In 2007, the fitness world was a place of binaries: you were either a member of a sprawling, fluorescent-lit big-box gym, or you were paying $100 an hour for private Pilates sessions in a boutique studio. Then came Allison Beardsley. From a single boutique space in San Diego, Beardsley launched and grew Club Pilates, an Reformer-based Pilates franchise that effectively dismantled the "elitist" barrier of entry to the modality.
After scaling the brand to over 35 studios and selling it in 2015, Beardsley did what most exhausted founders do: she retired. For seven years, she lived a quiet, rural life to spend time raising her family. But as the saying goes, pioneers rarely stay in the pasture.
Today, Beardsley is back in action with Red Light Method, a new boutique wellness concept that blends recovery, cellular health and low-impact fitness into a single, streamlined experience. But this isn't just another fitness play. It is a calculated bet on the "longevity economy," a collision of medical-grade biohacking, automated wellness, and a recession-proof business model that seeks to do for cellular health what she once did for the core.
Red Light Method Founder Allison Beardsley
The idea for Red Light Method didn’t begin in a lab or a trend report. It began, as many wellness concepts do now, with a personal health crisis.
After selling Club Pilates, Allison and her husband Chris (a former Marine C-130 pilot) lived what she calls a "gypsy lifestyle," moving from Tahoe to Arizona to Arkansas. It was there, following a bout of long COVID, that she found herself depleted in a way that felt unfamiliar.
"I had fatigue, no energy,” she shares. “I went from being a fit former basketball player to feeling like I was 80 years old. "
Her path to recovery started when a consulting client mailed her medical-grade red light pads. "Within two weeks, I lost 11 pounds. My back stiffness, my rotator cuff, my old basketball injuries—the pain was 100% gone. I’m 46 now, and my skin looks better than it did at 33."
That "Aha!" moment birthed the Red Light Method. If these $300-per-session medical treatments could be made as affordable as a boutique fitness membership, Beardsley knew she could serve the "regular people.”
"I realized then: this is the next 'sliced bread,” she recalls. “I had to share this, but I had to make it affordable."
What is the Red Light Method?
Unlike the high-intensity culture of many modern gyms, Red Light Method is built on recovery-based results using a multi-layered protocol that feels more like a spa treatment than a full-on sweaty workout.
The experience begins with a “meditative spa treatment.” First, clients lie on a PEMF (Pulsed Electromagnetic Field) mat, which uses low-frequency energy waves to restore the electrical charge to cells and allow for significantly higher oxygen delivery throughout the body.
While lying on the mat, clients also wrap themselves in medical-grade, FDA-cleared Contour Light System® pads. Known as photobiomodulation, these red light therapy pads use specific wavelengths to reduce inflammation and chronic pain, stimulate collagen production, reduce adipose tissue, and boost mitochondrial function (the "battery" of your cells).
After the red light treatment, clients immediately shift to a brief but intense session on a Power Plate, a machine that uses whole-body vibration to stimulate muscle activation and lymphatic movement.
This sequencing is deliberate. “You release everything into the lymphatic system with the red light,” Beardsley explains. “Then you have to move it.” Ten minutes on the platform, together with resistance training, she says, can mimic a much longer workout.
The final phase of the Red Light Method returns to Beardsley’s roots with a streamlined, 15-minute digitally-led Reformer Pilates session designed to strengthen and lengthen the body. Each Reformer is equipped with a personal digital monitor, enabling clients to transition immediately from their Power Plate workout into their Pilates session.
The classes avoid high-risk or complex "acrobatic" maneuvers, focusing instead on foundational, classical movements that prioritize spinal alignment and core stability. This "vanilla" approach to Pilates ensures that the workout remains a safe, effective, and rehabilitative tool that anyone can master in a self-led environment.
“This is about going back to the roots of Pilates,” Beardsley explains. “The fundamentals are what actually change your body.”
Democratizing the Biohack
While Red Light Method stands out as an innovative combination of the latest science-backed wellness modalities, the most disruptive aspect might be the business model itself.
Unlike traditional boutique fitness studios that rely heavily on instructors and packed class schedules, this concept is largely client-led. Members move through the experience at their own pace, supported by digitally-led workout guidance and minimal staff.
In another move that ensures 100% quality control, Beardsley leads the virtual Pilates sessions herself. "I’m the one teaching all the classes right now," she says. By focusing on the classic, foundational micro-movements, the Method emphasizes safety and efficacy without needing a $400-per-class superstar instructor in every studio.
"I didn't enjoy managing bodies and instructors as much as I enjoy awesome staff who just love people," Beardsley admits. "It’s a diva-free zone."
Having launched Club Pilates on the eve of the 2008 recession, Beardsley remains a sharp-eyed student of the economy. She identified a significant gap in the market: advanced modalities like infrared therapy, oxygen training, and PEMF are typically siloed in high-end medical clinics with prohibitive price tags. By stripping away staffing complexity and operational bloat, the Red Light Method bundles these luxury therapies into a single membership at a fraction of the market rate.
"Wellness is usually an $800-a-month habit if you're doing saunas, massages, facials, and Pilates," she explains. "We’re a couple hundred bucks a month for all of it. When the next 08-style crash happens, we are the 'economic stimulus package' for your health."
With more than a dozen locations already open nationwide, and 70 more in development, Red Light Method is scaling quickly and the San Diego market is a natural next step. Red Light Method Carmel Mountain Ranch opened at the end of 2025 and now Red Light Method celebrates its grand opening in North Carlsbad. Locations in Encinitas and Carmel Valley are also in development, and Beardsley is all in on its future.
"It’s so fun to get to do this a second time because with Club Pilates, I was young—I was literally a waitress/Pilates instructor/CEO,” shares Beardsley. “Now, I have the perspective to make this a bigger picture…and to help and serve humanity.”
