Best Fun Workout
 Adult gymnastics at Chelsea Piers. (Photo credit: Jeremy Liebman) |
If New York City’s bid for the Olympic Games has
awakened your inner Mary Lou Retton—or if you’ve simply maxed out every
cardio-sculpt class on the face of the Earth—try gymnastics. The
hour-and-a-half class ($25, or $180 for a ten-pack) is the only exercise
option we’ve found that combines the burn of adult workouts with the fun of
child’s play. All skill levels will feel comfortable, from balance-challenged
couch potatoes to the limber and lanky. Sessions begin with a group warm-up
and basic tumbling drills—forward rolls, handstands, round-offs—that get
progressively harder. Students simply repeat the skill that challenges them
until they master it. For the second half, students focus on the specialty of
their choice, like back hip circles on the uneven bars or front flips that
instructors teach using in-ground trampolines and foam-filled safety pits.
“Gymnastics gets all the small muscles you never knew you had in your
shoulders, back, arms, stomach,” says Peter Kormann, assistant general manager
of the Field House at Chelsea Piers and a former Olympic gymnastics coach.
“You’re just having so much fun, you don’t realize how hard you’re working.”