THE "FORMAL" BIO

Nathan Ross Rees, founder of Reformer Academy, inspires a worldwide community of instructors and studio owners, building confidence, refining skills, and growing careers. 

He is the creator of the Reformer Workshop, which has been delivered 116 times across 12 countries. As a sought-after mentor and educator, Nathan empowers instructors to unlock their full potential, delivering practical strategies that prioritise client results in reformer classes. Focusing on simplicity, loading, and results-driven outcomes. His methods have transformed how reformer pilates is taught, creating more aligned and confident instructors that consistency delivery better client experiences. 

Laura (pictured above) and Nathan share ownership of RISE Pilates North Melbourne, an exciting 16 bed reformer studio perfectly located on the edge of the bustling Melbourne CBD.

He is the host of the Nathan Ross Rees Reformer Podcast, where he shares weekly insights on how to elevate teaching, grow businesses, and create meaningful, results-driven reformer workouts.

MY STORY

My dream was to combine my passion for travelling and training. In 2018 I made a decision that I did not want to work for money anymore.

Having tried out two careers in construction and sales, I realised the greatest wealth was having complete ownership of your time and spending it doing something you loved.

I had always loved sport and fitness since childhood and it was a strong gut feeling to pursue my passion. As I was completing my Certificate III in Fitness in 2011, I thought I would love working as a Personal Trainer. 

After teaching my first ever group classes at Hobart PCYC, I quickly realised I loved the amazing team atmosphere that is possible to create in group fitness. I ran Senior Fitball, Senior Strength, Boys Gymnastics and a weekly class at Roy Fagan for patients with Alzheimer's.

I found that even though every group of clients were in different stages of life, one thing that united them all was their passion of fitness and enjoyment of social interaction. 

I started branching out and applying for more work opportunities. I applied and was successful at a brand new reformer pilates franchise about to open in Tasmania. Up until this time I have never seen a reformer before. 

I quickly recognised its potential for delivering incredible group fitness workouts. The seemingly unlimited movement potential was fascinating. The strategies and skills that could be adapted to the reformer got me excited. I had a moment in which I realised I had found my purpose. I wanted to know everything about this machine, I wanted to know all the moves and was blown away by the established network of instructors that already existed nationwide in Australia.

I quickly realised the only way I could improve was to seek out the best instructors I could find, as it was so new in Hobart, there was no one to learn from. 

In January 2019, I started flying interstate on friday nights and spending weekends participating in reformer classes. Jumping into two to three classes a day (the most classes I ever participated in over a weekend was eight). And if possible, sitting on a box in the corner and observing entire blocks of classes. 

I quickly realised there wasn't one way to do anything, that every instructor had their own method, beliefs and moves. I liked to ask each instructor 'why' they did it the way they did it.

Initially this was very confusing as I would hear contradictory advice. 

After months of experimentation in my own classes each week I began to come to my own conclusions on what worked and why. 

Between 2019 and 2021 I visited over 50 studios across 7 states and territories. I personally trained with over 80 different instructors. I began to see patterns. I could see certain behaviours and beliefs that lead to high performance nationwide. I began to develop and distill what I came to call the first principles of effective reformer workouts. 

As my confidence grew I began to ask instructors and owners if I could teach for free on weekends in their studios interstate to test out my ideas. 

I believed if I could be universally successful in any studio, in any state, with any instructor that the knowledge I had gained was valuable.  

As I began to frequently teach in VIC, NSW, SA, QLD, ACT, WA I started to receive positive feedback and recognition amongst local instructor and client communities. 

At the same time I began to share my most exciting and inspirational exercises I had learned along the way. Starting my Instagram page in September 2018, it grew to approximately 2.7k followers by April 2021 with regular posting from interstate training adventures and reformer exercise inspiration.  

I came to the conclusion in 2021 that to continue to grow as an instructor I needed to seek greater challenges. 

I left Tasmania during the July Covid Lockdown and moved to a share house in St Kilda, Melbourne. 

Logically I couldn't explain the move. It didn't make sense to move to Melbourne in a lockdown, especially when there were many other regions of Australia open.

However I had a strong gut feeling that it was the right thing to do, to me it represented the biggest challenge. In Melbourne there are more studios and more instructors. I wanted to test out my ideas and see if I could be successful in an environment that had so many established and well known instructors. My personal test was to see if I could out perform them in client bookings, class retention and waitlisted classes. 

The thought process being if I indeed can outperform them, then the first principles I have created are indeed valuable and useful insights into optimising the client experience in reformer classes. 

As soon as Melbourne reopened I got to work, teaching over 40 classes a week across 5 studios + picking up cover shifts where possible. 

Pushing my limits physically and mentally I managed to get significant results. In some cases doubling studio revenues. 

I began receiving requests from studio owners for workshops. They had heard about the numbers I had produced and were interested in learning what I was doing. I started teaching workshops on weekends and quickly realised the potential for creating a new life working for myself, on my own terms. 

