Mimi Benz discovered her fervor for hot exercise by accident. She had taken heated yoga classes but had never thought to combine high temperatures with her true passion, indoor cycling, until the air conditioning broke during a cycling class at her gym.
From that first hot ride, she was hooked.
“I loved it,” says Benz, explaining that with a heated workout she didn’t have to waste time warming up. “It improves blood flow throughout your body, so you go into a high-calorie burn more quickly. And it feels really good afterwards.”
In 2011, Benz opened the Sweat Shoppe, a heated indoor cycling studio in North Hollywood.
“I wasn’t sure how people would respond, so in the beginning we had half heated classes and half non-heated classes.” But the demand for heated classes was so high that by 2013 they’d eliminated non-heated rides from the schedule.
As the demand for hot workouts continues to rise, heated studios are popping up all over, offering everything from traditional Bikram yoga, which started the hot exercise trend with a regimented sequence of yoga postures performed in a 105-degree room with 40% humidity, to hot power yoga, hot Pilates and hot barre. Some classes even incorporate hot weightlifting.
Bikram’s static poses can be sustained at over 100 degrees, but more dynamic classes are typically in the 95-degree range, and the Sweat Shoppe’s SweatCycle classes top out at 85 degrees. “If you go hotter, that’s nuts” and not safe, says Benz.
Read the full article at http://texilaconnect.com/hot-exercise-classes-catching-on-like-fire/
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