Manhattan Fit

The instructors at the center of New York’s elite fitness studios. 

He was golden, pumping his calves to Beyonce. 

So were eighty cyclists, congregated in a dark room clogged with red disco lights and a sweet-smelling sweat. “Let’s go,” the man on the podium beckoned. The bass throbbed. “Let’s cycle.” 

What’s hot and new in Manhattan are fitness instructors, whom everyone seems to want to know. Or, at least, have 45 minutes of rocking workout with. 

“They are like role models, in terms of, I could look this hot, if I really worked out,” Mary, 29, said. 

Mary, who works in mental health startups, had just finished a workout class at the fitness studio, Barry’s. Barry’s focuses on high-intensity treadmill “bootcamps”, military-style. Mary, sipping a green smoothie with a bamboo straw, attends three times a week. Like many others in this story, she declined to give her full name because she worried that her place of workout would ban her for not going through the establishment’s public relations. 

“Maybe it’s a little bit of an elitist thing, but you know they go hard, and a lot of them are hot,” Mary said of Barry’s fitness instructors. “It’s motivating. It’s almost like a selection effect.” 

Fitness instructors are central to the niche New York industry of elite fitness studios. Known elsewhere as “gyms,” the titans start as follows: SoulCycle, Barry’s, Rumble, CorePower Yoga, Club Pilates, New York Pilates, Pure Barre, Orange Theory, BodyRok, Solidcore. 

Fitness instructors coach clients to spin, weightlift, box, or move their feet at varying speeds and inclinations. Some may call this running –– but many call it the names of these fitness studios in formal language. “I’m so Souled out today,” and “Ready to Rumble?” have become inadvertent advertisements in Manhattan conversations. 

Class starting prices are often more than four hours of New York minimum wage. But the price tag comes with the most in-demand instructors and the allure of their celebrity. 

New York University sophomore Annabel, 19, can rattle off her favorite SoulCycle instructors on her fingers. “Jasmine, ‘cause she’s just real,” Annabel said. “Karen, this 40-year-old blonde lady, who is ripped as fuck.” 

“She’s literally so ripped she looks insane,” Annabel added. “And Jasmine is like millennial, microbangs, baddy.” 

The readily at-hand selection of instructors is nearly like a menu. 

There are the hip instructors, akin to Jasmine, who instruct to indie-music bands like Boygenius and Muna. Many college students attend, and many of them know each other. Then there are the instructors who cater to older clientele, like Karen, whom Annabel describes with “New York housewife rage.” And others are those like Sam Y,  whose 60 minute, extra-long class dubbed Soul Survivor is such a hit, Annabel has only been able to reserve a stationary bike spot only once. 

“It’s actually ridiculous,” Annabel said, scrolling through the SoulCycle app. It allows riders to reserve spots for the following week every Monday at noon (Annabel has a weekly reminder for class selection on her phone). “You just see them boop boop boop, disappearing off the thing,” showing how bikes get reserved nearly instantly. 

Exclusivity lends its hand to the allure of instructors.

Zipping in and out of their classes, speaking to them can become nearly impossible. This is where fitness instructors’ talent managers come in. 

Frankie Figueroa, 35, is a senior talent manager at SoulCycle –– which comes after a decade of experience in the industry, including teaching at Rumble, a boxing studio. He likened talent managers to agents, who not only recruit instructors, but market their classes to the point of nearly becoming “brands.”

“Entertainment wise, it’s not solely about the workout sometimes,” Figueroa said. “It’s really just about the experience.”

Playlists, class times, and the skeletal structure of their workouts –– like when to lift weights, or how many times clients are instructed to do push ups off the handlebars of their stationary bikes –– are all strategies that Figueroa considers when helping fitness instructors boost client “experience.” Results manifest in higher class attendance rates. 

Figueroa has overseen between 40 to 60 fitness instructors throughout the past year. 

“Some of them are local celebrities,” Figueroa said, estimating that each instructor sees 200 clients a day, a thousand a week. “And that’s just me lowballing it.” 

Rumble fitness instructor Terry, 32, had just finished teaching a class at the NoHo studio when he fist-bumped every client on the way out. He sang along to a Drake song popular in 2016 on his headset microphone, while red lights flashed on and off. 

“I’m not going to sit here and lie –– if I see someone outside and they recognize me, it’s cool,” Terry said. “It’s a nice feeling that I’ve impacted someone in that way.”

Amanda Lensak, 38, is the regional manager for Club Pilates. She previously taught zumba classes, and throughout her instructing experience, felt famous. 

“These women were so in love with the classes, they would come up to me after like, ‘Oh my god, you don’t know, I’ve had the worst week. Just being here I instantly feel so much better,’” Lensak said. “You do get that mentality of feeling like a celebrity in a way. It’s funny.” 

Running her fingers through her blonde highlights, she laughed at feeling like the popstar, and her clients like “backup dancers.”

Some clients don’t necessarily buy into the idea of instructors as celebrities. Mary, from Barry’s, does not pick her classes solely based on instructors.

“Usually, it’s more about what time works,” Mary said, but admitted, “I’m not representative of the average millennial. I'm not super online or on Instagram.” 

Annabel does follow some instructors on Instagram. She has worn shirts from artists featured on their workout class playlists, or athletic wear from specific brands, in hopes of instructors noticing. 

To her delight, favorite instructors do notice. 

And much like the ancient Greeks had the Doryphoros statue –– their “perfect man” sculpted by Polykleitos –– the “perfect instructor” often entails a series of set characteristics. 

“There has to be a performance behind it,” Figueroa said. “You have to have an outward energy to you, whether you’re funny, or you’re high-level energy. Those are things that cannot necessarily be taught.” 

Of course, there are also the natural requirements of being able to coach and excel in their workouts. 

Perhaps most notable of all, classes include the inspiring “hype speech,” which fitness instructors will use at the critical, muscle-crunching moment to motivate their clients. It’s the one last push. 

On a Friday morning, Terry gave Rumble clients a hype speech about wants versus needs. 

“Everyone wants things in life,” Terry said, recreating the moment by grooving his head back and forth and reenacting some boxing moves with his hands. “But there’s something that you need from this class, that you need in life. Anybody can want to show up, they can want to do a class, they can want to work hard.”

He didn’t even blink. 

“But you need to do these things to attain the things you want. We’re here for a reason.”

In her time at fitness studios, Annabel has had mixed feelings about genuinity of the hype speeches. 

“At the end of the day, they are fitness instructors, they need to get paid,” Annabel said. “So of course they’re going to tell you you could do it. And tighten your boots, or whatever.”

But Figueroa insisted hype speeches are completely unplanned by the higher-ups concerned with designing class optics. 

This, too, was something no talent manager could truly teach a fitness instructor sharing a workout with eighty people. 

“That’s all them,” Figueroa said. “And that’s in the moment.”