NordicTrack’s Ultra 1 Reformer Is the Secret to Building Strength and Supporting Mobility

There is something remarkable about Pilates: more than 100 years after Joseph Pilates developed his method, the fundamentals remain remarkably unchanged. Precise movement. Control. Breath. Awareness of the body.

What has changed is our understanding of why those things matter.

Today, Pilates has moved far beyond the studio. It has become part of a broader approach to wellbeing—one that values strength and mobility alongside recovery, balance, longevity and simply feeling good in your body. It can complement almost any form of movement, from running and cycling to golf and tennis, while helping you build the foundations to move well for years to come.

“I’ve been teaching Pilates for more than 20 years, and what’s fascinating is that the philosophy hasn’t really changed,” says Yvette McGaffin, Director of Pilates at iFIT and founder of Reform RX. “What has changed is the way we think about health. We’re increasingly interested in longevity, mobility, recovery and how we want our bodies to feel not just today, but 10, 20, or 30 years from now.”

That evolution is part of what makes Pilates so relevant now—and it is also changing where and how we practice it.

The new NordicTrack Ultra 1 Reformer channels the experience of a Pilates studio into a beautifully designed piece of equipment, combining the physicality of the reformer with immersive instruction and intuitive technology. Its 24-inch rotating HD touchscreen gives you access to iFIT Pilates classes across different levels and styles, allowing the practice to evolve with you rather than asking you to fit your body into a particular kind of workout.

“We weren’t trying to make a smaller studio Reformer,” says McGaffin. “We were thinking about how to recreate the experience of a great Pilates studio—the equipment, the instruction, the progression, and the feeling of being guided through a practice.”

That sense of ease is important. The Ultra 1 is designed to make the reformer feel intuitive from the first session, with no exposed springs and resistance adjusted at the push of a button. Spring engagement and footbar position are visible as part of the experience, helping remove some of the unfamiliarity that can make a reformer feel intimidating when you first encounter one.

For McGaffin, good design is ultimately about removing friction between people and movement.

“The goal was to remove friction,” she says. “If something is difficult to understand or takes too much effort to set up, you’ve created a barrier before you’ve even started. We wanted the experience to feel intuitive, beautiful and easy to return to.”

And perhaps that is where the future of Pilates lies: not in making the practice more complicated, but in making it easier to access and sustain.

A reformer at home can create continuity in your routine. So can a Pilates class at a hotel when you travel, or a session between meetings when your day is full. The setting can change; the fundamentals don’t have to.

“Pilates has been part of my life for more than 20 years, and I still find something new in it,” says McGaffin. “That’s the beauty of the practice. It can challenge you, build incredible strength and control, support recovery and mobility, or give a professional athlete that extra one percent difference in balance, stability, power, and body awareness that can change performance. And then it can be the thing you come back to for the next 20 or 30 years because it continues to evolve with you.”

That’s why I’m so passionate about Pilates. It’s not just a workout or something you do to stay in shape. It’s a way of understanding your body and giving it the tools to perform, recover, and keep moving well throughout your life.

Discover the NordicTrack Ultra 1 Reformer.