WORTH WEIGHT Women are paying unprecedented sums of money to reserve a Spinning bike or a spot at the barre. Sure, it’s an investment in your health, but is there such a thing as too much? BY COURTNEY RUBIN
THE PAYOFF
$150 BUYS: 6 classes at The Bar Method in Atlanta or... 1.5 months of ClassPass or... 0.15 of a month at Tracy Anderson or... 15 months at any Planet Fitness
For years, Betsy Collins, 35, logged daily runs, outside or on the elliptical machine in her basement. “I’ve always been a workout freak,” she says. But two years ago, things got a little more intense: Collins, who lives in Philadelphia, discovered the Lithe Method, a high-intensity interval workout with a devoted following. Her Lithestyle conversion meant paying $175 a month for a daily class and $59 for props—arm warmers, gloves and sweat-boosting “calorie trasher” pants. She was soon hitting her favorite Cardio-CheerSculpting workouts twice a day, ponying up an additional $210 monthly for the extra classes. Last year, she even joined Lithe on a four-day, $2,000 workout camp in Jamaica. Total spent on fitness in 2014: some $7,000. For Collins, the cost is easy to justify. “It’s expensive,” she says, “but I’m leaner, stronger and happier than I’ve ever been.” As fitness—especially boutique fitness, which now comprises 21 percent of the $22.4 billion market—has shifted from healthy habit to upscale lifestyle, something of a bubble economy has emerged. Women are paying more than ever for a coveted spot on the mat or bike, along with ancillary expenses, from green juice to gear. On average, boutique
studio members pay more than $100 a month, whereas at traditional gyms, less than 10 percent pay more than $75. But expenditures like Collins’s aren’t rare. Take Terah Stone, 40, a New York City–area entrepreneur, who spends up to $750 a month between her Equinox membership and classes at Flywheel Sports and SLT. (Stone now owns more pairs of workout leggings than pants and estimates that apparel adds another $500 a month to her costs. “If my husband reads this, he’ll freak out,” she says jokingly.) In any bubble economy, demand exceeds supply. Rick Stollmeyer, cofounder and CEO of Mindbody, the largest studio-booking system, says he’s been adding more than 1,000 new businesses a month. And yet, the perception is that there still aren’t enough classes to go around. It’s true, in a way, because in this model the instructors are the stars. It’s not enough to get in to any SoulCycle class; you show your status by snagging a spot in Rique Uresti’s sold-out sessions, then Instagramming about it. Certain classes are so desirable that companies like Barry’s Bootcamp and SoulCycle offer priority booking—$70 per class, or more than double the normal price. “These classes are elaborately staged WORTH THE WEIGHT > 126
PHOTOGRAPHED BY CARLTON DAVIS 118
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