Why We Won't Ever Be a Wellness Space
Why We Only Do Pilates (And Why That's Actually the Point)
We don't have a meditation room, a nutrition coach, or a cold plunge. There's no supplement shelf by the door, no plans to rebrand as a wellness destination.
We get asked about this occasionally. And honestly, it's a fair question — because if you look around the fitness industry right now, the word "wellness" is absolutely everywhere. Studios are adding services the way restaurants add dishes: endlessly, and in every direction. The logic seems to be that more offerings equals more value.
We think that's exactly backwards.
A quarter century of doing one thing
EQ has been here for twenty-five years. That's not a boast — it's context. A quarter century of teaching Pilates to the same clients, watching what it does for people over the long term, building relationships that span generations.
That kind of result doesn't come from being a wellness destination. It comes from depth.
When you spend twenty-five years going deeper into one methodology — really understanding it, really learning how to apply it to different bodies and different needs — you develop a kind of knowledge that simply isn't available to a studio that's splitting its attention across six modalities. We know Pilates. We know what it can do, how it works, and why it works. We can apply it to someone recovering from surgery in the morning and someone training at an elite level in the afternoon. That range of application is only possible because we haven't diluted our focus.
Growing with our clients — and with the system
When EQ opened, we taught mat. That was the foundation — as it should be. Mat work is where you learn to use your body, where the principles of the method take root. For many clients, it was enough.
But Pilates is a vast system. Joseph Pilates designed over 600 exercises across an extensive range of apparatus, and the mat is just one part of that. As our clients developed — as they built strength, understanding, and curiosity — we developed alongside them. Group Reformer classes came next, opening up a different dimension of the work. Then Tower and Cadillac classes, bringing in the full vertical plane and the kind of spring-loaded resistance work that Joseph Pilates called Contrology at its most complete. And now Joe's Gym, which takes clients further still into the system.
This is what growth looks like inside a Pilates studio. Not adding unrelated modalities to broaden appeal — but going deeper into the work itself, introducing more of the system as the studio evolves. Twenty-five years ago we taught mat. A decade later, group Reformer classes. Then Tower and Cadillac. Today, Joe's Gym. That evolution has happened entirely within Pilates — driven by our commitment to the system, not by market trends.
That's a very different kind of expansion. Where other studios have branched out — looking outside Pilates for growth — we've gone deeper, looking in.
What the "wellness space" actually is
The term is deliberately vague, which is part of the problem. A wellness space can be almost anything — and because it can be almost anything, it often ends up being nothing in particular. It's an aesthetic. A vibe. A collection of offerings loosely organised around the idea that health is good.
We're not interested in that.
The clients who come to EQ aren't here because we've created a nice environment (though we'd like to think we have). They're here because their back stopped hurting, or their physio recommended us, or they found something here that they haven't found anywhere else. They're here because Pilates — the real thing, taught properly, applied thoughtfully — does things that other movement practices don't. It's a complete system. Joseph Pilates designed it that way deliberately. It doesn't need padding out.
When a studio turns Pilates into one offering among many, it's inevitably treated as one offering among many. The methodology gets deprioritised. The teachers become generalists. The schedule gets complicated by the need to serve ten different populations in three different formats. The result is usually a diluted version of the work — not because the teachers are bad, but because the structure doesn't support depth.
What we'd have to give up
There's a practical dimension to this too, and we think it's worth being honest about it.
Running a genuine Pilates programme — the apparatus, the methodology, the supervision — requires space, equipment, expertise, and time. The Mat room, the Reformer room, the Tower/Cadillac room, Joe's Gym: each has a specific function. Classes are capped at six people. That's not an accident. It's a deliberate limit that lets teachers actually teach, rather than just manage a group.
If we started adding infrared saunas or nutrition workshops or the latest fitness trend, something would have to give. Either the Pilates would get squeezed — fewer rooms, more clients per class, less individual attention — or we'd grow for growth's sake, and the culture of the studio would shift in ways we don't want.
We've been here long enough to know what we are. And we're not willing to trade it for market appeal.
The confidence it takes to stay narrow
Staying Pilates-only is, in a way, a statement of confidence. It's saying: this is enough. This work, taught well, is sufficient to justify our existence and our clients' loyalty. We don't need to surround it with other things to make it feel complete.
That's not a limitation. It's a position.
Clients who want a one-stop wellness hub can find one — there are plenty of them, and some of them are excellent at what they do. But if you want Pilates taught by people who have spent decades understanding it, in a studio where the work is the whole point — you know where we are.
We've been here for twenty-five years. We're not going anywhere. And we're not adding a cold plunge.
EQ Pilates has been teaching in Sutton Coldfield for twenty-five years. To find out more about our approach get in touch.