Emma Stallworthy (pictured), founder of Your Reformer, is on a “mission to make reformer pilates more accessible” – and it’s a mission that has been embraced by the public, celebrities, influences, and professional athletes around the world.
What inspired you to launch Your Reformer? Was there a specific moment that sparked the idea?
A combination of moments really that created the perfect opportunity. I found reformer pilates and my passion for the movement through a journey of infertility. At the same time, we were evolving our chain of gyms and incorporating Wellness studios within them, reformer pilates studios being a major focus of these zones. It was incredibly popular and then Covid hit. We rented our machines during lockdown to members with high demand, and I ran zoom classes with great success. At home, as a busy working mum with a toddler, I knew how hard it was to find ‘me time’ and any independence to attend my favourite classes. So the concept to make reformer more accessible, and bring the studio experience to homes was formed.
Pilates offers a much loved way to become and remain toned and sculpted—what do you think makes it such a powerful form of exercise?
Pilates focuses on the combination of strengthening and lengthening the muscles, combined with a focus of controlled movement to breath. It’s a mindful practice that not only has amazing benefits on the body physically, can also provide improvements in stress, anxiety and mental health overall.
I believe it’s become so popular, because it’s a movement that people fall in love with, and can therefore sustain and remain consistent. As a result, their bodies do in fact change, reshape, become stronger and they also report a reduction in injury or chronic pain. We receive the feedback a lot where clients have previously failed at their attempts to stay committed to the gym for example, but have found pilates and look forward to each workout! There is a huge variety in the exercises keeping you interested and wanting more, and contemporary classes incorporate music making the experience even more enjoyable. It’s low impact on your joints which in turn makes it a very inclusive movement for the population.
As a business, we commit to staying agile, and continually improving our systems, products, team, and overall offering.
You offer reformers for both home and business use—how do you cater to such a diverse audience?
Our mission is to make reformer pilates more accessible, and we do this by delivering exceptional quality hardware (in the reformers and accessories), coupled with an OnDemand suite of products that provide solutions to both home and commercial customers. We are customer centric, and invest heavily in a concierge team that provide both customer and sales support. Ben and I as the owners and leaders of the business, have first hand experience of both (being a home user and having previously run gyms and pilates studios). So we really and intuitively understand what our customers needs and wants are. We stay laser focussed on ensuring that we align our brand vision and ethos with these needs and wants.
In order to accurately understand and address the needs of our various customer segments, we developed specific avatars to represent each customer persona across both B2B and B2C. By illustrating each of our audiences in this manner, we have been able to develop a clear understanding of the pain points, barriers, motivations, and desires – all of which are factors that we take into account so that we can best address the needs of each of our customers. Furthermore, as our customer avatars are shared across each function of our business, they act as a reminder that the needs of our consumers vary, ensuring that each segment receives the appropriate tailored experience.
As a business, we commit to staying agile, and continually investing into improving our systems, products, team and overall offering. Our consumers and partners expectations regularly shift over time and we want to ensure we remain relevant for them.
What sets Your Reformer apart from other Pilates equipment providers / Pilates businesses?
We have an extremely strong brand purpose, ethos and value set and our entire team live and breathe these. This then permeates with all connections we have with our community and customers. As our products are a luxury item and are a way for our consumers to invest in their wellbeing, we understand that they require a high level of brand trust in order to make their purchase decision. We foster this through our strong brand reputation for transparency, fast response times, and dedicated support team.
We have a passion for design and style, always innovating and evolving our products in this way as a result. One of our core business values is Kaizen, which is a Japanese term meaning constant change and improvement daily.
We truly wanted to be able to ensure that our customers were in fact using our products, that they were enjoying the studio experience in their homes. Or from a B2B perspective, that they were able to make their businesses more successful by incorporating our digital products to enhance their offering to their members, or perhaps to provide a billable service they weren’t able to offer otherwise. Our technology and classes are industry benchmark, and we are continuing to invest in them with some exciting advancements and new software products coming to market in 2025.
The testimonials on your site are amazing—do you have a favourite customer success story that stands out?
It’s something we are most proud of! I couldn’t pick just one, but the reviews that talk about their purchase as an investment into themselves, and that it’s been the best decision they ever made makes my heart sing.
How do your software offerings (app / website etc) enhance the Pilates experience for your customers?
