Rewriting the rules of fitness
Last month at the massive FIBO Cologne, one modest booth caught my attention: that of Your Reformer. Founders Emma and Ben Stallworthy, former gym owners who created Your Reformer for home fitness during the pandemic, have now decided to team up with commercial gyms, providing both equipment and programming.
Last week, Your Reformer was recognized as the winner of Technology Company of the Year at the Beyond Activ 2026 APAC Awards held at the Shangri-La in Bangkok. We were elated to have Emma and Ben share their fitness insights.
THE PHILIPPINE STAR: You built a name for yourselves by solving the at-home fitness challenge during the pandemic. Now, with partnerships like World Gym Taiwan, you’re clearly focusing on the enterprise side. What was the most critical lesson in catering to commercial gyms?
EMMA AND BEN STALLWORTHY: In a living room, the customer and the operator are the same person. In a commercial gym, you have three customers: the member, the instructor, and the operator—and all three have to win on the same piece of equipment. The reason we understood that distinction so quickly is that, before Your Reformer existed, we were gym and studio operators ourselves.
That lived experience is the foundation of how we build. We’ve stood on the other side of the counter, watching membership numbers, fighting for instructor retention, and obsessing over revenue per square meter and member experience. So when we sit across the table from a partner like World Gym Taiwan, it isn’t a vendor conversation. It’s a peer conversation. We’re talking to a customer we used to be.
Scaling enterprise isn’t about making a bigger or stronger version of the home product. It’s a fundamentally different design brief. We had to stop optimizing for one customer and start designing for a triangulation: the member who wants a great workout, the instructor who needs to deliver class 12 with the same energy as class one, and the operator measuring revenue per square meter, durability, and throughput.
You’ve moved beyond just selling equipment into providing an integrated ecosystem—software, education, and content (via InstructorPro). In an industry crowded with hardware, why do you believe the “future-proof” fitness brand is a software-first company?
We’re not a software-first company, but rather an outcomes-first company. Software-first thinking has dominated the industry narrative for the past five years, and a lot of brands have built impressive technology that hasn’t moved the needle for the customer. Because the customer — whether that’s a club owner, an instructor, or a member—doesn’t actually want software. They want a successful outcome: higher member retention, a confident instructor, a stronger body, and a profitable studio.
When you start there, you stop arguing about whether you’re hardware- or software-focused, and you start asking a much better question: What is missing in this customer’s path to success? Sometimes the answer is hardware. Sometimes it’s software that fixes a scheduling problem or resolves the instructor shortage issue. Sometimes it’s an instructor education program. Often, it’s the integration of all of them.
So we’ve built an ecosystem: hardware, software, education, integration, partnerships, and marketing strategy. Every one of them is part of a playbook that provides the solution needed by our customers. We believe the future-proof brand isn’t software-first, but rather customer-result-focused—or, in other words, focused on the solution outcome.
Building a business as a married couple is a unique challenge. How do you divide the “visionary” and “operational” hats between you? How do you ensure the business relationship strengthens, rather than strains, your partnership?
Our strength starts with understanding each other’s strengths and deliberately building roles that lean into them. We’re very different in what we do, and honestly, that’s what makes it work. We balance each other’s strengths and blind spots. Communication is non-negotiable, and yes— we absolutely disagree and debate. But once everyone’s been heard and a decision is made, we back it completely. No revisiting, no undermining.
And it goes beyond the business—we’re true partners in life. The kids, the household, all of it. So the question of how you separate the two is one that we navigate every single day.
I see a shift toward hybrid models where members expect high-touch PT alongside on-demand convenience. Where do you see the “reformer space” sitting in this hybrid future?
We believe reformer Pilates is uniquely positioned for both. As a boutique experience, reformer delivers a high-touch, high-margin community offering that an algorithm simply cannot replicate. The instructor, the room, the small-group dynamic—that’s irreplaceable.
As an essential pillar of general fitness, reformer quietly solves the problem the entire industry has been grappling with: how to serve aging populations, post-rehabilitation members, mobility-focused users, and high-performance athletes within a single system. Very few modalities can do that.
The hybrid future isn’t reformer or digital. It’s reformer plus digital. Members will increasingly want the on-demand convenience of a structured at-home program paired with the irreplaceable experience of being coached on a quality machine in person. The clubs that win the next decade will offer both—and they’ll treat reformer as the connective tissue between premium PT, group fitness, and member retention.
What is the key to creating an environment that is relevant to both a high-performance athlete and an everyday member?
The secret is making everyone feel like they belong there—without dumbing it down for one group or making it intimidating for the other.
Premium isn’t price; premium is care. The athlete and the everyday member want the same things—they just describe them differently. Both want clean, well-maintained equipment. Both want a coach who actually sees them. Both want an environment that respects their time. Both want a program that progresses them.
They don’t need to be catered to in different facilities; they simply need depth of programming and instructors capable of handling both ends of the spectrum. It’s why we love Pilates so deeply—it has the ability to cater to such a broad range of demographics.
