ADVANTAGES

Alison points to several advantages in using this equipment and following the routines she and her trainers use in their classes.

First, she says, is a focus on a full-body workout. Take rowing as an example. Alison says that a complete rowing stroke works something like eighty percent of your muscles. The stroke begins with your body leaned forward and your knees bent, and then, as you push with your legs, lean back with your core muscles, and pull with your arms, you end up reclined, almost parallel with the floor. It builds strength, and, at the same time, it gives you a cardio workout.

A second advantage, she says, is using equipment that doesn’t offer built-in stability. Weight machines that you might use at the YMCA gym are designed to isolate muscles. That has its benefits, Alison says, but it fails to work the smaller muscles that keep your joints stabilized — something that’s important to long-term health. Much of the equipment used in the EnergyX program requires you to work to keep yourself and the equipment stable, thus strengthening those muscles.

Third — and it’s closely related to the second point — a lot of the EnergyX exercises challenge your balance. As we age, balance is something that suffers, and these routines help you work on that.

Fourth, there’s variety. Instead of spending forty-five minutes on a stationery bike, watching the clock, you move from one exercise to another to another, giving you the benefits of the different routines, but also keeping boredom at bay.

And a final advantage, Alison says, is that all the exercises can be done at your own pace. Even though you’re in a class, you’re not required to keep up with a particular rhythm. You work at the level that feels right to you.

MEMBERS

Early in our first conversation, I asked Alison about her target demographic. What kind of people use her programs?

A lot of her EnergyX members are people like me, she told me. People who grew up using weight machines and running on sidewalks and streets, and whose old injuries limit their ability to do high impact exercising today.

On the other hand, another big segment of her membership is younger people — people in their twenties, thirties and forties — who learned to use this equipment when they were in college, when the equipment was beginning to become mainstream and accepted in the fitness world.

About forty percent of the membership is men, Alison told me, which she said is unusual for studio fitness programs.

I can testify to that range of membership. I attended a pair of classes and saw that each class had at least two people in their twenties, three or four in their sixties, and then a mix of ages in between. About a third of the attendees were male.

I was also surprised to learn — when I spoke with people before the classes — how many of the attendees don’t live in the neighborhood and go to the trouble to drive to Hemisfair to attend. I spoke to a retired couple that lives near Jefferson High School and attends classes six days a week (on the seventh day they play soccer). I spoke to a young guy who lives near the Pearl; he told me that he attends classes both at Hemisfair and at the EnergyX location on Broadway in Alamo Heights. I guess I shouldn’t count the CNN reporter who lives in Manhattan and is here in San Antonio on assignment, since I suspect he’ll drop out once he returns home.

Alison told me that she doesn’t think her studio is as well known in the neighborhood as it could be. A lot of the Hemisfair foot traffic, she says, is from outside the neighborhood, so she doesn’t get the neighborhood drop-ins that she might get if the studio were located on South Alamo. On the other hand, neighbors who do join are really appreciative of the location. 

"We get people all the time that say, oh, I can walk here from the house,” Alison told me. “This is so wonderful.”

A FREE CLASS FOR NEIGHBORS

Alison would like to encourage more neighbors to join, so she’s offering our readers a free 'Intro to PoweRow' class led by Danny Galvan. It will be held Saturday, July 23rd at 11:00 AM. Space is limited. You can sign up here.

If you can’t wait for that, EnergyX is offering a terrific ‘Ten Days for Ten Dollars’ promotion right now. This gives you a ten-day membership, during which you can try as many classes as you want. At the end of the ten days, if you want to continue, you can upgrade to a standard membership or purchase a class package. The ten day period starts with the first class you schedule. You can find that here.