Yes. At Peak Performance Private Pilates two people can share a private session through Tandem Training, which is one coach working with two clients for 55 minutes. It is priced per person: $110 each for a single session, or $1,000 each for a 10-session package with 4 months’ validity. It works best when the two of you have something in common to train for, such as the same sport, a similar level or a shared goal.
The session stays private. Nobody else joins, and each of you works from your own programme, built from your own assessment.
How does a tandem session work?
The studio describes the programme as a way to “train together with programming built around a shared sport, goal or fitness journey”. In practice that means the session is planned around what the two of you have in common, while each of you is still assessed and progressed as an individual.
Two programmes, one coach
Because the studio has a full set of Merrithew equipment, with a reformer, trapeze table (Cadillac), ladder barrel and stability chair, two programmes can run side by side rather than one person waiting for the other. One of you might be doing single-leg work on the stability chair while the other works through trunk control on the reformer, with the coach moving between you. At other times you may both do the same exercise, each with your own setting on the Pilates equipment springs, range or pace. How a session is split depends on what each of you needs that day, and that is decided by the coach rather than fixed in advance.
Tandem sessions follow the same approach as one-to-one work. They are 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.
What you give up
The honest trade-off is attention. In a one-to-one session the coach watches only you for the full 55 minutes. In tandem that attention is shared, so there is less time for close, hands-on adjustment for one person, and the session has to suit two training plans at once. For two people with similar needs that cost is small. For two people whose needs are far apart it grows quickly.
What does tandem cost per person?
Each person pays $110 for a single tandem session, so the pair pays $220. A one-to-one single session is $160, which makes tandem $50 less per person for the same 55 minutes.
On the 10-session tandem package each person pays $1,000, which works out to $100 per person per session ($1,000 ÷ 10), or $2,000 for the pair across ten shared sessions. The one-to-one 10-session package is $1,500, or $150 a session, so tandem saves each person $50 a session, or $500 across the ten. If you both trained one-to-one on 10-session packages instead, the two of you would pay $3,000 in total rather than $2,000. Against the 20-session one-to-one package ($2,800, or $140 a session), tandem is still $40 a session less per person.
The tandem package has 4 months’ validity, the same as the one-to-one 10-session package. Ten sessions in four months is a little more than one a fortnight, so it suits two people whose schedules line up most weeks. New clients start with an initial consultation at $135.
Who is tandem training a good fit for?
Tandem works when the overlap between two people is large enough that shared programming makes sense.
Training partners with a shared sport
Two runners in the same marathon block, two golfers, or two triathletes racing the same season ask similar things of their bodies, so much of the work can be common to both, with small differences for each person’s assessment. The programme can then follow the calendar you share.
People at a similar level
Two people who are both building general strength, mobility and balance can progress at a similar rate, so neither is held back or pushed past what they are ready for.
Couples and friends
Sharing a regular slot with a partner or friend makes the session easier to keep in the diary, and it splits the cost. This works best when your goals are broadly similar, even if your starting points differ a little.
When is one-to-one the better choice?
One-to-one is the better choice when one person needs work the other doesn’t, or needs closer supervision than a shared session can give.
Very different goals or levels. If one of you is preparing for a powerlifting meet and the other wants general mobility, there is little shared programming, and each would get half a session built for someone else.
Injury or rehabilitation. Return-to-exercise work is progressed in small, specific steps alongside your physiotherapist, and it needs the coach’s full attention on how you respond. If you are injured, your physiotherapist leads, and the studio aligns with your physio, coach and gym trainer on goals and programming.
Pregnancy and after birth. Pre- and post-natal programming is adapted to each stage of pregnancy and recovery, and it changes as pregnancy and recovery progress, in ways a partner’s programme will not.
Scoliosis. Scoliosis programming is individual and incorporates the Scolio-Pilates® approach, planned around one person’s spine.
Two people can also start one-to-one and move to tandem later, once each has been assessed and the overlap between their programmes is clear.
Does training with a partner help you keep going?
There is no research on tandem Pilates specifically, so the useful evidence comes from studies of social support and exercise in general.
A consistent but modest link. Carron and colleagues pooled studies of social influence on exercise and found it generally had a small to moderate positive effect on adherence, intentions and attitudes, including support from family and from people you exercise with1. A later systematic review by Scarapicchia and colleagues looked at 20 longitudinal studies of healthy adults and found the link between social support and later physical activity inconsistent, with a small positive association for support from friends2.
Preliminary. In an 8-week randomised study by Rackow and colleagues, people asked to find a new exercise companion and train with them reported more emotional support, which was linked to exercise through greater confidence in their own ability to exercise3. The study ran online, and the effect on exercise was indirect. For couples, a review of health behaviour interventions by Arden-Close and McGrath found only 14 studies, just one on physical activity, and mixed results when couple-based and individual approaches were compared4.
Practical application. Training with someone may make it easier to turn up, but the evidence does not show that sharing a session improves results. The case for tandem rests on the practical points above: a shared goal, a schedule that lines up and a lower cost per person, with programming that is still built for each of you.
Where to start
New clients start with an initial consultation, which assesses how you move, looks at your goals and builds the foundations of your individual programme. From there the programme is progressively loaded and reassessed around your training or race calendar, with exercises to take away between sessions. If you would like to train in tandem, choose Tandem Training when you get in touch, or bring a training partner when you book, and the studio will recommend whether tandem or one-to-one is the right starting point for each of you.