Meghan Markle, Jennifer Aniston, Kim Kardashian and Michelle Obama. These are just some of the notable figures who count themselves part of the international lagree community. Never heard of it? Us neither, until it opened in Chelsea earlier this year, taking the capital’s fitness scene by storm. 

Founded by Lebanese fitness enthusiasts and entrepreneurs Mona Halawi and Nour Abu Hamdan, Mad Lagree is the only licensed studio in the capital – which actually took the founders by surprise when they were discussing the concept in early 2023. “In LA, lagree is one of the biggest fitness trends,” explains Abu Hamdan. “There seems to be a new studio opening all the time. It’s now in Austin, Dallas, Canada, Hong Kong, Phuket, Zurich, Copenhagen, so we thought why not London?” 

The studio, situated at 77 King’s Road, opened in May 2023 and, given the fact the concept was so new to London, the founders prepared themselves for a slow start. “We were very conservative about how many classes we were opening to give people time to get into the workout and we knew it was going to take some time to build a bit of a following,” explains Abu Hamdan. “But we were lucky that, because it’s an international workout, some people already know about lagree. The lagree community is small but committed, and they’re fanatic about it.”

The duo both started practising lagree when a studio opened in their neighbourhood in Lebanon. “It came to Lebanon, where we’re from, about eight years ago. I stumbled on a studio next to my house and started going there religiously,” says Halawi. “It really grew on me and slowly replaced any other strength workout I’d been doing, as it felt safe and it was targeting my core. I didn’t feel like it would make me bulky and it was giving me the results I was after, such as toning. 

“I got certified in LA three years ago, and when my husband wanted to move from Lebanon to London I found there was no studio in the city. It was known everywhere in the world, just not London. I thought it was a perfect opportunity.”

So, what actually is lagree? And why are people so mad about it? We tried a class to find out…

What is lagree?

Inside Mad Lagree, Chelsea

Sebastien Lagree, a French personal trainer, founded the concept in 1998 when he found many of his clients were looking for a hybrid workout that bridged the gap between slower, stretching-based exercises – such as yoga and Pilates – and HIIT sessions. He created the Megaformer, based on a Pilates reformer with a similar carriage and spring weight system, but as the name suggests, much larger. It comes in a variety of sizes, but the most basic is priced at a whopping £6,440. 

The carriage bed features straight red lines – markers for where you place your arms and knees during the workout – and numbers one to 11, where you put your hands and feet to navigate the carriage underneath you. At each corner of the Megaformer, you’ll find two different types of static handles – one curved and the other with three different branches – where you’ll push and pull with your hands and feet during class. An array of moves, such as shoulder presses, are possible here, unlike on a Pilates reformer, while tension cords help perfect those bicep curls and tricep dips. 

“In the lagree community, they’re trying to change the narrative by highlighting this is not Pilates. The machinery is similar but as a workout, it’s more of a high intensity, low impact, full-body session using only one machine,” says Abu Hamdan. “It combines the principles of weight training – time under tension and movement – with an active stretching factor where you’re constantly lengthening and strengthening at the same time. 

“It was created to be an efficient, short workout where you get your cardio hit as you’re moving from one movement to another without stopping, but you’re moving at such a slow place that you can activate muscles you wouldn’t typically.”

Inside London’s lagree studio

The bright and breezy Mad Lagree space features changing rooms with two showers, a coffee bar and reception area, while behind faded glass lies a large mirror-panelled studio featuring 12 Megaformers. Standard 50-minute lessons here fetch £35 (introductory membership offers three classes for £60) and involve average workout moves – think lunges, bicep curls, crunches, donkey kicks – but on the Megaformer. 

The moveable carriage, much like a normal reformer, requires the use of core strength to navigate it (and essentially not crash into the platform at the end of it) thanks to the resistance springs you add and remove during class. It doesn’t look hard from the outside, but it certainly is; lagree targets your core, more so than Pilates, and requires stamina to maintain form while the small movements, ‘shakes’ as they are known, target individual muscles.

Don’t expect to perfect moves instantly. I struggled to hold a side plank with my feet balanced at the end, legs suspended, while stabilising the carriage beneath me, but as Halwai assured me, “practice makes perfect”. Post-class and for days afterwards, I could feel DOMS in my obliques, glutes, triceps and core – quite impressive considering you’re using one machine the whole time. 

“A lot of our clients have been doing reformer Pilates for a few years now and found that they stagnated,” says Halawi. “They were no longer getting any results because there’s a capacity of what Pilates can do for you so they were looking for the next best thing. I’ve been doing it for seven years and it doesn’t get easier. You can’t perfect a move and then that’s it; you go slower, add more resistance, transition quicker. You can’t really plateau.”

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