The Fhitting Room is one of our all time faves. It is a fun, dynamic, kick-ass workout. It is Crossfit-esque but for the masses. There are no Olympic lifts but you’ll find ski ergs, rowers, battle ropes, med balls, Kettlebells, weights, and more. The structure of the workout makes the class go by quickly. You are never in something for too long, so you battle your way through it and then it’s on to the next thing. The element that we love is the two instructors in every class, and our experience at Fhitting Room UES was no different. They have a great energy together and you always feel like someone is there to coach you, correct your form and push you harder. Beware, The Fhitting Room is addicting.
When you enter the studio, you find the spot you signed up for and get ready for the workout. The workout is written on the whiteboard in the back of the room, and sometimes it’s better that you don’t look … We did a five block workout which is standard for the Signature FHIX. The blocks were named (on the whiteboard) as follows: warm up, intervals, circuit and FHIX.
Block number one was the warmup; we did jumping jacks, hip openers, planks and squat thrusters. Block number two – intervals – had us doing as many reps as possible of three moves in the time allotted. The three moves were burpees (one minute), Kettlebell swings (two minutes) and then burpees again (one minute). They gave benchmarks for us to hit (25-20 burpees, around 60 Kettlebell swings) but they were not strict about them. The instructors were conscious that two minutes for the Kettlebell swings was a lot and they wanted us to reset after about 10-15 to avoid back pain/strain. The third block was the longest. For the circuit, we broke up into stations around the room where we did 45 seconds on, 15 seconds off for three rounds, after which we rotated to the next station. This circuit included the Assault bike, Kettlebell presses, Ski Erg, Kettlebell Farmer’s Walk, high knees over hurdles and JG pushups (pushups on suspension training straps like TRX). The final block was the FHIX, aka the big finish! It started with 20 sit ups and then we went into three exercises which we did four times through (six tricep pushups, eight froggers, and 10 alternating dumbbell snatches) and ended with another set of 20 sit ups. We had five minutes to finish the FHIX and if you finished early you held a plank. By the time the class finished, most people wanted to take a nap on the floor instead of stretching out.
The dynamic of two instructors is awesome – seriously, we wish more places had this set up. Dennys (pronounced Dennis) and Farouk were clearly so happy to be teaching together and they were having a great time. Their energy, chemistry and fun spirit permeated the studio and created a really great atmosphere. They always had eyes on the class and they were able to push each person through the workout at one point or another, which we appreciated, because personal attention is hard to come by sometimes. They were very conscious of the interval timing and would give us 3, 2, 1 countdowns when needed. They demonstrated everything so we knew what we were doing and they had modifications ready to go if anyone needed them. They had a killer playlist and although we were working hard, it was a really fun 50 minutes. They love being there and working hard for you, so in turn you want to work hard for them.
The actual studio is great – it’s a functional space for the workout; but the Penthouse overall is really small. It’s called the Penthouse only because you are on the top floor of the building. When you get into the building, you walk up five flights of stairs (there is an elevator but you’re there to workout so….). You’ll pass Flybarre, Flywheel and SLT on the way to the top floor.
When you walk in the Fhitting Room door, you’re basically at the check-in desk. There is Fhitting Room merch to be had if you want a tee-shirt, tank, leggings, a water bottle or a hat. Not much of a selection but that is due to the lack of space. They have a bench seat for you to wait on if you get there before your class. It feels like you’re always in someone’s way but that’s NYC for you.
There are digital lockers for your stuff and three bathrooms. There are NO SHOWERS so if you are accustomed to showering post-workout, you’ll need to make other plans. The bathrooms do have some deodorant if you need a quick hit before (or after) class. They have a filtered water fountain for you to fill your bottle but no water to buy so be sure to think ahead if you need water for your workout.
201 E 67th St, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10065 Upper East Side HIIT $$$$
Fhitting Room Upper East Side
Upper East Side HIIT, $$$$
201 E 67th St, 5th Floor, New York, NY 10065
Get the latest reviews, hot classes, go-to instructors, must have gear and pumping beats delivered straight to your inbox every week.
Fhitting RoomHIIT
When we leave the Fhitting Room quivering because our muscles have been put through the ringer, we feel a sense of pride. The workout moved quickly so class flew by, but Lacee and Mark put us through a grueling workout – one worthy of a mid-afternoon nap.
Our workout had four main blocks – warmup, strength, circuit, and the final FHIX. It looked like a tame class when it was written out on the whiteboard, but looks can be deceiving.
