The nerves before a first reformer class are almost never about the exercise. They are about not knowing the choreography of the room: where to put your shoes, whether you are meant to talk, what happens if you cannot do it. So here is the entire hour, in order, with nothing left out.
Before you arrive
Wear leggings or shorts you can move in and a top that is reasonably fitted. This matters more than it sounds: in a loose t-shirt, the first time you lift your hips, the shirt goes over your face.
Bring grip socks. Studios insist on them for hygiene and for grip on the carriage, and bare feet slide. If you forget, most studios sell them — at reef they are included with your first visit.
Eat something small an hour or two before, not a full meal. You will be lying on your stomach at some point.
Arriving
Arrive fifteen minutes early for a first class. That is not padding; it is the time it takes to be shown the changing rooms, meet your instructor and have your machine set up without anyone rushing.
Shoes come off. Phone goes in a locker or stays face down — this is one of the few hours in the week where nobody can reach you, and it turns out to be a large part of why people like it.
Tell your instructor things
Before the class starts, say if you have an injury, a recent operation, a dodgy knee, high or low blood pressure, or if you are pregnant or recently postnatal. Say if you are nervous. Instructors would vastly rather know at the start than work it out halfway through.
If anything about your health makes you unsure whether a class is right for you, speak to your GP or a qualified clinician first. A good studio will tell you honestly if a group class is not the right place for you yet.
Setting up the machine
Your instructor will set the footbar height, the headrest, the shoulder blocks and the springs for you, and explain what each one does. They should tell you how to get on and off the carriage safely — there is a right way, and it involves not standing on a sliding surface.
Write down or photograph your settings. From your second class onwards, setting up takes about ten seconds.
The class itself
Most classes follow a recognisable shape:
- Breathing and settling — a few minutes lying down, finding your ribs and pelvis. It feels like nothing. It is not nothing.
- Footwork — lying on your back, pushing the carriage away with your feet on the bar. This is where you learn what the springs feel like.
- Arms and abdominals — usually with the long straps.
- Legs in straps — the bit that feels extraordinary and slightly undignified in equal measure.
- Side-lying, kneeling or standing work — balance, obliques, glutes.
- Stretch — short, and by this point extremely welcome.
Every exercise is demonstrated first. There is always a simpler version. Saying “can I have the easier one” is completely normal and nobody will think anything of it.
Things that will happen, and are fine
- Your legs will shake. Spring resistance finds muscles that do not usually get asked. Shaking is not failure; it is the muscle working at the edge of its capacity.
- You will lose the count. Everyone does. Follow the person in front, or just keep moving.
- You will not be able to do one of the exercises. Also everyone. The instructor will give you an alternative.
- You will be certain everyone is watching you. They are lying on their backs, staring at the ceiling, hoping the instructor does not come over.
Afterwards
You will feel long rather than wrecked. The soreness, if it comes, tends to arrive the next day and lands somewhere you were not expecting — the sides of the abdomen, the inner thighs, the upper back.
Drink some water. Then either leave, or do the thing that makes a studio worth having: shower, sit down, have a coffee, and talk to somebody. At reef the café is at the front of the building specifically so that the hour does not have to end when the class does.
And then book the next one
The single best thing you can do after a first reformer class is book the second before the feeling wears off. We think it clicks on the third session — the first is new, the second is familiar, and by the third you have stopped thinking about the machine and started thinking about the movement.
