Sculpt

I may have found a cure (or at least a partial cure) for hating the cold and darkness of winter:  It's called Sculpt, and it's a studio that offers yoga and spinning (i.e., indoor cycling) classes a couple of blocks from my office.  It opened only a month or so ago, and one of my friends at the firm suggested that we give it a try.  I purchased an introductory membership last week and have gone to as many classes as possible since then -- including a couple of spinning/yoga double-headers that completely torched my legs and abs.  It's kind of awesome. 

 

The yoga classes are intense (every day I sweat so much it looks like someone poured a bottle of water on my yoga mat) and challenging (I'm learning new things and getting better at the old things), and I feel like they're already making a difference in the "sculpting" department:  My normal regimen of cycling and weightlifting doesn't work my core muscles as much as I would like -- but these yoga classes are pretty much nothing but core work.  Who knows how these classes rank in the overall world of yoga (it's commercial enough that true yoga snobs might get sniffy), but they're the best yoga classes I've had since leaving New York.

 

The spinning classes have also been good, though I admit that my outdoor cycling this summer has somewhat spoiled me for indoor spinning.  It helps that the classes I've been to don't try to replicate outdoor riding -- they incorporate weights and have crazy music and lights that make it feel like a dance club, which is fun.  They'll also be offering a class that is purportedly designed for serious roadies, so I'm going to try that out next week -- I'm hoping it will be a plausible training alternative to riding outside during these cold and dark winter months.

 

I also like how the studio has basically nothing in common with a traditional gym.  In fact, I'd describe the ambiance as more like the lobby of a W Hotel than a gym (but then, I also don't go to a fancy gym).  Something tells me they've got their target demographic pretty well figured out...

 

Entrance is through a basic street-facing shop front;
everything else is downstairs.

No separate locker rooms, just a big landing area and
individual restrooms for changing.



Lounge area equipped with Wi-Fi and magazines.



 

The biggest downside so far is the schedule:  For some reason they think that people should actually be available to work out at 5:30 or 6:30 in the afternoon.  This means that only a small number of classes offered are, in fact, late enough for me to realistically attend.  I've even taken the approach, on days when it has been possible, of going to a yoga class and then heading back to the office to keep working.  I've already told the owner that she should schedule more classes later in the evening if she wants to get more of the law-firm folks as members.  Assuming I can make the scheduling work, I'm planning to keep my membership after this trial period is over at the end of the month.  Woot!