Pvolve might just become your new favorite workout

When you sign up for an indoor spin class or drop into hot yoga, you generally know what you’re getting into. Most workouts, whether it be kickboxing, pilates, or weight-training, are fairly self explanatory. But that’s not the case with Pvolve — the functional fitness method that’s capturing the attention of beginners and exercise enthusiasts alike. 

What makes Pvolve unique from these other workouts isn’t just its quirky name — it’s the approach itself. Pvolve blends a range of low-impact, sculpting exercises to help you build strength, stability, flexibility, and balance.

Read on to discover what Pvolve is and how the popular exercise program (and new Weight Watchers member perk) can help transform your health and overall wellbeing. 

There are three planes of motion in the body: sagittal (forward and backwards movements), frontal (side-to-side movements), and transverse (twisting movements). You naturally move through these three planes during your everyday activities — for example, climbing the stairs is a sagittal plane movement and reaching to the side to grab an object is a frontal plane one. 

Many exercises, like running or cycling, move your body through one plane of motion. Pvolve, on the other hand, focuses on moving your body through all three planes. This is why Pvolve is a classic example of functional fitness — it can help improve your ability to function in your daily activities and may reduce your risk of injury.

Pvolve accomplishes this by using equipment like resistance straps, balls, and weights to help you create a full-body strengthening class that’s also low-impact. “The exercises are beginner friendly and joint friendly,” says Justin Kompf, Ph.D., fitness lead at Weight Watchers. In other words, the moves are gentle but not easy. “Pvolve is a workout that leaves you feeling energized but not over-taxed in your body,” says Dani Clifford, a lead trainer with Pvolve. This makes it a potential option for those with chronic pain, joint pain, and conditions like fibromyalgia. If that describes you, speak to a physical therapist or medical professional before starting a new exercise regimen.

Taught by certified trainers, each Pvolve class is different — you aren’t just repeating the same movements every time. But they all kick off with a dynamic warm-up to get your muscles primed before moving into a mix of mobility exercises, stability work, and strength training activities, Clifford says.

For example, you may perform single leg balances to tone your core muscles, do some jumps to strengthen your bones, stand on a slant board to improve your balance, and then use a resistance band to strengthen your back and correct your posture. “We try to hit every muscle,” says Clifford. By doing so, Pvolve helps you not only build strength throughout your entire body, but improve your balance, flexibility, and mobility across every range of motion.

A big benefit of Pvolve is that it’s a form of functional fitness: It can help to make your daily activities feel easier. As Kompf explains, when you improve your flexibility, aerobic capacity, and strength, you’re going to improve your function as well. This helps commuting to work, doing household chores, gardening, traveling, and grocery shopping feel substantially easier. 

Like a lot of workouts, Pvolve may also help improve your metabolic health, help you maintain weight loss, increase muscle strength, and help boost cardiovascular health. And working out — especially strength training — becomes especially important if you’re actively losing weight since it helps minimize muscle loss (something that occurs alongside fat loss). “If someone loses weight and, at the same time, focuses on getting stronger and more aerobically fit, their physical functioning is going to go through the roof,” Kompf said. 

This workout can be tremendously helpful for people of all ages and fitness levels, but there’s one group the workout may be especially beneficial for: those entering or going through menopause. During menopause, estrogen declines, setting off a cascade of changes in the body. This can cause bone density and muscle mass to drop, may impact heart disease risk, and could also lead to issues in sleep and mood changes. 

A 2024 clinical trial evaluating the physiological effects of Pvolve in women ages 40 to 60 found that the workout improved lower body strength, lean muscle mass, and balance. Those who did Pvolve for three months experienced significant improvements in energy and fatigue, and greater overall quality of life. 

Why might Pvolve be so effective? Because the classes include exercises specifically designed to help you build and hold on to lean muscle and boost bone density, says Kompf — two things women going through menopause need to focus on.

Here are some good pointers for anyone doing a Pvolve workout for the first time:

• Be patient. Give yourself time to learn the proper postures and techniques. Doing so ensures you’re engaging the intended muscles while protecting your joints, ligaments, and tendons from unnecessary stress that could lead to injury. “Lifting weights is a skill,” Kompf says. 

• Scale up gradually. It’s natural to be excited with a new workout, but you want to build a habit you can stick with. “Focus on quality over quantity,” says Clifford. You can add time, reps, or weight as you build strength and endurance. Maybe, to start, that means doing a Pvolve workout for five minutes a day two days a week. Setting realistic, attainable goals will keep you motivated and put you on a path to success. “If you do it once, you’re more likely to do it again,” says Kompf.

• Modify as much as you want. Most of Pvolve’s moves can be adjusted for things like injuries, knee problems, or health conditions such as osteoporosis or pregnancy (pending any doctor restrictions). By adjusting your range of motion, level of impact, or form, you can avoid movements that aggravate your condition and, in fact, support your recovery and long-term health goals. "Modifications don’t make you weak,” says Clifford. “They actually make you a smart mover because you’re in tune with what your body needs.” 

Thanks to a new partnership, all Weight Watchers members now have access to a curated selection of Pvolve workout videos included in their membership. Core members can explore 10 beginner-friendly workouts, while Core+, Menopause, GLP-1 Success, Med+, and Med+ Menopause members can unlock 30 videos, including ones specifically designed to support menopause and GLP-1 journeys. And if you discover you love Pvolve, you can upgrade your membership at any time to enjoy their full library — over 1,700 videos — at a discounted rate. 

Pvolve, a type of low-impact functional fitness workout, moves your body through all three planes of motion, and is designed to boost strength, flexibility, stability, and balance. This can help make your daily activities feel easier and reduce your risk for injury. And Pvolve has been shown to increase lean mass, which is especially important while losing weight. The best part: All Weight Watchers members now have access to a selection of free Pvolve video workouts on the WW app.