Jill Nghiem took her 100th Barre3 class on her wedding day — a goal she set 111 days earlier.
Surrounded by bridesmaids and friends, Nghiem spent 60 minutes shaking and quaking through the fusion of Pilates, yoga and ballet barre.
“It gave me so much energy, and I enjoy it so much,” Nghiem, 30, says. “It was the perfect start to my day, and something that I had been working toward.”
After the morning class, the women celebrated with champagne and a bouquet of flowers, courtesy of the Barre3 Tucson owner Kate Pedersen.
Nghiem moved to Tucson from Vail, Colorado, two years ago, where she attended Pure Barre classes (another barre franchise that recently opened a Tucson location). Every month she would Google “barre, Tucson.” Nothing.
And then the first Barre3 in Arizona popped up at La Encantada — nine months after Pedersen first began teaching “underground” classes in her parents’ garage.
“It’s truly the only thing that I’ve found that I enjoy,” says Nghiem, assistant general manager at Tucson Marriott University Park. “I hate running, and I hate being out of breath.”
Unlike large box gyms, specialized studios like Barre3 and Pure Barre, which opened in Casas Adobes Plaza in September, offer clients niche workouts and tight communities.
Accountability to attend classes and “more of a sense of community and people encouraging you and familiar faces” can contrast a casual gym-goer’s routine “that can get mundane, just going in,” says Briana Acuña, who owns Tucson’s Pure Barre with Vanessa Palestino.
Box gyms offer classes galore to sample, acting as a launchpad for exploration. For some fitness junkies, specialized instruction with its specific focus often supplements a routine already full of hiking, running or cycling.
Evolution Fitness Systems might look like a traditional gym, but initiatives such as the Strong & Healthy Woman’s Program emphasize strength training in workouts that also build camaraderie.
“People think they can go on a treadmill or jump on a piece of equipment and just lift it and they’re going to see results,” says Danny Sawaya, Evolution’s owner. “Those tools are no better than the programming we give it. I can give someone a kettlebell, and they can turn it into nonsense that isn’t going to get results.”
Sure, specialized fitness studios are nothing new to Tucson — think Yoga Oasis with its three locations and Body Works Pilates, the international headquarters for the Fletcher Pilates method — but Tucson still lacks many of the big names that have cities on both coasts in their sweaty embrace.
Those in-the-know call these chic workout spots “fitness boutiques,” and though many do have small areas for merchandise, the boutique part refers more to a “unique workout format which is their specialty,” says Gina Harney, a blogger and instructor who explores fitness trends on her blog The Fitnessista and her book “HIIT It.”
Harney, a Tucson native, moved to San Diego shortly before Barre3 opened here. She travels frequently for her blog, giving her a broad view of popular fitness franchises around the country.
Tucson, with its local-first attitude, has a long way to go (see the box on a few franchises coming soon). A handful of CrossFit gyms are already scattered across the city, and local studios offer options such as kickboxing or dancing, but many staples are still missing.
In 2009, Susan Frank, now the director of health and wellness at the Tucson Jewish Community Center, opened O2 Modern Fitness, a downtown studio with spin and HIIT (high intensity interval training) classes. Although indoor cycling is one of the more popular boutique fitness options nationally, no other spinning studios took O2’s place when it closed in December 2013.
Regardless of the studio type, these spots have a place in Tucson.
“People, especially in the western part of the United States, are hungry for that (connection) because we are such a suburban community and spend so much time in our cars,” says Kyria Sabin Waugaman, the founder of Body Works Pilates in Tucson and an adjunct professor at the University of Arizona School of Dance. “There’s not much human contact in a big city. When people go to the big box health club, it can feel a little anonymous and somewhat lonely.”
Because, after all, those who sweat together, stay together. And even without many of the big national names in Tucson, local studios picked up on this long ago.
“The level of passion that comes from the local studio, where there is that sense that we own this all together and we all get how valuable this is, there is something about that that is really special,” says Darren Rhodes. The Yoga Oasis director opened the studio in 1999.
Kristin Horton and Chelsea Lucas, the owners of Session Yoga, a hot power studio at Broadway Village, do as much locally as they can. They host karma yoga sessions to raise money for Tucson charities and teach classes for eating disorder clinics and girls from group homes. Occasionally, regular clients stop in to say, “Hi” if they see Lucas or Horton’s car out front.
This is community.
Ideally, niche fitness means picking how you plan to workout and then doing it with the friends you make along the way, whether you’re a yogi or a CrossFitter. In exchange, you lay down a pretty penny, with prices nudging $20 for one class in some cases. Waugaman says the personalized service increases with the price.
“In Tucson, we have a lot of cyclists and runners, so we have people who do our part (Pure Barre) and other specialized workouts,” Acuña says. “You can see a trend. People are picking the activities and fitness realms that they enjoy the most and investing in that.”
And the options abound. Connect with your inner yogi or lift and tone at the ballet barre. We talked with owners of just a few of our city’s specialized fitness studios. See what they have to say on Page 24.
