If going to the gym conjures a hive of sweaty headphoned strangers, grimacing as they pump or jog or count reps, you’ll understand the lure of fitness in a tidy, quiet 20-minute session of finely honed strength training. Two St. Louis fitness franchises have made “20 minutes” their call to action, and though their methods are very different, they share an emphasis on workouts that are deliberate, precise, and highly individualized.
Today we check out The Exercise Coach, which is opening a third location in Clayton later this month and offering you SLM readers a special deal: three free sessions, then $50 off for the first three months. The new location is 8500 Maryland, near Gay Avenue, but the discount applies at the Webster Groves and Town & Country sites, too.
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(Next we checked out Twenty Minutes to Fitness, with centers in Clayton and Chesterfield.)
The Exercise Coach
Recommended: two 20-minute workouts a week
Claim: They’ll be more effective than seven days of traditional activity-based exercise.
Secret: Computerized machines that calibrate your body’s needs. A trainer can watch your workout or analyze it later, noting exactly where you’re flagging or you’ve hit a plateau, and intensify, soften, or modify your workout accordingly.
The Experience: Co-owner Jessica Phillips shows me through the small, immaculately clean Webster Groves site. There’s a guy—oblivious to us, focused inward—on one machine; otherwise, the place is empty. That’s by design. You arrange your workout in advance: “We say, ‘Treat us like a doctor’s appointment, because if you don’t come to us, you’re going to be going to the doctor anyway!’” Phillips jokes. “We usually have one or two people here at a time, three at the most.”
When I suggest we pretend I’m interested (actually, I am), she does a cameo of her usual orientation and history. Once I’ve chronicled my middle-aged body’s betrayals, she walks me to the leg press.
“You’re going to notice that all of these machines look very, very different than anything you’ve seen,” she says.
Even a fuzzy plush exercise machine shaped like a teddy bear would suggest torture to me, but I nod politely. She’s telling me how “targeted” the machines are, and how people in any stage of fitness can benefit.
“Sure, we have gym rats,” she says, “but we also have busy professionals and 50-plus.”
Oh, God. That would be me. Falling into that last category feels like being demoted to the bluebird reading group in second grade. I climb onto the seat, weary already.
“If people are deconditioned”—yep, that’s me, too, one giant split end of frayed muscle—“and not comfortable in a gym, they need one-on-one special training,” she continues. I nod a little too fervently.
Phillips points to a screen in front of me. “This is where your work out actually is. We control everything by a touch of a button.” At the start position, the equipment adjusts to the position in which that user feels comfortable, her joints protected.
We move mine close to zero.
“Now, here’s what’s really fun,” she says.
I look up, bright-eyed as a squirrel.
“If someone has been here and has a pin, it adjusts automatically to their setting.” I flash back to myself, ratcheting the Y’s machines w-a-a-a-y up to the top.
“We want to know what your intensity level should be,” Phillips is saying. “So we take you thru a test. To protect the joints, we want to make sure the person is giving their best comfortable effort but not maxing out, not firing the muscles too hard and fast. You need to be able to control the contraction as you’re increasing your numbers. So we have created a strength curve based on your intensity level.”
The green line, she tells me, is optimal. “This board’s going to move no matter what. It’s a matter of you controlling the intensity.” She explains that the board will move in two waves, and I’m so worried about my feet, I ignore her. So I push, and then the board stops and comes toward me to start the second wave, and I keep pushing hard against it, harder and harder, muscles like a firing squad, and my line goes way up to the top of the screen, leaving my optimal green baseline in the dust.
Then I grasp the concept.
Gently, Phillips stops me. “We normally do eight reps. We want to reach muscle failure.” Something I reached years ago. “But for the next set we can concentrate in another area.”
“Let’s say I say I really want to work on my glutes,” I say, trying to sound like I do such things. “What happens then?”
“We can set a brand-new prescription.”
“What if people don’t know what they want to focus on?”
“Then we’ll give them a full body workout and make sure they get what they need.”
She shows off the other 12 pieces of equipment, each with multiple possibilities, which reminds me of my beloved rice cooker that also steams and makes steel-cut oatmeal. Then we go to the computers at the front desk.
“Each person is getting a history, from their first workout to their best effort to their most recent workout to today,” explains lead coach José Maltos, showing me charts. “If it’s flat, I can say you need a little more challenge. Or I can see which rep you’re falling down on. If the problem’s endurance, you’re usually falling down at rep 5 or 6.”
Ryan Deters, a certified coach with a master’s in exercise physiology, tries to explain the science of this approach, and how “these machines elicit the efficiency of the muscle being worked.”
All I’m thinking is: twenty minutes.
