How pioneering Pilates studio in Hong Kong lasted the course and stretched to expand

Flex Studio has thrived despite challenges, going from a small Hong Kong space 20 years ago to opening a branch overseas in Singapore

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Heather Thomas, founder of Flex Studio in Hong Kong, in her studio in Wong Chuk Hang. She opened her first studio in 2005, and it was one of the first places in Hong Kong to teach Pilates exercises. Photo: Edmond So

Published: 6:15pm, 1 May 2025Updated: 8:53am, 2 May 2025

It is no easy feat for a fitness studio to have survived years of Hong Kong’s high rents, the 2019 anti-government protests and a pandemic, but that is exactly what Heather Thomas’ Flex Studio has done.

Flex Studio opened in 2005 in Stanley, in the south of Hong Kong Island. Today the Pilates studio has two Hong Kong branches, in Wong Chuk Hang and Central, and one in Singapore. Around 900 clients visit one of the three studios two to three times a week.

When Flex Studio first launched, Pilates was virtually unheard of in Hong Kong.

“I had to constantly explain to people that it is not yoga,” Thomas says. Back then, there were only three other centres in the city offering Pilates classes.

Heather Thomas is the founder of Flex Studio in Hong Kong. Thomas earned her Pilates certification in 2002. Photo: Edmond So

Pilates was created in the early 20th century by German physical trainer Joseph Pilates. He developed the eponymous exercise regime during the first world war for his fellow internees at an internment camp.

It gained popularity in the 1920s in New York after Pilates was introduced there. His original teachings, which consist of specific movements done in a sequence he devised, are referred to as “classical Pilates”.

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