Burnin’ By Ray Seaport

Burnin’ by Ray is the newest kid on the Boston Seaport fitness block. This is their second location as they already had a studio in Belmont for the last 2 years. It was time to take on the big city. Their website promotes themselves as the “original low impact, high intensity workout”. Nestled in the amidst all the construction on Seaport Blvd, you can find the studio right around the corner from Whiskey Priest (RIP). At Burnin’ by Ray, you can expect lots of bells and whistles with your workout (aka heavy on the motorless cardio machines), but unfortunately the intensity of our workout got lost somewhere in between the Jacob’s Ladder and VersaClimber.

RUNDOWN

WORKOUT

Our workout at Burnin’ by Ray was a total of 56 minutes, broken out into “blocks” just like a Orangetheory class. Each “block” was a total of 4 minutes, consisting of one weight exercise and one cardio machine. Each movement was 40 seconds long, with a 20 second break or changeover. In total, we went through a total of 14 “blocks”.

The cardio machines are all motorless, which means you control the intensity of the movement. You can expect some crowd favorites like Assault bike, Concept 2 Ski Erg, and TrueForm Runner; as well as some more intimidating friends like the VersaClimber, and Jacobs Ladder. We have to admit the variety of cardio was nice and not something we get everyday at other studios but due to the format of the class we didn’t feel as though we could really get in the zone with any piece of equipment. We were able to really push ourselves on the Assault Bike and TrueForm Runner, but we wasted a lot of time trying to figure out the other machines and our workout time was over before we knew it. That being said, it was our first class so we would most likely get more efficient with more knowledge of the equipment.

The weight series was focused on arms and shoulders. The movements here were simple and straightforward. We did multiple types of curls, single arm shoulder press, push ups, single arm triceps and finished it off with some minimal core work. With only 40 seconds of work on each exercise remember to push yourself and maybe go heavier than normal. You can do it!

INSTRUCTOR

Izzy had a nice presence on the floor, she made sure to float around class offering motivation, assistance on machines and modifications when needed. She walked all newbies through the program before class which we really appreciated. The studio space is surrounded with TV monitors throughout the gym that show you every exercise and interval time. Which alleviated Izzy from explaining every movement. We were thankful for the screens as there was a lot going on and when in doubt we watched the screens (Ray? Is that you?),

STUDIO

We hate to say it but we didn’t love the aesthetic at Burnin’ by Ray, maybe we have something against pink. The space reminded us of an Orangetheory, but instead of the orange it was full on pink. The space itself is brand new and pink aside very nice. The ladies locker room has two bathrooms, two showers and all the toiletries you could ever need. There also looked to be a  juice bar, but it wasn’t open when we visited. We had wished it was, we would have been down with that post workout.