TOP RIGHT, HOTWORX FOUNDER STEPHEN SMITH
Stephen Smith first began selling gym memberships as an 18-year-old in Mississippi. What started as a career in gym franchising — eventually owning three Gold’s Gyms — evolved into something unexpected. In the mid-1990s, Stephen teamed up with business partner Nancy Price to launch Planet Beach, one of the first tanning salon franchises in the US, which would spawn the creation of the fitness franchise, HOTWORX.
When Planet Fitness began, no one was franchising tanning salons and the duo built a booming business. But when the 2008 financial crash hit, followed by the 2010 imposition of a 10% federal tanning tax under the Affordable Care Act, the tanning industry imploded almost overnight. They needed to pivot fast.
In August 2014, on vacation with Nancy and her husband Jerome, an exercise physiologist and former competitive bodybuilder like Stephen, a conversation sparked a game-changing idea. Jerome had been practicing Bikram yoga – discovering the benefits of this hot workout, but found it was too time consuming at 90 minutes. Stephen had recently added infrared saunas to some Planet Beach locations. What if, Jerome wondered aloud, you could practice yoga inside the infrared sauna?
Stephen was intrigued. Hot yoga was not a new concept, but practiced inside an infrared sauna was. With his background in franchising and fitness, he returned home and began designing a compact infrared sauna tailored for small group workouts. It was built to fit three people, the ideal number for small group training he determined. The first prototypes were placed inside Planet Beach salons and were a great success. In many locations revenues doubled. It became clear this needed its own fitness brand without the baggage of a tanning salon.
“Infrared energy is known for its restorative benefits, strengthening and activating the regenerative processes in the human body. Many use infrared saunas as post workout recovery, but at HOTWORX recovery begins during the workout.”
In 2015, the duo launched HOTWORX, a completely new fitness concept combining isometric workouts and HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) with the added benefits of far infrared heat. While many hot yoga studios had begun to offer other hot workouts like Pilates and Barre, HOTWORX differentiated itself by offering all the most popular classes under one hot roof, designed for optimal fitness, performance, and recovery.
Today there are more than 700 HOTWORX studios across the country. I first tried HOTWORX a couple of years ago, and joined this summer out on Long Island where there is a studio conveniently located near my house. Every studio has about 10 saunas, each one offering a different hot workout. On one side of the studio are the isometric workouts – Pilates, barre, stretch, bands, and more – which are on a 45-minute schedule. On the other side are the cardio classes – cycling, rowing, and assault bike training – which are on a 15 minute schedule. There are no live instructors, only virtual on monitors inside the sauna.
For me, recovering from back surgery a few months ago, it has been a perfect way to ease back into training, offering maximal results in a minimal amount of time. 15 minutes on a bike in the sauna is the equivalent of a 50-minute SoulCycle class thanks to what HOTWORX calls 3D Training Method, which adds a “third dimension” — infrared energy — to heat and exercise.
Unlike traditional hot yoga studios that use HVAC or forced-air systems to heat the room, HOTWORX uses far infrared radiation (FIR) providing a warming effect at the cellular level, heating from the inside out. When your core body temperature rises, there is an anabolic effect that speeds up your metabolism, and gets you to your target heart rate and fat burning process sooner.
Infrared energy is known for its restorative benefits, strengthening and activating the regenerative processes in the human body. Many use infrared saunas as post workout recovery, but at HOTWORX recovery begins during the workout. FIR to increases blood flow and speeds up oxygen delivery to muscles for less lactic acid buildup. Then there is the “afterburn,” also known as EPOC (Excess Post-exercise Oxygen Consumption), which refers to the continued calorie burn after a workout as your body recovers and works to return to its pre-exercise state.
Workout and recovery all in one? A faster metabolism and continuous calorie burn? Sign me up for the next class!
