Strangely, all this is happening in a gym-Crunch Fitness in downtown Manhattan–and these people are actually working out. Not in the old way. Nobody’s shouting, “No pecs, no sex!” or “Feel the burn!” Devotees of Crunch’s holistic “Cyked” classes are way beyond basic cardio training. It’s just one of Crunch’s many “noncompetitive” and “non-judgmental” programs-ideal for recovering workoutaholics. Kristen Carlberg, a 30-year-old graphic designer, is a convert: “It’s church, but a different kind of church.”
Welcome, friends, to the church of mind/ body fitness. At health clubs around the country, breathing and stretching are replacing jumping and pumping. Fluorescent lights, blaring music and hectoring instructors are giving way to darkened rooms, candlelight and blessed silence. The number of Americans doing traditional aerobics dropped from 28 million in 1992 to 23 million last year. Meanwhile, 6 million of us are doing yoga, more than are doing cross-country skiing or skateboarding. Hard-core fitness freaks are addicting themselves to all manner of hybrid mind/body activities: Yogarobics, Trance Dance, Pilates. New York’s cutting-edge Equinox gym has doubled its classes devoted to no-impact workouts since last summer, to about 30 a week. Equinox aerobics director and yoga teacher Molly Fox says her clientele demands “conscious exercise” nowadays. “People are going inward as opposed to just exploding the energy outward.”
At Chicago’s Zen Fitness, “everything has a Western Zen feeling to it,” says the club’s 29-year-old owner, Lynn Doody. Tinkly New Age music and sandalwood incense add to the ambience. Classes–from step to yoga–begin with a “circle of friendship.” The participants greet one another, then say something positive like “I’m really glad to be here today.” All classes end with everyone meditating, sometimes around a votive candelabra called a “Zen tree.” Doody thinks it’s important to conclude with “some type of centering.” So does Kathryn Mullins, 44, an ad exec who hits Zen Fitness five or six times a week. She belonged before the gym went Zen last fall, but prefers the new philosophy. “You never felt mentally refreshed afterwards,” she recalls of her pre-Zen regime. “It felt like going to work an hour early.” Now she goes to work aerobicized, and centered.
‘Core’ muscles: The hottest alternative fitness subcult is Pilates. This German-imported strength-and-flexibility method focuses on “core” muscles and proper body alignment. Adopted by Martha Graham and George Balanchine in the 1920s and 1930s, it has always been big with dancers. But in the last four years the number of Pilates studios has tripled. There are now more than 500. Barneys, the relentlessly hip New York department store, is opening one in January. And many health clubs are investing in Pilates machinery. (One wooden, leather-strapped device called The Reformer looks like some kind of medieval torture rig.) In Hollywood, the mecca of personal-training fads, Vanessa Williams, Jodie Foster and Sigourney Weaver are all-as Richard Simmons might say–sweatin’ with Pilates.
But are they still burning off last night’s quart of Ben & Jerry’s? You don’t purge as many calories meditating and sniffing incense as on a Stair Master. And you won’t get Fabio pecs. As trainer-to-the-stars Radu says, “Where is the speed, the strength, the endurance?” But stretching will make you stronger, as well as more relaxed. Your posture will improve. People will say you look taller. Plus there’s the karmic bonus. Actress Ali MacGraw, whose “Yoga Mind & Body” video is No. 3 on Billboard’s fitness chart, thinks “meditative workouts” have gotten huge because “there is an aching need in our society for sanity and stillness and to reflect on the bigger picture.” Just so long as there’s still time to hang around the juice bar.
