The Best Pilates Equipment For Your Home Workouts
Your guide to what Pilates equipment you need
LIVE BRAVE Pilates classes and programmes are designed with your busy lives in mind. We want to make our classes as accessible as possible and understand that investing in equipment or always having equipment with you isn’t achievable. For this reason, we have classes and programmes where you don’t need any Pilates equipment at all, as well as classes where we use everyday household items.
In fact, one of the things we love most about Pilates is that you can do it from anywhere and you don’t need to invest in all the fancy equipment.
That being said, at-home Pilates equipment can enhance your workouts in many ways such as, by helping to engage and target your muscles, providing feedback on your alignment or adding extra resistance.
If you’re ready to take your workouts up a level and invest in equipment, here’s our guide to the benefits of each piece of equipment and where to buy them:
Resistance Bands:
This is the first Pilates prop we’d recommend getting as it’s more difficult to substitute them for anything you might find around the house. They are also light and travel easily, so we always make sure to pack them when we’re travelling.
Buy resistance bands here.
This is one of our favourite workouts using resistance bands: Full Body with Bands
Small Pilates Ball
The small Pilates ball is one of our favourite Pilates props as it’s versatile and an absolute powerhouse. It can be used to challenge your balance and coordination, engage your core, improve mobility and flexibility, add resistance, isolate and target muscles, improve your form and deepen stretches.
Buy a small Pilates ball here.
This is one of our favourite workouts using the small Pilates ball: Abs with Small Ball
Wrist / Ankle Weights
We love scaling up our workouts by adding wrist or ankle weights. Whether we’re actually using them or not in the class, you can always add these weights to either your arms or legs to increase the workout, depending on where you want to work harder.
Buy wrist / ankle weights here.
This is one of our favourite workouts using wrist / ankle weights: Lower Body with Ankle Weights
Magic Circle
The magic circle can be used to add resistance, help your form and alignment, provide muscular feedback and for additional support.
Buy a magic circle here.
This is one of our favourite workouts using the magic circle: Full Body with Magic Circle
Swiss Ball
The Swiss ball intensifies your workout whilst adding variety and a bit of fun! It’s fantastic to build core strength, challenge your balance and engage your stabilising muscles. It also provides feedback, helping to correct muscle imbalances. You can also use it to simulate reformer and ladder barrel exercises, and we use it a lot in our prenatal sessions as it provides the perfect support for the pregnant body.
Buy a swiss ball here.
This is one of our favourite workouts using the swiss ball: Full Body with Swiss Ball
Slider Discs
Slider discs enhance your workout by engaging your core, ramping up the intensity for your lower body and challenging your stability and flexibility. Compact and lightweight, they are ideal for your home or travel workouts.
Buy slider discs here.
This is one of our favourite workouts using discs: Mini Abs
Hand Weights
Adding hand weights to your workouts helps tone, sculpt and strengthen your muscles, whilst also facilitating core engagement.
Buy hand weights here.
This is one of our favourite workouts using hand weights: Full Body with Weights
