Pilates Spring Tension Explained: A Beginner’s Guide

Pilates Spring Tension Explained: A Beginner’s Guide to the Reformer

The first time someone lies down on a reformer in my studio, they almost always ask the same thing: “Wait — do more springs mean it’s harder?” That question is exactly why I wrote this pilates spring tension explained beginners guide. Because the honest answer is no. Not always. Sometimes fewer springs is the hardest thing you’ll do all week.

I’ve been teaching reformer Pilates along the Wasatch Front for years, and spring tension is the single most misunderstood part of the apparatus. People come in from a background of weight training in Sandy or Draper gyms and assume the springs work like a dumbbell rack — heavier equals harder, lighter equals easier. The reformer doesn’t play by those rules. It has its own logic. Once you understand it, the whole machine opens up.

Let me walk you through it the way I would in a first session.

Pilates Spring Tension Explained: What the Springs Actually Do

Springs on a Pilates reformer provide variable resistance that can either oppose your movement or assist it, depending on the exercise and your body’s position relative to the carriage. They don’t measure difficulty — they measure load and feedback. Lighter springs often demand more control and stability, while heavier springs offer more support in many upper-body and stability-based exercises.

That’s the short version. Here’s what’s happening underneath.

A spring stores energy when you stretch it and releases that energy when it recoils. On the reformer, that means resistance in one direction and a pull back in the other. When you push the carriage away in footwork, the springs resist you. When you let the carriage return, the springs are trying to snap it home — and your job is to slow that down. The eccentric phase. That’s where the real work lives, and it’s the part most beginners rush through.

Joseph Pilates developed this equipment in the 1920s, originally rigging bed springs to hospital cots to help rehabilitate bedridden patients. He wasn’t building a strength machine. He was building a feedback machine — something that would tell the body when it was cheating. That’s still what the springs do today.

Reading the Colors: What Each Spring Means

Here’s where new clients get tripped up. Spring colors are not standardized across brands. A red spring on a Balanced Body reformer is not the same load as a red spring on a Merrithew or Stott machine. If you’ve taken class in Park City and then walk into a studio in Lehi, the colors may mean something completely different.

Most studios in Utah use Balanced Body equipment, so here’s that system as a general reference:

The takeaway isn’t memorizing colors. It’s this: always ask your instructor. I would rather answer the same question three classes in a row than watch someone load four reds for short spine massage. Spring settings are cued for a reason, and in my reformer classes I call them out for every single exercise.

Why Lighter Springs Are Often Harder

This is the counterintuitive heart of any pilates spring tension explained beginners guide, so I want to spend real time here.

Think about long stretch — plank position on the carriage, pushing out and pulling in with your arms and abdominals. On heavier springs, the carriage doesn’t want to move. It’s stable underneath you. On lighter springs, that carriage becomes a sled on ice. Every wobble in your shoulder, every collapse in your ribs, every disengaged glute shows up instantly. The springs stop supporting you and start telling on you.

The springs aren’t the workout. Your control of the springs is the workout.

I had a client — a marathon runner from Cottonwood Heights, incredibly fit — who spent her first month asking me to add springs. Strong legs, strong lungs, no patience. In week five I dropped her to one blue spring for long stretch and she made it through four reps before her arms started shaking. Not because she was weak. Because for the first time, nothing was doing the work for her.

That’s the shift. Reformer Pilates isn’t about how much resistance you can overcome. It’s about how much precision you can maintain while the load changes underneath you.

When Heavier Springs Are the Right Choice

Now the flip side — because I don’t want anyone walking away thinking light is always better. That’s just as wrong.

Heavier springs are correct when:

• You need support and stability. In feet-in-straps work or short spine, more spring stabilizes the carriage so your pelvis and spine can organize. Too little spring here is genuinely unsafe for the low back.
• You’re building lower-body strength. Footwork, jump board, and leg press want real load. Two or three reds is normal for most people.
• You’re new and still finding alignment. A heavier carriage moves slower, which gives you more time to think. I often start beginners heavier and lighten as their proprioception improves.
• You’re working against gravity in a standing or kneeling position. The springs become a counterweight, not an opponent.
• You’re managing a shoulder or wrist issue. More spring can reduce load on a vulnerable joint by shortening the range the carriage travels.

