At the beginning of the Covid Lockdowns, I discovered The Balanced Life Pilates (now Lindywell).
I felt so excited to find a good at-home workout program! It definitely made those long days of being stuck at my apartment so much happier.
Two years later, I still love this pilates program! I wrote an initial review a few weeks after I started the program that you can read here and I thought that since they recently rebranded from The Balanced Life to Lindywell I should do another review! :)
So without further ado, let’s talk about Lindywell!
**This is not a sponsored post. If you sign up through my link you’ll get $20 off your initial membership & I’ll receive product credit. You’ll also receive your own referral link :)
What is Lindywell?
Lindywell is an online, at-home Pilates membership led by Robin Long.
I have to be honest; when she first announced the name change to “Lindywell,” I was very skeptical. I just loved “The Balanced Life” so much and was worried that she sold the company.
Thankfully, she still owns it and her program needed a new name in order to continue to grow. (There are many “The Balanced Life” brands in the world! Who knew!)
The new name has very personal ties to Robin.
She writes,
When deciding on a new name – I knew it had to come from the heart and I knew it had to be centered around women and sisterhood.
I’ll give you a hint….my mom (Linda) and my aunt (Judy) were my inspiration. When the name came to me I knew it was right – I loved it right away and I hope you will too.
You can learn more about the name change here.
How the Program Works
Each month, Robin & her team put together a workout calendar with assigned workouts for Monday-Friday.
The videos on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are shorter— about 10-15 minutes. The Tuesday/Thursday workouts are longer— 20-30 minutes long.
Additionally, each Thursday is a brand-new workout and it repeats each Thursday of the month. The goal behind repeating the same video every week for a month is that you’ll be able to see how much stronger you’re getting by the end of the month!
Every day when you log on to the website or open the app, there’s an assigned workout video waiting for you. You can just hit “play” and immediately start working out.
I often ignore the day’s video unless I’m in the mood for it! Instead, I click over to the Library tab and choose a workout that sounds more appealing. Perhaps I’m looking for a shorter workout. Or maybe I’m in the Luteal Phase of my cycle and want a relaxing, stretching routine instead of a dance-inspired cardio routine.
I love that I have the flexibility to choose to just do the assigned workout or to choose my own!
The Lindywell workout library is really easy to search too!
You can search by keywords, such as “morning,” “arms,” “weights,” “prenatal,” etc.
Or, you can scroll through the different categories. They have workouts categorized by length and focus.
There are over 250 workout videos to choose from and so you’ll never be lacking in choices!
The app has a calendar of your workout history that can double as a habit tracker
In the past, the calendar contained the monthly workouts and if you completed the assigned workout you would get a green checkmark on the calendar.
However, if you did a workout that wasn’t assigned, you wouldn’t get a checkmark.
It’s such a little thing, but I was really motivated to see that calendar of checkmarks. So even if I didn’t do the assigned workout & did a different video instead, I would mark the assigned workout as “complete” so I’d get the check for working out that day.
Now everything has changed for the better!
When you open the Lindywell app or website & click on the calendar, you can choose to see the assigned workouts or your activity.
On the “My Activity” tab, you’ll see checkmarks every day that you work out regardless of which video you complete! Additionally, when you click on the date it will show you which workouts you did. If you do multiple videos in a day it will show both videos.
I’m so excited about this change & it’s something I’ve been hoping for pretty much ever since I joined The Balanced Life.
I like cycle syncing my Pilate workouts and like to share on my Instagram which video I did during which phase of my cycle. I’ve been wanting to create a formal guide or blog post about recommended workouts for your different cycle phases and so this new feature will make it so much easier to be able to go back and see what I did when.
If you’re interested in cycle syncing your workouts you’ll probably find this feature helpful too!
The majority of the workouts are filmed on the beach
Back when Robin first started The Balanced Life, she filmed videos inside. Sometime along the way she switched to filming on the Californian beach and never went back!
I adore hearing the sound of the waves crashing in the background of my workouts. I can close my eyes and imagine that I’m working out on the beach too!
It’s definitely really relaxing!
Robin is real, honest, and an amazing instructor
She doesn’t edit out when there’s a spider suddenly on her mat and she freaks out.
Or when there’s sand on her mat. She just comments, “I’m going to brush the sand off real quick” and keeps going. It feels like we’re really together, doing a workout in real-time.
She doesn’t focus on appearance. The goal with Lindywell isn’t to lose weight or look hot. The goal is to feel good and be confident as you move off your mat into your everyday life.
I admire that so much!
Robin’s voice is soothing, calm, and relaxing while being joyful at the same time! She also cues you through the workouts really well. After using her program for two years, I rarely have to watch her while I work out now. Instead, I can just listen and follow her verbal instructions.
Lindywell has more instructors now too!
Recently, Robin brought three more instructors onto her team who have different Pilates backgrounds and experience. One of them, Sheri, specializes in prenatal &
postpartum Pilates! Awesome!
You can read more about the team here.
Your Lindywell membership also comes with a recipe library!
Every month, five new recipes are added to the extensive library.
When you become a member you gain access to all the past recipes as well! I love that! Sometimes you join a membership and you only get access to what you’ve directly paid for. That’s not the case with Lindywell!
There’s a variety of meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner as well as healthy snack ideas too. I’ve tried several of these recipes over the years and they’re always so yummy! Their smoothie recipes are my favorite :)
Lindywell also has a thriving Facebook community!
If you’re looking for a sisterhood of people who love Pilates because it makes them feel good, you’ll love this Facebook group!
I love scrolling through this group whenever it’s been a while since I’ve worked out. It inspires me to get back on my mat :)
I can’t recommend Lindywell enough!
I honestly can’t think of any cons to this program. In the past, my caveats were that the calendar would only give you a checkmark if you did the assigned workout, but they fixed that!
If you would like to join you can use my referral link for $20 off your membership.
There are 1-month, 6-month, and 12-month payment plans available. With the 6 and 12-month options, you can get your money back after 30 days if you don’t like it— but hopefully, you’ll love it as much as I do :)
(When you join, you’ll get your own referral code to share with friends too and you’ll earn store credit! Yay!)
If you’d like to see how I cycle sync my Lindywell workouts, make sure you follow me on Instagram @faithfilledfertility and check out my Pilates highlight :)
