Is strength training or Pilates better for building muscle and strength?

You wake up bright and early on a sunny Saturday morning and want nothing more than to crush a workout class. You’re in your strength training and Pilates era, and your goal is to build functional muscle and strength. But will grabbing dumbbells or hitting the reformer get you closer to that goal?

Both modalities require your body to overcome some form of resistance to get stronger. ‘Strength training involves challenging your muscles with resistance through weights, machines, bands, or your body weight,’ says Amy Kiser Schemper, CPT, a BowFlex fitness advisor. In mat Pilates, you move your body weight against gravity. In reformer Pilates, you use a machine with adjustable springs attached to a moving carriage, she adds.

Meet the experts: Amy Kiser Schemper, CPT, is an AFAA-certified pilates instructor and BowFlex fitness advisor. Lindsey Bomgren, CPT, is the founder of Nourish, Move, Love. Amy Wilkinson is a Pilates instructor in Brooklyn who completed her 600-hour teacher-training at Core Pilates NYC.

There are benefits behind both workouts: Research shows that strength training can help decrease pain, improve metabolic health, and better your functional movement, while Pilates can increase balance and correct posture. But can both modalities build strength and muscle – and which is better at it?

Here’s what to know about the benefits of strength training and Pilates, according to fitness pros.

It can help build muscle and strength

‘Strength training focuses on large muscle groups and principal movement patterns like squat, hinge, push, and pull, and involves lifting heavy loads,’ Kiser Schemper says. Specifically, strength training follows the principle of progressive overload, or increasing weight, reps, frequency, or intensity of exercises, so your body will adapt and become stronger.

‘Over weeks and months, this compounds into real muscle growth and functional strength,’ says Lindsey Bomgren, CPT, the founder of Nourish, Move, Love. Plus, increasing your strength can help make daily tasks easier. ‘You can carry groceries, lift kids, move furniture, and navigate life with greater confidence, less fatigue, and less injury,’ she adds.

If you’re a beginner, you’ll typically notice strength gains within about four weeks, Bomgren says. (Strength training can also help change your body composition, or gaining muscle and losing fat at the same time. However, it’s a complex process that requires you to eat in a specific way and may take longer to achieve, adds Kiser Schemper.)

Is building muscle your goal? If so, you’ll want to feel pretty fatigued by the end of your lifting sets. To determine your effort, use rate of perceived exertion (RPE), or rate your effort on a scale of one to 10 (one being that it feels super easy, 10 being absolute failure). You should lift heavy enough weights or do enough reps so that your effort is in the seven-to nine range during your last few reps of each set.

It may improve bone health

The risk of osteoporosis, which is a condition that causes your bones to become brittle, increases as you age. But weight-bearing activities, which require you to use your body weight to work against the force of gravity, can help fight it. This type of exercise – like running, jumping, walking, and strength exercises like lunges, squats, and pushups – place stress on your bones, triggering them to be remodeled and produce more bone tissue, according to Kiser Schemper.

Resistance training can also reduce the risk of fracturing a bone, per a 2025 review in the Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research. The review looked at 17 trials to determine the optimal resistance training parameters for increasing bone mineral density in postmenopausal women. It found that resistance training three times per week can improve bone mineral density, specifically in the hips, neck, and spine.

It may better your metabolic health

By building muscle mass, your body will become more efficient at absorbing glucose from the blood, lowering insulin resistance, and increasing resting energy expenditure, according to a 2020 review in Comprehensive Physiology. ‘Muscles become more effective at using glucose,’ so your insulin sensitivity and blood sugar regulation often improve, Kiser Schemper says. Therefore, strength training can help reduce the risk of metabolic diseases like type 2 diabetes and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease.

It may build (small amounts of) muscle

‘Pilates can increase muscular endurance and build a small amount of muscle in the beginning – especially if you’re starting a practice after being sedentary or are engaging muscles you haven’t previously – but those gains will likely plateau over time,’ says Amy Wilkinson, who’s been a Pilates instructor in Brooklyn for five years. That’s because Pilates exercises aren’t usually done to failure and the modality doesn’t incorporate progressive overload. (More on that later!)

It can improve your alignment and lessen pain

Pilates can better your posture through strengthening the abs and back, says Wilkinson. The research backs these benefits: A 2024 review in the Archives of Rehabilitation Research and Clinical Translation looked at 13 studies about the effects of Pilates on posture. It found that Pilates is beneficial for boosting posture, especially for those with back pain and conditions like scoliosis (an abnormal curving of the spine). Additionally, a 2025 study in Medicina had 57 healthy adults in their twenties either do six weeks of Pilates-based core stabilisation training three times a week, or aerobic exercise. The group that did Pilates had better muscle function and coordination.

‘Studies also seem to indicate – and I’ve experienced this personally in my own practice – that Pilates can also help alleviate low back pain better than a lot of other fitness modalities,’ says Wilkinson.

It might boost your flexibility and mobility

Pilates can increase your flexibility through the stretching involved in the practice, like mermaid (a side bend), and saw and spine-stretch forward (forward fold variations), says Wilkinson. A 2016 study in the Journal of Bodywork and Movement Therapies tested the flexibility of 32 older women before and after doing Pilates two hours per week. After three months, their flexibility improved.

Both strength training and Pilates can improve your mind-body connection.

Mind-body connection is the ability to feel your muscles working during an exercise. For instance, if you’re doing leg lifts during Pilates or a glute bridge during a strength workout, you might be able to feel your muscles contracting.

Tapping into your mind-body connection helps you focus on your breathing, muscle activation, movement quality, posture, and alignment during an exercise, Kiser Schemper explains. Many people also become better at noticing unnecessary tension, such as shrugging their shoulders, tightening their glutes or pelvic floor, or squeezing their jaw. Working on your mind-body connection can also improve coordination between your brain and muscles, she says, which can help you accomplish daily activities, like carrying a heavy box up or down a set of stairs without falling.

The key to growing muscle and strength is through progressive overload, and with strength training, it’s easier to increase the variables like weight, reps, and sets, and make a workout harder, Kiser Schemper says.

With mat and reformer Pilates, you can increase resistance. ‘On the reformer, where increasing spring load may make an exercise harder, you’re eventually going to run out of springs, as most machines come equipped with just four or five,’ Wilkinson says. And while mat Pilates can technically be made harder by using hand weights, they shouldn’t be too heavy, since that can lead to poor form and potential injuries. ‘Frankly, you may also be blurring the line between Pilates and a regular old strength-training programme at that point,’ she adds.

However, Pilates is a great complement (not substitute!) to your strength training routine. ‘They’re the peanut butter and jelly of the fitness world,’ says Wilkinson. ‘For many, Pilates is the first time they’ve learned to properly engage their core, which is vital to lifting heavy without causing undue stress or strain to the body.’ Plus, it’s refreshing to mix up fitness modalities that work your body in a different way. ‘After a week of strength training, it can feel so lovely to hit the mat or lie back on the reformer and mobilise the body in the various ranges of motion – flexion, extension, twisting – that we may not experience in our day-to-day life,’ she adds.

Try two to four strength training sessions per week, one to three Pilates sessions per week, cardio exercise of your choice, and some movement that’s just for fun, according to Kiser Schemper. That way, you’ll keep your fitness routine challenging, sustainable, and enjoyable.

Danielle Zickl is a freelance writer who has 10 years of experience covering fitness, health, and nutrition. She’s a graduate of Ithaca College. You can find her work here on Women’s Health, and in many other publications including PS, SELF, Well+Good, Runner’s World, Outside RUN, Peloton, Men’s Fitness, and more.