The strength series felt like an extended warm up – it was two ab exercises and lunges with kettlebells. The circuit block is when we started to feel the hard work creeping in. There were three moves in each circuit; we did each for one minute before rotating to the next. We did the first three moves twice before swapping to the other circuit, which had three different moves. In this 18 minutes of work, we hit a full body workout: dumbbell rows, dumbbell snatches, rows on the jungle gym straps, ski erg, battle ropes, and abmat sit ups.
The final FHIX was the most misleading part of the workout. It was a partner FHIX, where one person started with kettlebells and had to complete six single arm thrusters on the right and six single arm thrusters on left while their partner did burpees. Once the person doing thrusters finished, we swapped. However, the fact that it was an AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) for six minutes is what did us in – it was an absolute killer.
Lacee and Mark were an energetic duo and we loved their dynamic. We did a little social media stalking (their handles were on the whiteboard) and they seem to workout together when they have some time. We loved watching some of their workout videos.
Lacee and Mark were always canvassing the room to be sure we were going through the workout with proper form. They emphasized form during all of the demos so we knew they were going to be sticklers, which we love btw. They were attentive and encouraging throughout class, and congratulated us when we finished class, which we loved! A lot of the time we get to the end of the class with a sense of relief but we should celebrate our ability, too! We like that Lacee and Mark did that with/for us.
Side note: It isn’t every day that you go to a Fhitting Room in the morning and watch one of your instructors on American Ninja Warrior that same night! It was a real treat to watch Mark compete on a televised episode of American Ninja Warrior – what a badass!
Fhitting RoomHIIT
The beauty of the Fhitting Room is that you never know what you’re getting into when you walk in. The structure of the workout is generally the same but if you’re a regular, you’re guaranteed to have varied workouts. Our class with Jess and Carlos was the Fhitting Room on steroids. We did a classic circuit but focused on endurance rather than speed, strength, or reps. Just when you think you’ve had the hardest class you have ever had at the Fhitting Room, they seem to out do themselves.
If there’s little writing on the workout whiteboard when you enter class, that means you’re probably in for a killer endurance workout. The workout we did was called “6 FHIX FRIDAY”, There were only six stations total but we were at each station for four and half minutes! This was a first for us.
The circuit was made up of classic Fhitting Room moves but the duration proved to be a true test of endurance and mental strength. The stations were a mix between cardio and strength moves. We did jungle gym push ups to kettlebell figure 8’s, burpees to abmat sit ups, and kettlebell curl and press to hurdle hops. For our cardio-only stations, we rowed with a goal of 900 – 1,000 meters, got on the ski erg for conventional and cardo skiing (jump lunges with your ski pulldown,) and rode the assault bike coupled with box jumps. In our opinion, the assault bike paired with box jumps was straight up cruel, and that was before we got to the cardio ski erg!
Jess and Carlos took us through the warm up and got right into the demo for the circuit – there wasn’t time for much else. Due to the structure of class, they did a lot of timing, roaming the room to check form, and cheerleading. The longer duration was a struggle and they did their best to keep us going until the end of class.
Jess and Carlos had a great playlist which made a real difference as we pushed through such a challenging workout. Jess was spunky and wasn’t afraid to do the Macarena on top of one of the boxes which definitely made us smile through the pain. She had a ton of energy and was calling people out for doing a great job during class. Carlos was attentive to the class and had great form and technique tips for each exercise. He was genuinely interested in addressing everyone’s injuries and how he could help modify the exercises.
Jess and Carlos made a great team and they got us through a very hard class. We would love to take another class with them in the near future!
Fhitting RoomHIIT
There were five blocks in our workout and the longest duration of work was one and a half minutes long, so the overall structure of the class with these short intervals made class fly by.
We started with a short warm up which consisted of four moves: butt kicks, reverse lunges, alternating hip openers and squat thrusters. We moved straight into the second block, which was interval work. We did three rounds of four different moves, each for 20 seconds, with moderate to heavy weights. The clock was running during this time but Amanda and Troy kept track for us so we knew when to switch to the next move. Everything was done back to back to back without reprieve. The moves in this block were dumbell jacks, dumbell front rack squats, dumbbell squat thrusts and dumbbell suitcase reverse lunges.
Our third block was strength-based. We broke into groups of three and each one of us started at a different station. One of us started with dumbbells for a curl and press; one with a moderate to heavy kettlebell for goblet cleans; and one in the jungle gym straps doing hamstring runners. We did each move for 45 seconds and we had 15 seconds to rotate to the next station. We went through each of the three moves twice. It was quick and dirty and we were definitely breathing harder and the sweat was beginning to bead and drip down our foreheads.
