Your core is not your six-pack. It is a group of deep muscles wrapped around your spine and pelvis, and their job is to hold you steady while everything else moves. You cannot see them working. That is rather the point.
Which is why the most common cue in any Pilates class, engage your core, causes so much quiet confusion. People brace. People suck their stomach in and stop breathing. Neither is what the instructor is asking for. Here is what is actually going on, and what it should feel like.
The four muscles doing the quiet work
Think of it less as a muscle and more as a container, with a front, a back, a floor and a lid.
- Transversus abdominis. The deepest abdominal layer, wrapping around your middle like a wide belt. It switches on just before you move, and keeps working while you do.
- Multifidus. Small muscles running up either side of your spine, segment by segment, holding each one in place.
- Pelvic floor. The base of the container. It lifts and releases with your breath, and it works whether you think about it or not.
- Diaphragm. The lid, and your main breathing muscle. When you hold your breath to brace, you take the lid off the system.
They coordinate with each other, and with your glutes and your back. Strong abdominals on their own do not make a strong core, which is why people with visible abs still get sore backs.
Why engage your core is such a confusing cue
Because it sounds like an instruction to squeeze, and squeezing is the opposite of what you want. A braced core is rigid. A working core is responsive: low-level support that adjusts as the load changes, while you keep breathing normally through the whole thing.
A better cue, and one you will hear in the studio: lengthen through the crown of your head, let your ribs settle, and breathe out as the effort happens. Support arrives on its own. You do not have to manufacture it.
What it feels like on the reformer
This is where the reformer earns its place. The carriage moves, so your body has to organise itself constantly rather than holding one fixed position. The springs give you resistance and support at the same time, which means you can work the deep muscles at a load that is actually manageable.
In practice it feels less like effort in your stomach and more like steadiness everywhere else. Your ribs stay quiet. Your lower back stays long. The carriage moves smoothly instead of jerking. That smoothness is the core working, and it is the thing your instructor is looking for.
You do not need a strong core to start
Almost everyone who walks in says some version of “I have no core”. It is the single most common thing we hear, and it is not a reason to wait. The reformer scales: your instructor sets the springs to your body before you begin, and every movement has a version that fits where you are today.
Foundation is our beginners class and the right place to learn this properly. It runs 50 minutes, fully guided, and it teaches you the machine itself before it asks anything of you. If you are 55 or over, or would simply like a gentler pace, Enhance covers the same ground more slowly.
How long before it feels different
Most people notice the change in how they move before they notice it in a mirror. Standing feels easier. Getting off the floor takes less negotiating. Two to three classes a week is where that tends to happen, though once a week done consistently still beats three weeks of good intentions.
Keep going
For how these muscles share the work in real movement, read Your Core: A Complex Balance of Roles. For the breathing that makes all of it possible, Breathing Matters is two minutes well spent.
Every instructor at Return trains with the physiotherapists at Malvern Physiotherapy Clinic, a few doors up on Wattletree Road. It is why the cues are specific, and why nobody here will tell you to just squeeze.
