MINNEAPOLIS – Pulsating music, lights and lean instructors. It’s the hallmark of the urban fitness studio.
Newly opened ALTR Studio in Minneapolis’ North Loop hopes to provide something more. Co-founder Vincent Amendola says everything at ALTR was “designed to fit into busy lifestyles.”
That means class times that allow flexibility, including 30-minute lunch time sessions. A spacious lobby encourages lingering, with tables and charging stations to get work done. A bar dispenses nitro cold brew coffee and kombucha.
Amendola told GetHealthyU’s Chris Freytag the studio is community driven- a place where people can meet and hang out with friends.
“What’s really going to motivate you to get to your workout and keep going consistently – it’s working out with friends,” said Amendola’s business partner, Kari Ament.
Ament and Amendola center their workouts around high intensity interval training, commonly known as HIIT.
On her website, GetHealthyU.com, Chris says HIIT involves maximum effort followed by a period of recovery. A typical pattern could be 20 seconds of high intensity, followed by a ten second recovery. The concept of HIIT has been around for years, but the version described above was created by Izumi Tabata that created a sensation after an article in a professional journal in 1996.
Ament says it’s effective. “When you’re doing high intensity interval training,” explained Ament, “you’re actually spiking your metabolism for up to 48 hours after the workout.”
ALTR is located at 122 Washington Ave. N. in Minneapolis. ALTR Studio is offering one free class any time during the month of October to KARE11 viewers. Just use the code “kareguest” (all lowercase) at checkout.