Where to Train

A private studio on the sixth floor of a loft building west of Sixth Avenue, kept immaculately clean, fitted out with new equipment, and with nobody waiting for any of it. Oscar Hudson opened it in 2020 and still coaches. He is certified by the National Academy of Sports Medicine, as a Pain-Free Performance Specialist, in the Barbell Rehab Method and in Precision Nutrition coaching — which is to say that his attention goes past the hour itself, to how you move, how you recover and whether you are actually getting better. Sessions are one to one or in a small semi-private group, strength sits at the centre of the work, and an injury, an operation or a pregnancy is planned around rather than ignored. One client, training back from knee surgery, found the team “knowledgeable about how to work around my constraints”; another, in a Google review, says Oscar is “always on time, professional, and keeps the studio spotless.” We could not have put it better. And if you would rather not leave the hotel, the trainers will come to you, bringing resistance bands and portable equipment up to your room; ask us and we will arrange it.

One client at a time, one instructor, and a record kept of every session so that a week’s stay becomes a programme. It belongs in this section as much as in the next; the full entry sits with the reformer studios below.

Thirty-nine thousand square feet through the lower floors of a rebuilt loft building on 27th Street, taken on a twenty-year lease that was the clearest sign the neighbourhood’s fitness boom was going to be permanent. Weights and machines throughout, separate rooms for cycling, yoga, Pilates and boxing, a running programme, personal trainers, and a spa to soften the afternoon afterwards. It is not one of the flagships — there is no pool, and the lounge is not partitioned from the floor — but nothing else this close comes near it for equipment. If you hold a membership at home, bring it: what it entitles you to here depends on your tier, and we are glad to confirm that before you walk over.

The Flatiron arm of the Chelsea Piers sports complex, and the broadest timetable within walking distance: a deep yoga programme including heated classes, contrast therapy — alternating hot and cold immersion, which is the fashionable way to end a session and a genuinely good one — a café you could work from, and telephone booths for the call you could not move. The weights floor is the weak point: it is small, and at six in the evening every rack is taken. For a long unhurried morning of cardio, a class and a steam, it is the most comfortable room in the neighbourhood.

Five in the morning until eleven at night on weekdays, which is longer than anything else on this list, in a well-kept room worth spending the time in. The timetable runs to cycling, yoga, barre, dance and kickboxing, and the café inside is better than it needs to be. It does fill: between six and eight in the evening the treadmills go first and the floor is smaller than the name suggests to anyone who has used the brand elsewhere in the country. Come before nine in the morning or after nine at night and it is a different, far better club.

Marina Kaydanova opened her first studio in 2012 and has been working these blocks since 2017; this room is four minutes along 28th Street, which makes it the closest reformer class you can take from the hotel. Forty-five minutes, moderate class sizes, and a roster that runs from classical flow to sculpt and reformer-with-props, taught by instructors who correct your alignment by name rather than calling cues at the room in general. If you have never been on a reformer, begin here rather than at a Megaformer studio — the difference in difficulty is considerable and this is the room that will explain it to you. Bring grip socks if you own a pair; if not, buy them at the desk.

SLT stands for strengthen, lengthen, tone, and the machine is the Megaformer — a longer reformer that holds you under tension from the first minute to the last. Low impact, genuinely difficult, and your legs will shake on the stairs afterwards, which is the intended result rather than a warning. This is the only studio in the company running Tread, which splits the class between twenty-five minutes on a Woodway treadmill and twenty-five on the Megaformer; people come in from Brooklyn for it. The room is small and the good hours go early, so book two or three days ahead. A sister studio at 137 Fifth Avenue keeps a fuller timetable if this one is full.

Kelly Isaac and Tricia Donegan founded ID, and with seven locations across New York it is now the largest independent hot yoga studio in the city. The name is the idea: every class follows a carefully built sequence that never changes, and the teachers guide rather than dictate, so that the same sequence becomes, in the studio’s own word, your identity. Alongside the signature ID class there are ID Strength, ID Flow, a slow-burn mat Pilates and sessions built around hip mobility. Mats, mat towels and a cold lavender towel at the end are all provided, so you can walk over carrying nothing at all. It is the easiest first heated class on this list — take the back row, drink more water beforehand than you think you need, and come up slowly at the end.

The least conventional room here, and the one people write to us about afterwards. Teachers come from around the world and classes weave storytelling, music, breathwork and sound into the movement — the restorative class ends in a gong bath, which is exactly what it sounds like and considerably better than that suggests. The menu is arranged by what you have arrived with rather than by level: begin a practice, deepen one, work around an injury, or simply wind an evening down. Mats and cork blocks are provided, and the changing rooms and showers are properly kept.

Founded in 1999 and the oldest hot yoga house in this collection. The room teaches the original ninety-minute sequence — a fixed series of postures performed in a heated studio, the same order every time — along with a forty-five-minute version, hot Pilates, hot sculpt and vinyasa. Begin with the short class if the heat is unfamiliar and work upwards; this room does not ease anybody in, and the first posture will have you dripping. Showers, towels, lockers and soap are all there, and the drinks are not priced like an airport, which in this category deserves saying aloud.

The room is kept warm rather than hot — around eighty degrees — and in place of a playlist it carries a low, steady hum, a frequency the studio designed for itself. It sounds like a gimmick and turns out not to be: the hum settles a room faster than any music could. There is no house style; the teachers draw on the lineages they trained in, and every class holds to the same three things, breath, movement and a closing meditation. Mats and props are laid out before you arrive, numbers are capped so nobody is packed in, and there is tea in the lounge afterwards. Beginners are genuinely welcome here; if you want to leave drenched, go to bodē instead.

Across the street, up to the third floor, and a real boxing gym rather than a boxing-themed fitness class. The teaching is sequenced properly: Groundwork covers stance and how a punch is actually thrown, Driller strings those into combinations with something to defend against, and private sessions run alongside both. Classes are capped at six, which means a beginner is corrected rather than carried along, and the coaches are notably patient with people who have never worn a glove. Two floors, few frills, fighters training in the same building — and ninety seconds from your room, which no other entry on any of our lists can claim.

The candlelit room and the choreographed ride that New York exported to the rest of the world, and this is one of the better studios in the city to do it in: two floors of lockers so nobody is fighting for space, eight showers with room to move in them, and staff who will set your bicycle up without making you feel new. Ask them to — the seat dial is not obvious, the room is dark, and once the music starts nobody will hear the question. Riders who dislike the front row are under no obligation to join it.

Structured interval sessions on Woodway treadmills — slatted belts that are considerably kinder to the knees than the machines in most hotel gyms — led by coaches who teach form and pacing rather than shouting numbers over the music. There is marathon training here in February when the river path is ice, and an incline-walking class with a weighted vest that has humbled a number of people who considered themselves fit. If you are keeping a race plan going while you travel, this is where to keep it; tell them the race and the week you are in and they will place you in the right session.

Half the class on a treadmill and half on the floor under weights, run as intervals in a red-lit room — high-intensity interval training in its most famous form, and this is the largest of those rooms in New York. Towels, showers, grooming products and a shake bar afterwards are all part of the price. Say before you start that you are new, returning after a break or working around an injury: the instructors set your speeds and weights accordingly and will check on you through the hour. Not a gentle morning. Precisely right if you have one day and want to feel it tomorrow.