2007 BEST OF SILICON VALLEY Staff Pick and Reader Survey Winner - First Place

Best Pilates Studio
The reformer, the trapeze table, the chair and the ladder barrel were all contraptions designed by Joseph Pilates in the 1920s to rehabilitate injured people. Then ballet dancers, like Los Gatos Pilates/Ballet owner Marcie Ryken, discovered the therapeutically strengthening benefits of Pilates exercises and have been using them for decades to build long, lean muscles. In the past 10 years, celebrities have caught on and made Pilates popular--studios in the South Bay dedicated to the technique are springing up almost as fast as yoga centers. You get addicted, said Ryken, who pointed out that low-impact, body-trimming, joint-stabilizing virtues of Pilates will do good for anyone. It's worked wonders for her since she's been doing it every day for 20 years.

— Metro, Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper, September 26, 2007