Here's how she gets that lean physique, thanks to a tech-forward, pretty piece of equipment she loves so much that she's now a chief executive.
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Not only does she look incredible onstage, Dua Lipa is strong. You’ve probably mustered as much if you made it out to her Radical Optimism tour, or caught her in the viral Vogue video transitioning from crow pose to a headstand. Not for the inexperienced.
According to trainer Melissa Bentivoglio, the secret to Dua’s super-human strength is Pilates. The century-old method has exploded in popularity in recent years, thanks, at least in part, to its contributions to muscle strength, bone density, balance, core, and spine health. Pilates isn’t just trendy—it’s longevity science dressed up for the Instagram age.
Now the 30-year-old Grammy winner behind “Training Season” and “Dance the Night”—and recent Barbie and Argylle star—is quietly building a second (or arguably, third) career helping modernize the practice for 2025 and beyond.
After falling in love with reformer Pilates on tour, Lipa became the first person in Europe to get her hands on a digitally connected Frame reformer, designed by Canadian-born, Miami-based Pilates instructor and former ballerina Melissa Bentivoglio. What started as a personal request to ship one to her London home turned into a creative partnership: earlier this year, Lipa officially joined Frame as co-founder and chief creative officer. Now, she’s helping shape the brand’s next chapter—campaigns, product design, and the vision for an at-home Pilates experience that is accessible, tech-enabled, and aesthetically pleasing enough to leave in your living room.
The Healthy sat down with co-founder Bentivoglio to unpack what Dua Lipa’s actual workout looks like (spoiler: she gets her cardio running around arenas in heels—so it’s all about the core), and how Bentivoglio engineered a push-button, dual-spring reformer with a built-in screen so people who aren’t professional dancers or pop stars can feel confident training at home. She also teased what’s coming next: a collection of Pilates accessories, dedicated Frame studios, and more ways to turn a once-intimidating “torture chamber” contraption into something more accessible, if you’re serious about at-home exercise.
Frame Pilates Reformer
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The Healthy: Pilates is back in a big way. Why do you think there’s been such a renaissance for this type of low-impact strength training?
Melissa Bentivoglio: I’ve been in Pilates for about 20 years now. I was a classically trained ballerina, and then I cracked my pelvic bone with a hairline fracture, which required me to start rehab. It was the initial sports medicine doctor who actually recommended mat Pilates. There’s this beautiful transition between being a dancer and then finding Pilates. A lot of Pilates instructors were former dancers, and Joseph Pilates worked with dancers. I started doing Pilates, and I loved it.
There’s a lot of awareness around spinal health, longevity, low impact, [compared to] a lot of the crazy HIIT classes or the strenuous high-impact that are really amazing when you’re young, [that] can cause stress injuries over time. I think that it just perfectly correlates with this whole boom in longevity and mindful movement.
You could love it at 20 and also do it when you’re 80 because it’s low impact, because you’re so kind to your joints when you’re doing slow-twitch muscle fiber activations. When you’re using stabilizing muscles, there’s a way to practice regardless of age.
The Healthy: You’ve reinvented the traditional Pilates reformer—which we understand Dua Lipa happens to love. Tell me a little bit about how it came about and the problem you were trying to solve when you designed Frame.
Melissa Bentivoglio: I was opening up a brick-and-mortar studio, and I looked at the market, and I didn’t like anything that was out there. So I decided to design my own proprietary reformer. COVID shut down my studio after a couple of years, and I had already designed this tech-enabled reformer. I had placed reformers in clients’ homes, and they would not go on the reformer without me. Even if they’d been training with me for five years, or they were professional athletes. That got me thinking how Pilates is so highly instructional that you really do need somebody to sequence for you.
The Healthy: Dua Lipa joined Frame as co-founder and chief creative officer. How did that come about, and what perspective does she bring to the brand and Pilates?
Melissa Bentivoglio:: It is a funny story dating back three-ish years ago. She saw the Frame reformer on Goop, and her team reached out and asked how they could get it to London, and we weren’t in London yet. It was my daughter’s birthday the next day, and she sent a lovely happy birthday video. I was like the coolest mom ever. We shipped her a reformer! A couple of months later, her team reached out and said she loved it. She was doing it all the time, and then we gradually built a relationship and solidified the partnership. She started as an actual user.
She loves that she can roll out of bed, go to the basement gym, and do an amazing workout that is better than going to a class because she can choose what she wants to work on when she’s done with rehearsals. It fits her busy, hectic lifestyle perfectly.
The Healthy: For people who want the Dua Lipa workout, what does that entail?
Melissa Bentivoglio: She loves core-focused workouts. She has said that the core is the most important thing because it stabilizes your spine. I’ve heard her say, “I’m standing, I’m in heels, I’m dancing, I’m running. I’m getting my cardio in, but there’s nothing more important than a core workout.” She loves the 10-minute abs.
The Healthy: It makes sense that she gets the cardio on stage, and she is specifically looking to complement that.
Melissa Bentivoglio: For her … There’s nothing more important than spinal health, and in order to have a really strong back, you need to have a really strong core.
The Healthy: What about Pilates and the Frame reformer you designed really resonated with her training style?
Melissa Bentivoglio: She’s busy. She has a crazy, hectic lifestyle. She wanted to be able to get the reformer workout that you get in the studio, but on her own schedule and time. So for her, it was like an a-ha moment.
The Healthy: What’s next for Frame that you and Dua Lipa have lined up?
Melissa Bentivoglio: I’m really excited about the accessories we have coming out soon, and I’m also really excited about the studios we’ll be launching.
The Healthy: Pilates has been around since the early 1900s, so tell me about making the reformer work for 2025.
Melissa Bentivoglio: I designed dual-spring technology because there’s a screen in front of you, and I want people to be facing the screen 95% of the time. And I designed a second platform, which gives you a plethora of additional exercises that you can do now that you have pull tension—so not just traditional push but also pull—in a way that you’re still facing just one direction. And the whole point of the Frame reformer was trying to simplify the design in a way that was elevating aesthetic but also functional.
The Healthy: And it’s easier to use than those pull springs at studios!
Melissa Bentivoglio: This is so archaic. Pilates is steeped in so much foundation, which is amazing, and it’s been around for over a hundred years. But sometimes when you have something that’s so deeply traditional, it stagnates. Why are we still pulling and touching springs?
The Healthy: For anyone who’s intimidated by a reformer, how do you explain it to them or get them to give it a try?
Melissa Bentivoglio: The look of the “torture chamber”—it’s jokingly referred to—can be extremely intimidating. So when you can place it in a home, you feel like, Okay, I can do this. There’s not a performative pressure. That eliminates so much of the initial stress, and then people can just do it on their own.
The Healthy: Your husband and business partner just went to a longevity conference. What were some of the takeaways?
Melissa Bentivoglio: Reducing stress was the number one takeaway from the entire conference. It’s all cortisol. It’s managing stress. The number one most detrimental thing for our health at the cellular level is stress, right? So what helps combat that almost immediately is physical activity.
When you’re engaged, cerebrally, doing a Pilates class actually de-stresses your body, reduces your cortisol levels, versus really high-impact workouts that actually spike your cortisol. I also think that’s one of the reasons why Pilates is so popular right now.
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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
