The 80/20 rule means focusing 80% of your effort on quality form and proper breath control, and 20% on movement intensity.

Pilates is about control, not necessarily speed or pushing yourself to exhaustion. When done correctly, even small, precise movements can lead to improvements. The 80/20 rule is just a framework to help you keep that in mind.

Pilates can certainly can be part of your total weight-loss regimen, but there are some important caveats.

Pilates' biggest benefits — and Tonal's own Pilates program — come designed as a total-body workout with muscles experiencing time-under-tension. It strengthens stabilizers and improves core control, stability, and alignment across everyday activities.

The mechanics of losing weight though comes largely down to calorie intake versus calorie expenditure. In other words, weight loss occurs when you are in an overall calorie deficit, burning more calories than you consume.

All that in mind, Pilates is not the highest calorie-burning activity on paper. But it does enhance muscular endurance and posture, things that can help you move more safely and efficiently throughout the day so you can participate in activities that do increase your daily calorie expenditure.

If your fitness goal is to lose weight, you can of course incorporate Pilates into our overall routine, but the real focus should be on calorie intake versus expenditure. Likewise, if you simply enjoy doing Pilates and find it helps you stick with exercising as part of your weight-loss journey, that's great! Training that increases total energy expenditure can support gradual changes in body composition over time.

Th 3-2-1 principle recommends doing Pilates three times per week for strength, twice for flexibility, and once for active recovery or mobility work. You often hear it promoted by coaches at Pilates studios.

While it’s a helpful framework for balancing consistency and active recovery across your weekly routine, it's not a rigid scientifically-backed formula that guarantees results.

It depends! Both yoga and Pilates can bring flexibility, balance, and muscle endurance enhancements. But Pilates tends to be more relative strength-oriented, with a strong emphasis on controlled eccentric movements keeping your muscles lengthened under tension anywhere from 30 seconds to 2+ minutes. While yoga tends to emphasize flexibility and mindfulness.

Also, many beginners find both yoga and Pilates challenging, just in individual ways.

Pilates can help support strength in your arms, legs, and core, yes. Even at low intensity, Pilates keeps your muscle in prolonged states of time under tension. That's especially true when you're brand new or returning to working out.

That said, studies haven't found Pilates to be the "best" at adding greater and greater muscle-training stimulus that exceeds your current capabilities, which is the guiding focus behind progressive overload training. If that's your real goal, strength training programs focused on increasing resistance, volume, or set counts will tend to encourage better results. Tonal offers many such strength programs to explore building muscle.