A Simple Framework for Choosing Your Springs

When I’m training new instructors, I give them three questions to ask before setting any spring. Beginners can use the same three.

1. Is the spring resisting me or assisting me?

If you’re pushing the carriage away from the footbar, it resists. If you’re pulling the carriage toward the footbar in something like short spine, it assists your return. Assistance means you may want more spring, not less.

2. Where is the load landing in my body?

If you feel it in your neck during abdominal work, that’s usually too little spring — the carriage is too unstable and you’re gripping. If you feel it in your low back during feet-in-straps, that’s often too much spring pulling your pelvis out of neutral. The body tells you. Learn to listen.

3. Can I move slowly in both directions?

This is my favorite test. If you can’t control the carriage on the way back in — if it snaps home, if you hear a clunk — the spring is wrong for you today. The clunk is the machine telling you the truth.

Pilates Spring Tension Explained for Your First Few Classes

Practical advice, because theory only goes so far.

Arrive early. Ten minutes is enough. Tell whoever is teaching that you’re new to spring tension. Any decent instructor will walk you through the spring bar before class starts. In my studio, that’s not an inconvenience — it’s the job.

Change springs slowly and with two hands. Springs are under tension. Unhook by lifting the spring hook up and off, never by yanking. It takes one demonstration to learn and it protects your fingers and the equipment.

Don’t compare across the room. The person next to you on three reds may have a longer femur, a different injury history, or a different goal for that exercise. Spring settings are individual. Someone doing footwork on two springs isn’t behind someone on three.

Expect to change springs a lot. A well-designed 50-minute class might have eight to twelve spring changes. That’s normal. It’s part of the flow, not an interruption.

Say something if it feels wrong. Sharp pain, joint pinching, or a low back that’s arching off the carriage — flag it. Nine times out of ten it’s a spring adjustment away from feeling great. I’d rather you tell me in rep two than push through fifteen.

Where I’ll Be Honest With You

Spring tension is not the only variable that matters, and I don’t want to oversell it.

Tempo matters more than springs for a lot of people. So does range of motion. So does whether you’re actually breathing. I’ve seen clients transform their practice without ever touching the spring bar — just by slowing down and stopping at the true end of their range instead of the range their ego wanted.

I’ll also say this: there are excellent instructors who teach springs differently than I do. Some classical studios follow a fixed spring protocol for every exercise, unchanged since Joseph Pilates set it. Some contemporary studios adjust constantly. Both approaches produce strong, capable bodies. I lean contemporary — I trained through a comprehensive certification and I adjust based on the person in front of me — but I have deep respect for the classical lineage and I’ve learned a lot from teachers who work that way.

And spring tension can’t fix everything. If you have an acute injury, a recent surgery, or unmanaged pain, the right answer is a physical therapist first, reformer second. I’ve referred plenty of people out. You can read more about how I approach that on my about page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Start Where You Are

If you take one thing from this pilates spring tension explained beginners guide, let it be this: the springs are a conversation, not a scoreboard. They tell you where your control ends. They tell you when you’ve stopped breathing. They tell you which side of your body has been doing more than its share for the last ten years. Understanding pilates spring tension is what turns the reformer from an intimidating machine into a tool you actually know how to use — and that shift usually happens somewhere around your fourth or fifth class. Come find out which spring is yours.

— Bianca

Bianca — Founder & Lead Instructor, Alchemize Pilates

Bianca is a comprehensively certified Pilates instructor and the founder of Alchemize Pilates, a boutique reformer studio serving clients across the Wasatch Front — from Salt Lake City and Cottonwood Heights to Draper, Sandy, and Lehi. She specializes in helping beginners build strength through precision rather than intensity, and believes the reformer is a teaching tool before it’s a training tool. Learn more about Bianca or browse the class schedule.