Full Coverage: Gym Rat
A look at workout classes in and around Los Angeles.
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File this under workouts you can’t believe are an actual thing.
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On any given morning in Los Angeles, you’ll find actresses, models (and those that just look like models), hitting boutique fitness studios to get their sweat on.
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In recent years, cross training has been practically monopolized by the popularity of its trademarked offspring, CrossFit.
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Barry’s Bootcamp is a rarity in the ultra-competitive Los Angeles fitness scene, still packing them in after 18 years while other boutiques and trends have come and gone.
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“It feels like I’m on a space ship piloted by the Darth Vader of fitness.”
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What is HyperBody? Is it a class? A person? Performance art? Is it, ultimately, for real?
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Has any hip-hop artist ever been better suited to score a yoga class than Drake, that most sensitive of rappers, that King of Feels?
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Pilates is known for strengthening and lengthening your core muscles, but what about your backside?
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Unplug Meditation is a space that was designed with health and wellness in mind.
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After years of getting Angelenos to jump, leap and kick their way through a cardio workout, celebrity trainer Tracy Anderson is taking it to the floor — literally.
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Unlike some group fitness classes where you can daydream while you work out, the classes at the new Sandbox Fitness in the Beverly Grove neighborhood of L.A. require your full attention.
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Is it Pilates? Yoga? Martial arts, meditation?
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Imagine replacing the seats at Hollywood’s Cinerama Dome with stationary bicycles.
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Wanderlust Hollywood is a combination community center and yoga laboratory.
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If your workout excuse is it’s too far, time-consuming or inconvenient to get to the gym, then Matt Rolph just might leave you with no excuse whatsoever.
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Just thinking about a relatively new sort of yoga, called aerial yoga, made my heart race.
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Is this the funnest workout in L.A.? Sweat like a dancer in Derrick Garcia’s rhythmic exercise class
I can’t imagine there’s a workout in L.A. that’s any more fun than Derrick Garcia’s Make Me Sweat class at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, a dance school that also has fitness classes.
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Readers have asked for a class that would suit older people or those recovering from an injury.
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With plenty of classes priced at $25 to $30 each, Spinning has become something of an elusive — and elitist — trend.
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The Orangetheory Fitness studio is — as you won’t be surprised to learn — decorated orange.
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Getting Beanie, our little terrier, out the door for a 7 a.m. exercise class brings to mind the battles that raged over getting my teenagers up for school.
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We’re all busy, so there’s an appeal to a class that’s only 30 minutes long.
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You can probably guess that Yoga Blend, a friendly studio in Burbank, has classes influenced by the various schools of yoga.
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If you take workout classes, you’ve surely heard about those using a ballet barre.
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If you tell people you do Pilates, they often ask whether you do mat or “reformer” exercises, the latter being a bed-like contraption with weights and pulleys and straps for hands and feet.
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It’s not even 9 a.m. on a Saturday and I’m outside the Roxy music club on Sunset Boulevard.
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I have friends who love Zumba; they say it’s a workout but not work.
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Crunch prides itself on offering oddball group exercise classes, like pole dancing, cycle karaoke, and sandbag weightlifting on indoor surfboards.
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This one is a bit of a splurge, because it’s individual instruction.
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A reader recommended Sandy Campanella’s classes to me, praising her for a couple of the things that make fitness classes great: Campanella, she says, can watch everyone and make corrections throughout class.
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The Studio (MDR) offers Pilates-inspired — meaning generally tougher — workouts called the Lagree Method, using a pretty complicated machine called a Megaformer.
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Who hasn’t complained about the time it takes to work out?
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If you’re feeling a little weary of cycling and other fitness classes, here’s a way to start your day with your cardio workout under your belt and a little positive attitude besides: a 6:30 a.m. stomping, rocking party to dance in the day.
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I seem to be a permanent yoga newbie.
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Music helps make exercise more fun. After all, who doesn’t love dancing the night away?
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I’ve been running for 30 years and lucky enough to avoid an iliotibial band injury until this year.
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The VersaClimber is the most ignored piece of fitness equipment in the gym, but it shouldn’t be, says Jacques Devore, owner of the year-old Sirens & Titans gym in the Westwood neighborhood of L.A.
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My Pilates teacher jokes in class that we shouldn’t feel tired; after all, we’re mostly lying down.
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Dance exercise classes usually leave me sweat-free.
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I tried a Shift class in North Hollywood because three of Dana Perri’s students emailed me to say how much fun it was.
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TRX exercise uses suspended straps, body weight and gravity to work muscles. L.A.’s Uevolution takes the workouts seriously.
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Reset, a cousin to meditation that was developed by Michal Gregus, is a way to reduce stress. It adds breath work, aromatherapy and progressive relaxation.
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The beginner barre workout at Physique 57 in Beverly Hills uses stretch bands, a playground ball and weights, in addition to the barre, for 57 minutes of hard work.
