How type-A Americans get fit: intensely hot workouts
While Bikram yoga launched the hot yoga craze years ago, extreme fitness fans in Manhattan and Los Angeles are turning up the heat even more in an array of classes, from the ballet-based barre method to indoor cycling, all performed in blistering temperatures.
According to an article on the burgeoning trend last week in the New York Times, religious exercisers are looking for hotter and hotter classes, all in search of "a jackhammering heart rate, pliable muscles and a psychologically satisfying sweat that devotees describe as ‘detoxing.'"
To lure them through the doors, gyms and studios are offering extra-hot versions (in the 110 degrees Fahrenheit/43 degrees Celsius range) of signature classes, including Pilates and kettlebells. In North Hollywood, California, the Sweat Shoppe specializes in hot indoor cycling, and Crunch gyms in New York offer hot mat-based Pilates. In Manhattan, Pure gym offers a 75-minute high-intensity boot camp class in sizzling temperatures, dubbed "America's toughest workout" by Marie Claire magazine.
While "the trend is too limited and localized for the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association to track," writes the New York Times, "the demand for ever-hotter exercise rooms is sufficient enough that Chad Clark, a former college wrestler turned Bikram yoga instructor in Scranton, Pa., has built an entire business turning studios tropical." He recently was commissioned to design a heater that could maintain temperatures of 175 degrees Fahrenheit, or nearly 80 degrees Celsius.
Attitudes on the safety of fitness classes in Saharan heat are mixed. While some swear by techniques such as hot yoga, others claim it is dangerous. Fabio Comana, an exercise physiologist with the American Council on Exercise (ACE), told MSNBC that the body wasn't designed to perform yoga in extreme heat (over 105 degrees Fahrenheit/40 degrees Celsius) and that doing so can damage proteins. "You may think it's purifying and cleansing but you have to respect the physiology of the body," he said.
