Who We Are
Our CORE Mission
To feel good- inside and out.
Our Philosophy
We believe we are all unique- and what works for your friend may not work for you. Each person’s journey is their own. Our stories may be different but we all start at the same place being new to Pilates. Your growth with us will be celebrated as being uniquely yours.
Pilates is not a fad. We are not a quick fix. We believe in the Pilates Principles. We believe in steady progress. It’s not about killing yourself so you can’t move the next day, but about challenging your body regularly to be fit enough to better enjoy your life.
Pilates Heartcore is here for YOU. When you become part of our community, you belong. We are a team and we believe in you and listen to your needs. We are not here to stand at the front of the room and yell at you to do one more set. We are by your side, assisting you through a move, offering modifications, laughing with you and dedicating ourselves to your success.
We are serious about your body. Pilates Heartcore operates on a closed class philosophy for our classes. You must first take our Basics class to start. This is not to exclude anyone, but rather to inclusively ensure that you are armed with knowledge to be successful when you do start taking classes.
So, do you want to feel better, move better, have less stress and live life like a badass?
Check out our schedule and offerings and let us know if you have any questions!
Our Studio
Our Instructors
Katie Prior
Katie spent 24 years in Sales positions sitting at a desk. She also spent many hours logged at the gym doing kickboxing, strength training, cycle classes and yoga. Over time her back and shoulders started hurting. This pain was directly related to her posture from being a desk worker and heavy hard workouts.
Even with all the exercise, massage and physical therapy she was doing, nothing was working for her pain. After discovering Pilates and committing herself to 3 sessions a week, she was rewarded with a new way to feel good in her body. This personal experience opened her eyes to the sincere benefits of Pilates. It completely blew her mind that more people didn’t have access to Pilates or a studio. It became her desire to help other people feel as good as she did. Katie decided to go through the Balanced Body comprehensive Pilates Instructor certification program. She opened Pilates Heartcore on 1/1/2016 out of her home. Over the years it has grown larger and to the current gorgeous studio it is now.
Classes with Katie are never the same and she will always make sure you leave feeling stronger, calmer and more connected to your body than when you walked in. Her 5 dogs and two sons keep her frazzled but full of weird and funny stories. She’s crazy, loud, swears a lot and laughs too hard at her own jokes, but she will also kick your ass and you’ll leave with a smile on your face.
Emily Rose
Emily knows bodies. For almost 25 years she has been working as a certified massage therapist both here locally and in the Bay Area. She is also a devoted runner and can be found pounding the pavement most mornings in Fair Oaks. Her career and personal passion is alleviating chronic pain, anxiety and reducing stress in her clients through her knowledge of massage techniques, anatomy, reflexology and body mechanics.
She became interested in pursuing a path to becoming a Pilates instructor 8 years ago. Since Pilates focuses so much on the alignment and muscular dynamics of a body, it has an amazing synergy to her already vast knowledge of how the body works. Emily is Balanced Body certified and even with this goal attained, it has just intensified her desire to help others through movement.
Emily has been with PHC from the very beginning. She’s an OG and part of the foundation of who we are. Her calm demeanor and soft voice give her classes a very relaxing feeling. But don’t be fooled by her mellow ways- Emily knows how to deliver a challenging class! She may look and sound nice but one class with her and you’ll know she’s here to deliver results.
Nicole Kantz
Nicole has a passion for health and wellness and a desire to make everything FUN! Having suffered from knee and back issues most of her adult life, she found it hard to keep to a workout routine that didn’t leave her suffering from immense pain for days afterward. Through trying out various workout regimens, she discovered Pilates and found that her body could move, stretch, build strength and actually feel better after working out. Having grown up a mostly sedentary child, discovering a workout could make you feel good and be something enjoyable was absolutely mind blowing!
After 2 years of practicing Pilates in her own body, she was inspired to leave her career in marketing and embark on a journey toward becoming a certified Pilates Instructor. She is Balanced Body certified. Nicole works hard to create whole body workouts that support healthy and functional body movements. She focuses on rehab work as her forte and has worked with hip and knee replacements as well as many other ailments that might keep you down.
A self-proclaimed “foodie”, Nicole loves to cook with her husband or try out the newest restaurant in town. She also loves to travel and always looks forward to trying adventurous local cuisine (like that time she ate a termite in Belize!) Nicole has personally experienced the life changing effects of Pilates and hopes to help others live a pain-less life, too!
Lyndsie Ross
Lyndsie spent years working out, and really, working against her own body’s nature. Once she found Pilates, it just clicked and she knew this was what her body actually needed after years of the war she had raged upon her joints and muscles with other forms of exercise.
