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Early Saturday morning, I clambered out of bed and pulled on the required brown Spandex. With my hair slicked-back into a ponytail, I hustled down to Friends Select School in Center City<\/a>, a yoga mat slung over my shoulder. There, on the private school\u2019s rooftop turf, awaited hundreds of my peers all clad in the variations of the same Jacklyn.fit<\/a>-branded workout set, the allure of complimentary energy drinks and facials, and the promise of rapper Waka Flocka Flame. <\/p>\n This was Sweat & Sculpt<\/a>, a mat Pilates class slash wellness bazaar slash concert. It\u2019s the brainchild of influencer and Sea Isle, N.J.-native Jacklyn Romano (aka Jacklyn.fit online), who bills the women\u2019s workout-palooza as a \u201cone-of-a-kind celebration of female empowerment, fitness, and community<\/a>\u201d and the \u201clargest women\u2019s event\u201d in Philadelphia. That\u2019s a difficult superlative to quantify, but organizers said there were more than 800 women in attendance. <\/p>\n \u201cA lot of people are like, \u2018Wait, is this real? Like 800 girls in matching workout sets and Waka Flocka?\u2019\u201d Romano told me. (Nearly everyone I told about this event had a similar reaction, with notably more expletives. One friend texted me, \u201cI can\u2019t even believe that\u2019s a real sentence.\u201d)<\/p>\n That singularity is what interested me \u2014 how someone could successfully marry a $120 \u201cviral Pilates event\u201d and the song \u201cNo Hands.\u201d A TikTok commenter said it best<\/a>: \u201cPilates & Waka is a diabolical combo.\u201d <\/p>\n So I went, I worked out, I Waka\u2019ed. And I didn\u2019t expect to leave feeling so girly and giddy and genuinely moved by the body-positivity of the same man who wrote \u201cRound of Applause.\u201d <\/p>\n Sweat & Sculpt\u2019s mantra <\/p>\n Six years ago, Romano\u2019s brick-and-mortar fitness business was thwarted by COVID<\/a>, so she pivoted to Zoom classes. Then, three years ago, she parlayed her online success (some 111,000 followers on Instagram and 20,600 on TikTok) into in-person activations \u2014 a burgeoning trend of social media stars taking their shtick on the road. This spring, for example, I wrote about another influencer<\/a>, TikTok\u2019s \u201cDense Bean Salad Girl,\u201d who sold takeout containers of her signature salads at a pop-up near Rittenhouse Square. <\/p>\n A trainer for nearly a decade, Romano said she had always looked for an event like the one she ended up creating with Sweat & Sculpt: An inclusive space for women to get fit, make connections, and feel powerful. Despite the steep admission fee<\/a> \u2014 which included the brown bra and your choice of leggings or capris, with an optional, additional $20 tank top \u2014 Saturday\u2019s Sweat & Sculpt was the largest yet, according to Romano. (Full disclosure, I was gifted my ticket and athletic garb for free so I could write about the event.) <\/p>\n Influencer Jacklyn Romano is leading the Sweat & Sculpt Pilates class at the Friends Select School on Saturday, Aug. 29, 2026, in Philadelphia.Read more<\/a>Tyger Williams \/ Staff Photographer<\/p>\n \u201cOnce [these women] leave here, they\u2019re also shining from the inside out,\u201d Romano said. At 8:45 a.m., she was already bubbly and energetic, bouncing from fan to fan and selfie to selfie. As we chatted briefly, her tooth gem caught the morning sun and her red-ink patchwork tattoos peaked out from her capris. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019re leaving with new friends, they\u2019re leaving with a new form of confidence, they\u2019re trying something new,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n Cousins Dakota Hurwitz, Caitlyn McHugh, and Crystal McHugh have followed Romano for years. They\u2019ve watched as her events grew 40-fold, from 20-person classes in Sea Isle to filling up soccer fields. Here, they said, they found community. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s more than just a workout class,\u201d Hurwitz, 26, of Bucks County<\/a>, said. <\/p>\n Crystal McHugh, 31, of Northeast Philly, added: \u201cIt\u2019s not just [about] confidence, it\u2019s empowerment.\u201d <\/p>\n Admittedly, before this event, I was not familiar with Romano. I recently deleted most social media apps from my phone, expressly because of the constant barrage of body checking<\/a>, nutrition misinformation, ads for fat-loss miracle drugs, and commentary on what women should or shouldn\u2019t look like. It started to feel like a nightmarish echo chamber of shame. <\/p>\n Romano\u2019s brand, she said, defies that: The workout sets come in an expansive size range, from XS to 4X, and she encourages people to \u201cworry about how you feel\u201d but \u201cnot how you look.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cI try to take a positive spin onto social media,\u201d she said. \u201cOn our page, you get to see every different kind of person. No matter what size, what fitness level, what race, what religion \u2014 we all come together and we all want to empower each other.\u201d <\/p>\n The workout <\/p>\n Sweat & Sculpt was promoted as low-impact, body-weight mat Pilates. <\/p>\n Don\u2019t be fooled. That doesn\u2019t mean easy. <\/p>\n I\u2019m an ex-ballerina who\u2019s been doing Pilates since age 11. I\u2019m 27 now, so that\u2019s more than 15 years of \u2014 albeit on again, off again \u2014 Pilates practice. At one point, I was taking as many as five mat classes a week; nowadays, my exercise routine consists of long walks, occasional reformer Pilates, and a weekly gym session with a personal trainer. <\/p>\n Yet by the second set of single-leg glute bridges, my hamstrings were burning. Then came a three-minute ab circuit. According to my Apple Watch, over 42 minutes, I burned 144 calories and my heart rate reached 167 beats per minute, more than double my resting rate. <\/p>\n As my arms and legs started to shake, I certainly felt that sense of camaraderie and support Romano talked about: her steady stream of affirmations \u2014 \u201cHang tight, ladies!\u201d \u2014 blasting over the speakers; the smiles from the women around me; finding comfort knowing that I was not alone, that we all signed up to be breaking a sweat at 9 a.m. <\/p>\n Eleven mats down from me, 6-foot-6 Waka Flocka Flame cried, \u201cCall the paramedics!\u201d <\/p>\n All those glutes, in yo jeans <\/p>\n So why was Waka there? <\/p>\n \u201cWhy not bring in someone who\u2019s iconic to our generation of women and just make it fun?\u201d Romano said. The chorus \u201cGirl, the way you\u2019re moving got me in a trance. …\u201d once filled gymnasiums on prom night; hearing \u201c\u2018Rain, rain, go away,\u2019 that\u2019s what all my haters say,\u201d teleported me back to a college bar, my heeled booties sticking to a White Claw-laden floor. <\/p>\n But before he performed his medley, Waka, whose given name is Juaquin Malphurs, took time to answer audience questions, offering reassurance to one new mom in the crowd: <\/p>\n \u201cI need you not to be hard on yourself postpartum,\u201d Malphurs, who is also a new dad<\/a>, said. \u201cThe woman that you\u2019re gonna be is not the woman you see today, and you\u2019ll get there \u2014 don\u2019t worry.\u201d <\/p>\n \u201cGive your body some time … then fight the fight.\u201d <\/p>\n Afterwards, I spoke to Tamika Ford, who was coincidentally also seven weeks postpartum. <\/p>\n She came Saturday morning worrying \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m going to be so out of shape,\u201d she thought \u2014 and left feeling fun and light-hearted and buzzing with encouragement. <\/p>\n Me too. <\/p>\n