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Ramsey in a Strong Pilates studio in Byron Bay.Credit: Natalie Grono<\/p>\n
\u201cWe liked what Pilates was doing for people\u2019s bodies, and we liked the client sentiment around Pilates. But we felt that it needed more,\u201d Ramsey said. \u201cIt needed strength training. It needed conditioning.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt all clicked when we saw the Rowformer,\u201d Armstrong said. In October 2019, the pair opened their first studio in the Melbourne suburb of Elsternwick.<\/p>\n
When COVID shuttered thousands of gyms around the world, people rolled out yoga mats in their living rooms and logged online to join Zoom workouts. The greater focus on mental health, wellbeing and better posture thanks to long hours sitting at home during lockdowns helped the Pilates market swell 40 per cent in five years.<\/p>\n
Despite the relatively recent TikTok trend of gym bros and athletes being filmed grimacing and trembling on a reformer, Pilates\u2019 core market is still predominantly women \u2013 about half the addressable market of fitness junkies.<\/p>\n
Armstrong and Ramsey believe they\u2019re starting to crack this gender stereotype by developing workouts that blend the low-impact nature of Pilates with high-heartbeats per minute cardiovascular and strength training to achieve the satisfactory sweat factor.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne big emphasis for us has been getting men in there, getting men to do Pilates. I think we\u2019ve almost doubled our male audience since we opened,\u201d Ramsey said. Where women comprise roughly 95 per cent of a typical Pilates studio, the founders claim that about one in four or five of Strong Pilates\u2019 members are men.<\/p>\n
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Strong Pilates has been intentionally designed to be gender neutral.<\/p>\n
They even developed a scent that has notes of cognac in it, a nod to the Jay-Z they used to play often. For cardio training, there are dimmed lights and faster tempo music; strength training and Pilates are sound-tracked by rap and R&B. \u201cThe whole fit-out, the look, the feel, it\u2019s gender-neutral, it\u2019s cool, it\u2019s clean,\u201d Ramsey said.<\/p>\n
Running successful F45 studios gave Ramsey and Armstrong the experience they needed to get the right infrastructure in place, across tech systems, training instructors, marketing and pre-sales. The familiarity of weights, rowing and the recently introduced bike add-on has helped convince men trialling a class to become members, as did hoisted screens demonstrating exactly how an exercise should be executed.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the men coming through the doors had never been on a reformer. This is just a great visual guide,\u201d Ramsey said. \u201cWe got crucified from the traditional Pilates studios for doing it, but it\u2019s been a game changer for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Strong Pilates notched $50 million in network revenue last financial year, with the average revenue per studio rising 15 per cent over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n