While immersing herself in Pilates through her first few years at Balanced Body as a designer, it really began to transform the way she sat, stood and moved, and helped her find comfort in her own form that she hadn’t really had before. Fast forward 3 years, she decided to take an instructor training course to better understand how the manuals she was designing were being used. From her first time teaching another student in the course it was obvious that teaching came naturally to her, and was the next step in her Pilates journey.
Lyndsie teaches because she wants to bring this modality to more people like herself. Identifying as queer, she feels she understands the struggle to love yourself and your body. She wants other people to know that you don’t have to have a certain type of body to do Pilates. She brings the knowledge and experience of what it’s like to do Pilates, while living in a bigger body, and how it can truly make anyone’s life better.
Marilyn Metzger
Marilyn has always been a Serious Mover. She played rough as a kid and in her 20’s-40’s played softball and tennis. Her life was changed when fitness visionary, Jack LaLanne, hired her to manage his Fitness Club. There, she was on the cutting edge of women entering into the world of weight lifting and group aerobics. Neighborhood gyms for non-athletes was a new concept!
Marilyn then took a ‘break’ to raise her family, but eventually returned to fitness and became the Operations Manager at 24 Hour Fitness. There she taught Les Mills Body Pump, aerobic and aqua classes. During all of this she was constantly plagued with back, foot and ankle pain.
In 2016, her life and body was transformed by the work of another fitness guru, Joseph Pilates, when she took her first Pilates class. After a few months of regular classes, her sciatic, plantar fasciitis and lumbar pain was gone….as were the orthotics she had worn for over 25 years. She quickly became an ambassador for the magical effect that Pilates can have on any body. Her vision is to share her confidence with others who may think it is too late to heal a weak, sore or injured back, regain shoulder mobility, stabilize weak hips or reduce the stiffness of arthritis. She is a testament to the proof that movement done with intention can keep a body young.
Colleen Whelan
Colleen found Pilates in 2019 when a friend insisted she come try a class with her at PHC. Not being a fan of all the other ways to move she had already tried, she didn’t expect much. But that first class blew her mind! It was fun! And hard! And the other students and instructors made her feel like she had found something special. Afterwards she felt happy, relaxed and surprised how much she enjoyed it. She had always thought that exercise was something she needed to suffer through in order to be healthy and comfortable in her own skin. But that all changed when she found Pilates!
Colleen quickly became obsessed with Pilates. Why is it so amazing? What is the secret that makes it addictive like a drug? How come more people don’t know you can just move to move and find joy in it without thinking about all the negative things associated with exercise? When she realized her Pilates classes were the best part of her day, she decided she wanted to be part of showing this to others.
Before Pilates, Colleen received her Masters from Sacramento State University and went to work in the field of Psychology. After a while she found she was anxious, tired and stressed. She decided to leave her job and embark on a self-discovery journey to find a life (and job) that makes her soul happy. After finding the strength of community at PHC, while exploring her own Pilates practice, Colleen decided to enroll in the Balanced Body Instructor training and turn her passion into a career. She is thrilled to continue to find ways to help students explore, feel strong and confident and make movement accessible to ALL bodies.
When Colleen isn’t at PHC, she’s at home with her hubby and 2 golden retriever daughters-who she spoils relentlessly. Sarcasm is Colleen’s favorite way to communicate so when you come to her classes be prepared to laugh and do some fun shit.
Heather Michele Williams
Heather Michele Williams is a Comprehensive Pilates Instructor certified with Body, Arts, and Science International (BASI). She discovered the magic of Pilates through the recovery of a failed spinal fusion surgery and decided to turn this passion into a career of learning and sharing it with others.
Sparked by this passion, in 2011 Heather quit her desk job and downsized to a backpack to travel the world and learn. She has traveled to 22 countries, and lived in 3 different countries in South America and Asia. She studied energy work in Thailand and Indonesia and also became a Certified Yoga Instructor at Yoga Vidya Gurukul in India. She is a perpetual student of all things movement and mindfulness and has trained in a form of muscle and fascia release exercise method called Hanna Somatics, that she incorporates into her classes.
A kid at heart, Heather views Pilates and functional movement as a structured Playtime, and views the Pilates equipment as a big playground where we take a “recess from everyday tasks” and dial into our bodies, creating a safe space to learn and “Play Pilates” together with all the fun toys and props. By piecing together various modalities, movement disciplines and meditation principles along with her in-depth study and obsession with Anatomy and Physiology, she has discovered a gentle, zero impact way to activate specific muscles while releasing chronically contracted ones. She has personally found relief from her chronic pain and restored freedom of movement thanks to these practices. Over the years has enjoyed sharing her knowledge to help countless people find relief from pain and discover new ways to move and live better in their bodies.