Bend It Like Who?

News flash: Moving your body doesn’t have to be high maintenance.

It’s no secret that hitting the gym can be a real drag. After a long day in the office or wrangling the kids, sometimes the last thing you want to do is voluntarily opt for a laborious sweat sesh on the treadmill or the strain of lifting heavy weights. Enter the low-impact workout craze. 

With oodles of boutique sweat studios popping up around the city, there’s no question supply is rising to meet demand for a different fitness regimen—from Pilates to hot yoga to rowing to Barre classes. Case in point: Raleigh Iron Works’ newly debuted duo of yoga- and Barre-, and reformer-based outposts, YoBa Studio and [solidcore] (respectively), and the ever-thriving and expanding Dose Yoga (hey, new North Hills Innovation District location!)—never mind the bevy of other buzzy outposts leaning into low impact with killer results to boot. 

“Pilates is a buzzword right now because a lot of high-profile people do it,” notes Allison Bowers of DTR’s Heights Pilates. “But the reason it’s still around and there are so many ‘spinoff’ versions is because it works.”

Beyond results, with gym membership comes accountability and community. Which also begs the Q: Are gymgoers also paying for camaraderie as they condition? Either way, whether you’ve been on the low-impact train from the jump or are just now burning out on HIITs, here’s what your slimnastics pref says about you.   

Glen Powell, Simone Biles and Cameron Diaz DFree/shutterstock.com; Julianne Hough Kathy Hutchins/shutterstock.com; Kristen Bell Tinseltown/shutterstock.com; Matthew McConaughey Denis Makarenko/shutterstock.com; Jennifer Aniston Featureflash Photo Agency/shutterstock.com