For us, the On-demand classes are crucial for building a community, and for delivering on our accessibility mission to anyone, anytime. Plus we actually want people using their machines, because we know there are so many benefits to a regular pilates practice for a broad range of clients.
We invest significantly into this area, not just in the videos we produce, but also in the platforms we deliver the content also. We currently have over 700 classes, that offer options in duration, style of class, and even physio led programs which we will continue to add to over the next 12 months including women’s health (pre and post natal, menopausal, endometriosis, perimenopausal), post surgery, back pain, hip and pelvic pain, and ofcourse supporting an ageing body also.
Our OnDemand classes provide the visual element that clients often miss in a class setting. And the convenience of a reformer class at the click of a button, it’s what consumers now want and expect.
We initially launched to the home market, but started to gain organic interest in the commercial market, and coupled with our 13 years experience in the fitness industry owning and operating gyms with wellness studios inside, recognised the opportunity to leverage the OnDemand IP we were developing and pivoted to provide adaptable solutions to commercial clients as well. As a result, the emergence of 24/7 reformer pilates OnDemand is showing up in a big way.
What’s your daily routine like—how do you balance work, fitness, and downtime?
I’m certainly not perfect at this, some days aren’t as ‘balanced’ as others. But obviously my kids come first, so I try very very hard to given them present time with me and ensure they feel loved, nurtured and inspired. From there it’s about prioritising who and what needs me at work, then making time (generally after the kids are in bed) to move my body, connect with my husband and have some downtime with a shower, cup of herbal tea and one of my fave podcasts or television shows. We just got a gorgeous puppy named Bonnie, and she’s a very early riser so I’ve also been enjoying a morning walk with her to help her burn some energy before she welcomes the kids as they get up with just as much energy! It’s a busy and noisy house in the morning and I wouldn’t have it any other way (although can be challenging when the odd early morning meeting aligning with East Coast US time pops ups!)
What’s your favourite way to unwind after a long day?
Movement and then rest, so it’s generally reformer pilates with some release, sauna, peppermint tea and a podcast or my fave reality TV guilty pleasure and bed.
If you could describe your personal philosophy in three words, what would they be?
Authentic, connection & love, inspired (sorry 4).
What’s your go-to breakfast on busy mornings?
A bagel, crunchy peanut butter and sliced banana and a coffee!
How do you like to start your workouts—what’s your favourite warm-up routine?
Some go-to stretches first – Hip flexor opening, butterfly and cat & cow to really ground me into the practice. Then I really love to start with some deep core inspired movements to build the fire, whether that’s a Hands in Straps series flow, or a hollow hold, plank and pike fly series.
What’s one song / piece of music, that always motivates you during a workout?
I’m a real lover of all genres of music so this is a tough choice, but at the moment it’s probably a Swifty song – “I can do it with a broken heart” in particular right now.
For someone new to Pilates, what advice would you give to help them start their journey?
Pilates is about self practice, it’s not competitive. How you choose to show up on any given day, pilates can and will be able to match your energy and find the flow that is suited to you. Reformer in particular, provides such inclusivity, particularly for a beginner with many options and variations of exercises to provide ease or more support, and then as confidence and experience increases, the progression is right there and accessible to always keep you challenged and forever changing. Know as a beginner, that pilates is a humbling movement – even the best of instructors are still finessing their form and being challenged in their practice! We have curated instructional and beginner videos to be able to nurture a beginner’s journey into pilates, and to be able to do this in the privacy of your home removes a lot of barriers that some clients can have about going to a studio, particularly men!
What do you love most about seeing people incorporate reformer Pilates into their lives?
I LOVE that reformer pilates provides something for everyone. There is such a long list of benefits that regular practice can realise, and I am inspired with how it can literally transform lives, both physically and mentally. My most favourite is the increased body confidence, and the positive way someone holds themselves. Plus I have so many customers (from our gyms previously and now as a YR community member) who say that finding reformer has meant that they now love movement and exercise again! From a health and wellness perspective, that is so powerful!
As we step into February and focus on “Things We Love,” what’s one thing you absolutely love about your work?
I’ve truly found the perfect combination of work that sparks my passion, and that challenges me, and I love every day I get to do what I do. Our entire team are aligned and motivated by the business purpose of bettering people’s lives.
