Beyond Pilates Hillcrest

Beyond Pilates: it pretty much says in the name that they’re more than just a Pilates studio. They offer spin, spinlates (which is 25 minutes of Pilates followed by 25 minutes of spin), yoga, and barre classes in addition to Pilates classes. The classes outside of Pilates are very limited and not offered daily, but we dig the variety.

RUNDOWN

WORKOUT

This class seemed to fit so much in the short 50 minutes we had, and we’re not mad about it. Class started out like many Pilates classes do, with simple standing stretches and a roll down. Then we moved to our mats for some ab work with the spring wall. Kristi had us do some different stuff to switch it up which was really fun and even more challenging. We did this fun move on our backs where we flipped up and our feet went over our heads (we hope you’re getting a clear vision of what this looked like). It probably sounds strange and probably looked funny but it was fun and extremely challenging.  After the (fun) mat work, we moved onto the reformer and did some leg work followed by chair work. We don’t know about you guys, but we’re big fans of the chair. Kristi had us do a little leg work, and of course some ab work because, well, if you’re on the chair it’s pretty much a given you’re going to be doing some ab/oblique work. We headed back to the reformer for some pretty basic arm work and finished off with a little more leg action. Of course, class finished as it started, with some standing stretches.

INSTRUCTOR

Kristi was super friendly and we appreciated how different she was. She pushes you and loves trying things you wouldn’t ordinarily do in an everyday Pilates class. Some of the stuff was great and some of it had you thinking “WTF am I doing”? She was helpful with adjustments and would be a good instructor for beginners. We’ll be honest, though, some of the ways she explained things made it a little difficult to understand what she wanted us to do. Overall though, the class was good and we’ll be back, just not running back tomorrow or anything. As we were leaving class, we overheard a student for the next class say she forgot a shirt and ask if they had any merchandise for sale. They don’t, so Kristi offered the shirt off her own back. How many instructors do you know that would do that?!

SPACE

We’ll start off by saying the studio is in the busy part of Hillcrest and they don’t have reserved parking, so definitely take that into consideration. We were lucky and found metered parking but depending on the day/time you go, parking could be an issue. The studio itself is clean and pretty simple. There’s an area for barre classes and yoga in the back corner. They have a mini fridge with waters, which is donation based with a suggested $1 minimum. There are cubbies for your stuff but no lockers. You can see them the whole time though and it feels extremely safe. The bathroom is simple and doesn’t have any goodies such as deodorant, tampons, etc.