Gyms have discovered Pilates. And that may be the most important, and most uncomfortable, piece of news for anyone whose livelihood is a studio. For decades, Pilates was near-exclusive territory for studios and clinics. Today, gym chains, functional training boxes and boutique concepts offer group and apparatus-based Pilates as part of the mix, and group formats are widely cited as among the fastest-growing in fitness: more accessible, more dynamic, easier to scale. For the owner who built a business on the classical method, this is a quiet shifting of tectonic plates. The client gained new options, and the bar for experience went up.
The natural reflex is to keep doing what has always worked. After all, it worked. And that is exactly where the risk lives.
Blockbuster did not collapse because its people were incompetent; it collapsed because it kept the culture that made it win even after the market changed. Pilates studios face a version of the same moment: as gyms and boutique chains enter the category, a full schedule today is not proof the model will stay relevant. The lesson is not to abandon the method, but to review strategy, and the behaviors that execute it, before the market forces the review.
01The question Blockbuster never asked
Blockbuster was one of the largest entertainment retailers in history. At one point it had the chance to buy Netflix, and passed. Years later, it was gone. The question that intrigues any manager is: how? These were not unprepared people. On the contrary: talented executives running a profitable, well-managed business.
The deeper answer is not "they got the technology wrong". It is that they never changed a winning culture. Blockbuster had an excellent culture, for the world of physical video stores. Store efficiency, standardization, focus on what already sold. That set of behaviors made it a giant, and the very same set of behaviors made it blind to streaming. The executives did not "stop believing" in Netflix. They simply were not looking at it. They were looking at the stores.
Kodak, Nokia and BlackBerry tell variations of the same story: dominant brands that kept the culture that took them to the top even as the world in front of them became a different one.
02Culture is a tool, not a constitution
There is a management idea that brings this into focus. We tend to treat company culture as untouchable, almost a constitution to be followed for as long as possible. It is more useful to treat it as a tool in service of strategy. The logic is simple and chained:
- Objective: where you want to get.
- Strategy: why and how you will win, by creating and sustaining competitive advantages.
- Culture: the system of behaviors your people need, day to day, to execute that strategy.
The key point: when the market changes, the client changes and the competitors change, the objective and the strategy change too. And if the strategy changes, the culture, the required behaviors, must change with it. The culture that got you here is not necessarily the one that takes you forward. Blockbuster failed to make that revision. Companies that survived several growth waves did the opposite: they changed the culture as the strategy and objectives changed.
03The studio owner's blind spot
Bring this to Pilates. Many studios operate today with the same culture, the same system of behaviors, that made them grow: individual or small-group sessions, focus on the classical method, a schedule built on the teacher-client relationship. It is a legitimate model that delivers quality and built solid reputations.
The risk appears when that model becomes the only horizon. While the owner looks at a full schedule, the signal that "everything is fine", the category transforms around them: high-performance group classes, a more intense and shareable experience, models that scale with more predictability and less dependence on a single teacher. Like Blockbuster looking at its busy stores, it is easy to conclude there is no reason to change. Today's occupancy does not guarantee tomorrow's relevance.
04When should you rethink the model?
The honest answer: when the objective and the strategy change, and they change when the market changes. While you still believe your current strategy sustains a competitive advantage, it makes sense to keep the culture that executes it. The moment competition closes in, price starts becoming the deciding criterion and brand experiences start to look alike, that is the signal the strategy needs to evolve, and the culture with it.
Some useful questions for a studio owner to sit with, without rushing the answers:
- What is my objective for the next five years, and is it the same as five years ago?
- What is my strategy: why would a client choose my studio over the gym that now also offers Pilates?
- Which of my team's behaviors sustain that strategy, and which no longer serve it?
- Am I looking at my schedule, or at the market?
05Not abandoning the method: evolving the delivery
Changing the culture does not mean throwing away what works, or betraying the essence of Pilates. It means protecting margin, experience and positioning for the next cycle. The method remains the asset; what is at stake is how it is delivered: with what intensity, in what format, with what identity and at what scale. Differentiation stopped being a luxury and became a survival condition in a market that got crowded. Our post on the new era of Pilates maps what that differentiation looks like in practice, and our group classes program shows one concrete answer.
The Blockbuster parallel is not a prophecy; it is an invitation to lucidity. The companies that lasted were not the ones with the best culture at any given moment, but the ones with the courage to revise it when the world changed. In Pilates, that world is already changing.