The workshop requests started come in from interstate and I began to elevate my prices to cover travel costs. 

Here and there I began to experiences glimpses of a new life, the one I had dreamed of travelling and training.  

In February 2022, after inspiring conversations with Chris and Laura I made the decision to directly pursue my dream. 

I left my roles as an instructor and started promoting my Reformer Workshops in Sydney. Amazingly 10 workshop bookings appeared for the following two months across NSW. 

I had to make a decision, do I keep my apartment in St Kilda or do I sell everything and throw what was left in my car and start touring. 

I announced to social media I was taking my Reformer Workshop tour across Australia. By April 2022 my Instagram following had grown to 14k. Encouraged by the growing support I left Melbourne and began the journey. 

Running Workshops became my sole source of income, and quickly I realised how expensive non-stop travelling was. Accommodation, food and fuel costs were adding up and I needed to generate more income. 

I decided to launch some online training products purpose built to support and inspire reformer instructors and studio owners, this was the beginning of what is now Reformer Academy.

The journey continued and as the funds ran low, some nights the only option was sleeping in the car. I had completely committed to the trip so quitting was not an option. 

After some great feedback from my initial online clients I restructured the training program and it started to succeed. 

I drove that car the entire length of the East Coast completing (17) Reformer Workshops.

I continued the drive across the Northern Territory and down the West Coast to Perth.

Fortunately the online training was finically sustaining the trip from this point forward. Which was exciting to say the least, as internet reception is hard to find in outback Australia.  

I received an inquiry about in running my Reformer Workshop in Dubai. 

The goal was always to teach Reformer Workshops internationally. This was my chance, so I sold my car in Perth and boarded the plane. 

My girlfriend Laura was excited to travel too, so we met up in Bali. Next was my workshop in Dubai, then we went to Egypt, Turkey and Greece.

When our trip was coming to end I grew restless, as my dream had continued to evolve and expand. Touring the USA was the next big vision.

I felt compelled to do it but it was also a big risk considering the funds were low from travelling. 

Siting in a hotel room with Laura and weighting up the options. It became clear that If I didn't do it now while I had the momentum, I might never do it. After some inspiring words from Laura I booked the flights to America.

At that moment I did not have any bookings organised and it was just pure optimism and faith it would all workout. 

Landing in NYC, I drove up to Boston.

Incredibly within two weeks I had secured 35 Reformer Workshop bookings, eclipsing what I had done in Australia and Dubai at that point. 

The journey kept going to a total of 12 countries and now 116 Reformer Workshops, spending more than one year overseas.

Laura and myself opened RISE Pilates North Melbourne together in July 2024.

It has been a wild ride and I am very grateful to all the amazing people I have meet along the way.  

Especially grateful to Laura for her support, in those moments of need you gave me the courage to go for it.

Mission

At Reformer Academy, our mission is to empower pilates instructors and studio owners to deliver classes that are simple, effective, and transformational. We believe that every exercise must contribute to building client strength and confidence. We provide our instructors with the tools to build client connections, develop critical thinking, instruct with high levels of awareness, dynamic confidence and an engaging class presence, all while delivering intentional, results-driven workouts. Our purpose is to ensure long-term success for clients, instructors and studios.

Values

1. Client Experience: We focus on creating a meaningful experience for clients, ensuring that every workout leads to positive outcomes and drives long-term progress.

2. Rewarding Effort: We believe in creating a meritocratic everyone which rewards and encourages effort.

3. Building Strength and Confidence: Our ultimate goal is to help instructors create classes that empower clients—physically and mentally. Strength and confidence go hand-in-hand, and our training methods are designed to cultivate both.  

Philosophy

At the core of Reformer Academy’s training philosophy is the belief that every time we put a client in a body position with a spring tension there must be an outcome. The desired outcome is achieving mechanical tension on the target muscle group. We emphasise the importance of starting every exercise in an achievable position (for every client present), then strategically scaling the load on the target muscle group throughout the exercise. This load progression strategy enables every client to work at their optimal level for the entire duration of every exercise. 

We believe that simplicity is key to success. Exercises don’t need to be complicated. Instead, they should be:

• Simple: Easy to understand and accessible for clients at any level.
• Scalable: Adjustable in load or intensity to meet individual needs.
• Intentional: Every exercise has an objective target muscle group.

We believe creativity serves a higher purpose than just being different. We use creativity intentionally to find more optimal versions of the same exercises, we use creativity to find new combinations and sequences of exercise in class planning.

Our approach to reformer instruction priorities exercises that achieve measurable client results. Which can be seen when clients can do the same exercises with more load. An example is clients using less spring tension for body weight loaded exercises and using more spring tension for spring tension loaded exercises. In this way, Reformer Academy successfully integrates progressive overload into reformer workouts.

Ultimately every decision we make, every interaction we have, we strive to build client strength and confidence.