PHOTOS BY JOHN ROTTET - jrottet@newsobserver.com
The CXWORX routine is an intense 30-minute class based on working the"sling" muscles, those muscles connecting the upper and lower body.
If you don't like the lineup of group exercise classes at your health club, wait a month or two. Odds are you'll see some new options.
The reason: Group exercise classes are "experiencing phenomenal growth," according to the International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, and fitness clubs trying to weather a flabby economy are doing what they can to keep their sweaty members happy.
In the case of the increasingly popular group exercise classes, that means mixing up the classes to keep members from growing bored.
"We're always looking at new options," says Liz Church, who manages the Lifestyle Family Fitness clubs in Apex and Cary.
Mixing it up
Sometimes, a new class may simply be new to a particular club. Cardio kickboxing, for example, has been around for more than a decade.
Sometimes, new classes are exercise mashups: different combinations of exercise staples.
O2 Fitness in Raleigh has "Chisel," which taps kickboxing and plyometric exercises, while new 20/20/20 classes employ three 20-minute segments of aerobic and strength training exercises that change from class to class.
Andrea Greene, fitness director of the YWCA of Charlotte, says her clubs decide on new classes by monitoring trends in fitness magazines, keeping tabs on what the various instructor certification agencies are offering, listening to instructors and to members.
Some new classes - Zumba, for instance - catch on and develop a cultlike following. Others - yoga with your dog - do not.
Based on new research
Sometimes, new classes appear to break new ground - or at least advance an emerging fitness concept.
In March, Les Mills International, which develops fitness programs and certifies instructors, unveiled CX30 (also marketed as CXWORX). The intense 30-minute class is based on research by Jinger Gottschall, an assistant professor of kinesiology at Pennsylvania State University.
Gottschall put 10 men and 10 women through a series of exercises that worked their "sling" muscles, those muscles connecting the upper and lower body. Her objective: To see whether these extended exercises (the plank, for instance) were more effective than those that simply concentrated on the body's core (crunches). In a paper presented in June to the American College of Sports Medicine, she concluded they were.
"We wanted to see if we could achieve activation across the core when we added the shoulders and hips into a movement ..." Gottschall said in a statement through Les Mills. "In fact, the integrated activity was much higher than expected."
Gold's Gym and O2 Fitness quickly picked up the CX30 class, and earlier this month it was added to the Triangle Lifestyle Family Fitness group exercise lineup.
Difficult but quick
If suffering is any indication, the new class is a success.
In her second time teaching the class at the Cary Lifestyle Family Fitness, instructor Nancy Nickel looked out at the 15 women and two men trying to mimic her movements and said through her headset, "You did not like that one. I can see it on your faces. It's pure hatred."
Afterward, 40-year-old Heather Austin from Moncure, a veteran of group exercise classes, gave CXWORX a thumbs-up - for its effectiveness and its brevity.
"I like that it's quick," said Austin. "I do 30 minutes of this, I do another 30 minutes of cardio and I'm done with it."
