When Pilathon opened in Wynwood, the neighborhood was still finding its identity, and Pilates required some explaining. People would peer through the windows and ask whether it was yoga with equipment. For Emily Bench, opening without a single client was equal parts excitement and stress.
“Pilates wasn’t the trendy workout it is today”, she recalls. “It was a big leap of faith”. More than a decade later, the studio has grown alongside the neighborhood without losing the intimacy that defines it: small classes, hands-on instruction and people interested in understanding their bodies.
“Today, Pilathon feels like a little hidden gem with a big heart”, she reflects. “Watching Wynwood grow around us has been one of the sweetest parts of this whole adventure”.
A different way to make people smile
Before teaching movement, Emily was a dentist. She enjoyed the profession, but hours spent leaning over patients brought increasingly intense neck and back pain. Pilates became her way of addressing it.
“After just half a dozen sessions, I felt a dramatic difference”, she remembers. What began as a personal practice became a professional calling. She enrolled in a Pilates teacher training program in Miami, completed it and began teaching there, discovering an aptitude she had not previously recognized.
Those early teaching years shaped her approach. Eventually, a shared dream with one of her best friends, also a dentist who became a Pilates instructor, led them to open Pilathon together.
“I guess I’m still making people smile”, she jokes. “Only now I do it standing up!”
Precision over intensity
Located in the Cynergi Building’s rooftop fitness space, Pilathon offers Reformer, Tower, Chair and Spine Corrector classes, alongside private sessions. The equipment varies; the teaching philosophy stays consistent.
“At Pilathon, we teach people to feel, not just feel the effort”, Emily explains. That means moving slowly, treating breath as an organizing tool and choosing conscious progression over a “no pain, no gain” mentality.
Success is not measured by sweat or next-day soreness. It might mean performing a movement with greater precision than the week before. Instructors offer different levels of each exercise so clients can work within a variation that supports alignment and control.
“If a heavier spring or a harder variation makes you lose the mind-body connection, easing back is a win, not a failure”, she emphasizes.
This is not an argument against demanding work. It is a different way of deciding what makes that work worthwhile. Emily wants clients to develop strength without treating exhaustion as proof that a session delivered.
“You’ll still be working hard and building a strong, capable body”, she adds. “You’ll just leave class feeling more energized, taller and more comfortable in yourself, rather than completely drained”.
Beyond the studio hour
Emily’s experience of pain continues to inform her interest in anatomy and movement. She studies fascia, breathing and how bodies move, with a particular focus on maintaining capability as people age.
She also sees a shift in what clients want from fitness. “People no longer exercise just to look good on the beach. They want to prevent pain, improve their posture and move with awareness”, she observes. For her, the value of a practice lies partly in what people can carry into everyday life.
Not all of that learning requires studio equipment. She points to simple breathing and floor-based mobility habits as accessible ways to keep movement part of a daily routine. “Intelligent movement is the key to a healthy, happy and independent life as we age. And the best time to learn the ‘how’ is now!” she emphasizes.
That outlook gives Pilathon a purpose beyond the class schedule. In a neighborhood she has watched transform, Emily and her team of teachers continues to make room for careful teaching, gradual progress and a relationship with movement that lasts longer than the latest trend.
