Pilates is Atlanta's top fitness routine
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If your New Year resolutions include getting more active, you may want to consider a workout that's taken Atlanta by storm.
Driving the news: The top fitness routine in metro Atlanta is Pilates, according to data ClassPass shared with Axios.
The big picture: Across the country, Pilates was also the top format — just like last year and the year prior — increasing 66% year over year, the workout reservation app writes in its 2025 report.
- Yoga and strength training come in at no. 2 and no. 3, respectively.
- ClassPass data was compiled between Jan. 1 and Oct. 10, 2025.
The intrigue: Parkour and postnatal classes are among the fastest-growing workouts nationally, according to ClassPass.
- And March (no, not January, resolution-makers) was the most popular month to do an exercise class.
Zoom in: The popular low-impact exercise, which helps participants with balance, flexibility and core strength and can help athletes recover from injuries, got its start in the 1930s by Joseph Pilates.
- Born in 1883 in Germany, Pilates appeared to "have been a frail child, suffering from asthma, rickets and rheumatic fever," according to the Pilates Foundation.
- While he was interned in England along with other German-born nationals during the first World War, he developed his workout technique.
- As the war was drawing to a close, Pilates was an orderly at a hospital where he helped immobile patients get their limbs moving by attaching bed springs to hospital beds, the foundation says.
- He immigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s with his wife, and they continued to develop the routine and began teaching it at a "body conditioning gym" in New York City.
💭 Kristal's thought bubble: I've enjoyed indoor rock climbing for the past two-and-a-half years, but I definitely want to incorporate Pilates into my routine next year.