CorePower Yoga Upper West Side

A studio that combines a heated room, a vigorous vinyasa flow, dumbbells, and HIIT moves? Sign us up! Don’t get us wrong we love a good peaceful OM, but it’s nice to get a bit more sweat equity out of your practice. Sculpt is that personification of yoga meets strength training, you’ve been looking for. Now, don’t worry there are “regular yoga” classes to, but CorePower’s approach is a bit more focused on strength building than making you bendier than a pipe cleaner.

Things that are important to this FitFam? Sick tunes (seriously the playlists are insane!) and a strong core… are you that surprised? And at the “core” of each class is a mix of different means of strengthen yours. With 9 classes to choose from all at varying heat temps and with different focuses, you would be really hard pressed to not find at least one that you like.

Pro Tip: Pay attention to the class type when considering if you can “handle the heat” aka the temp of the room. The range is from 88 to 104 degrees depending on the class. For Sculpt the room is 92 – 95 degrees.

RUNDOWN

WORKOUT

Dumbbells & a yoga mat…..hmmm we thought? How is this going to work? The answer is pretty damn beautifully. There is certainly a method for lifting and moving them with you from pose to pose. But, its not as complicated as you think. I mean there is a proper place for your hands and feet during each right? Same thing… and the instructor reviews this before  you get flowing.

This is a 60 min sweat sesh that takes you from flow to a strength-training move like a squat press or curl and back. Peppered in for nice sweaty flavor are 2 min series high intensity moves. When your instructor says its time to put down those dumbbells you may be looking at squat jumps, jumping jacks, high knees, or mountain climbers – Oh MY! This is a full body workout so many of the moves offer a double your money impact. You aren’t just going to get a burn out on glutes or just on arms. And we already know your most important question. “Hannah, it’s still technically a yoga class, is there a savasana?!” Yep – and you will have completely earned it.   

Warning: you WILL need a no slip towel on top of your mat, unless you want to end up slipping on your own sweat during a high kick. Not its not technically a “hot yoga” class, but you will sweat like you are in one.

INSTRUCTOR

Madison, Madison, Madison…. She has an incredibly sweet demeanor at the start of class during introductions, but this woman is a true drill sergeant in the making. Here we thought our high knees were in fact quite high until she runs over, puts a hand up in the air at about boob level and calls out, “come on, hit my hand!”. Well, alrighttttty then Madison! But its all in love here. While we squatted and fire hydrated our way into tighter buns with tears in our eyes we loved and hated her for it. Otherwise, her demeanor is super personable and a bit goofy. She is big on honesty and isn’t afraid to share an embarrassing story about her day’s intention at the start of class.

She in a super thorough instructor when it comes to demoing moves, but moves VERY quickly. So this is our PSA reminder that form should always take precedence over speed. You don’t want to take forever to transition but you will always be able to catch up to her. We certainly caught several of our classmates trying to keep up and doing moves wrong for the entire set.

SPACE

In NYC a studio not being on the bottom floor of the building isn’t always the kiss of death. We New Yorkers have gotten used to visiting a doctor’s office in the basement of a brownstone or a nightclub in a warehouse, so little turns us off these days by way of locale. But all things considered this is one of THE nicest studios we have been to that is inside an office/residential building. The entrance for Corepower is separated from the rest of the building anyway and once you emerge at the top of this 2 story walk up is heavenly (yea only 2 stories… did you hear that Y7??).

A single floor for check in, merch, lockers and and studio, the space is a bit of an L shape. And as a well attended but not overly crowded studio there is TONS of room. No awkwardly reaching over someone to open your locker or leaning against a wall to put your shoes back on because there is nowhere to sit. Some other fantastic perks? The single stall shower rooms and bathrooms, 2 of each. But, our absolute favorite is the lounge. A circular cushy area to sit in front of 3 picture windows in zen tranquilly before or after class.