Located just outside of Staines town centre on the River Thames, The Thames Club is a multi service health club. In 2018, it introduced a dedicated Hot Yoga Club within the footprint of the existing club, creating a standalone brand and membership.

The Hot Yoga Club has been a huge success, growing the membership base and driving new revenue. In 2022, managing director, Peter Williams, and studio manager, Laura Hedges, added a small Reformer Pilates studio to the offer.

Laura explains: 'The dedicated Reformer Pilates studio was a hit from the start. In addition to existing Hot Yoga  Club and Health Club members making bookings, the new Reformer Pilates studio started to attract new members from the community, growing our membership and revenue.'

Two years on, the studio is unable to keep up with the demand, with a large proportion of classes attracting a waiting list. In response to this, the club has relocated the Reformer Pilates studio into a larger space on the first floor, next to the Hot Yoga studio, and added three new Balanced Body® Allegro® 1 Reformers.

'We researched different Pilates Reformer suppliers and Balanced Body® was the stand-out. Our incumbent Reformers were Balanced Body® Allegro® 1’s so adding 3 new Allegro® 1’s made perfect sense from a continuity perspective. We have now added 3 Reformers to our existing 5 to create  a dedicated 8-Reformer Pilates studio,' says Laura.

The uplift in the popularity of Reformer Pilates experienced by The Thames Club is mirrored globally. Giving his thoughts on why Reformer Pilates has suddenly become a global sensation, Peter Williams says: 'Pilates is such a diverse modality, supporting a wide array of mental and physical health drivers. It can be adapted to train strength, bone density, balance, mobility, flexibility, agility and power, so it is easy to understand why it has such wide member appeal.'

'At The Thames Club, we are attracting engagement from across a broad range of demographic groups and are seeing increasing engagement with men.

'Our ambition is to ensure that The Thames Club and Hot Yoga Club can grant access to everyone who wants to get involved. Not only is this good for the individuals and our community, it is also good for The Club because it drives the revenue we need to keep reinvesting and providing services aligned to ever changing consumer needs.”

The Club is currently timetabling 30+ classes per week, catering for all abilities from beginners through to seasoned Reformer Pilates practitioners.