.
Practical application. Close coaching matters most when you are learning new movements, working around an injury or a specific pattern, or trying to keep loading progressing. Once a movement is reliable, your own sessions can carry some of it.
Where to start
New clients begin with an initial consultation at $135. It assesses how you move, looks at your goals and builds the foundations of your individual programme, and it is where the studio recommends how often to train. Sessions then run 55 minutes: private 1:1 is $160 a session, $1,500 for 10 (4 months’ validity) or $2,800 for 20 (6 months), and tandem is $110 per person, or $1,000 per person for 10 (4 months).