Block number four was a bigger circuit around the perimeter of the room. There were three stations in total and we did two moves at each station: move “A” for 30 seconds and move “B” for 30 seconds (total of one minute at each station). The first station was kettlebell swings: we swung with our right arm for the first 30 seconds and our left for the second 30. We had 20 seconds to rotate to station number two at the jungle gym straps. We did mountain climbers as our first move and forearm planks for the second move. We had the option to make the plank harder by sawing back and forth in the straps (they always give you these options). At station number three, we were equipped with medicine balls. For the first 30 seconds, we did medicine ball thrusters and the second 30 seconds was for jump squats with the medicine ball. We went through each of these three stations THREE times.
The final block was our FHIX for the day. There were four rounds, and we had a minute and a half to finish each round. Each round started with 15 burpees followed by an ab move. If we finished the move before the 1:30 was up, we got a little bit of a rest, but it seems like they timed it pretty much perfectly because there was no rest! The first round was 15 burpees with V sit-ups; the second round was 15 burpees with bicycle crunches; the third round was 15 burpees with reverse crunches; and the fourth round was 15 burpees with a plank hold. Needless to say, our abs were on fire and we were happy to hear the final 3-2-1 of class signaling the cool down and stretch.
Amanda and Troy are a dynamic duo – they make a great team as instructors. They were very welcoming to Fhitting Room newbies and wanted to be sure they addressed injuries or questions before class started. They were attentive and made sure to demo all of the circuit moves each time we started a new block.
Amanda was just about eight months pregnant when we took class and she was right in there demo’ing the moves along side Troy. Honestly, if that doesn’t motivate you, I don’t know what will! Amanda was always surveying the room and making corrections to form when she saw someone that needed a little help.
Troy was an energetic instructor. He was also very hands-on, performing demos and helping people with form and to get set up. The class was hard, make no mistake about it, and Troy recognized people who needed an extra push. At one point, there was a woman doing her jump squats and it looked like she wasn’t going to make it to the end of the 30 second interval. Troy spotted this and rushed over to her and started doing jump squats alongside of her to keep her going. It was an awesome gesture and she didn’t stop!
Amanda and Troy were encouraging and sympathetic to how fatigued the class was at various points during the workout. When they sensed this they became more present, more vocal and more encouraging. When we hit that final FHIX with 60 burpees, they were especially supportive. When class was over they offered to answer any questions the class may have as we left. We loved how they made themselves available to us before, after and especially during class.
Fhitting RoomHIIT, Bootcamp
We left our Fhitting Room class with Daury & Simon with our muscles shaking and a smile from ear to ear. The workout was hard, but the experience was amazing. Working hard can suck but if you are having fun – it makes all the difference. If you want to work your butt off but have a good time too then this is the class to attend.
The workout we did in class was in the classic Fhitting Room format that started with a dynamic warm-up. Warmup was followed by a purely strength based block that was one move, every minute on the minute for a total of six minutes. We started with 5 single arm swings, 5 single arm cleans, 5 single arm rack squats in one minute. For minute two, we switched sides but minutes three and four were 6 reps of each move. Over the course of the 6 minutes, we built up to 7 reps of each move. Lesson learned: a low rep count at the Fhitting Room will most certainly still push you – we were wiping away our sweat and huffing and puffing.
The circuit block seemed short and manageable but after a pure strength block we noticed how fatigued we were. There were only 6 stations, each station was only a minute and we had 20 seconds to rotate – we completed the circuit twice. The stations included rowing & the ski erg (on the first round we rowed, second round we skied), Bosu burpees, the assault bike & hurdles (on the first round we biked, second round we hopped hurdles), kettlebell alternating lunges, jungle gym runners and jungle gym pullups.
The final FHIX was what Daury called LAF – long as fuck – and he wasn’t lying. It was set up as a 4 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible in that 4 minutes) with one minute rest before you went back into another 4 minute AMRAP. This was a test of our muscular endurance and mental strength. It was no joke. The moves weren’t either: 15 dumbbell push press, 10 squat thrusts, 15 kettlebell sumo deadlift with a high pull, 10 squat thrusts (which in round 2 were full burpees). This pushed us to the limit but in all the right ways.
Where do we start with Daury and Simon other than saying they were awesome. They demonstrated everything for us and really broke down the technical aspects of the workout as well as proper form. Before we started the strength circuit, they showed us the moves and then asked us to go through three reps of each move to be sure we understood what they expected and so they could check us before we even started the workout. We thought that was smart. Simon was meticulous about scanning the room. At one point, he came over to us and corrected our grip (which he said was too tight) on our cleans. Not only did it make a huge difference for us, but it was also impressive that in the full class, he could hone in on one person’s grip from across the room.
Both Simon and Daury are motivational instructors. They would stand by us (like RIGHT by us) and push us to go just a little bit faster on the assault bike or to maintain our pace on the BOSU squat thrusts. They were quick to offer modifications for those who had expressed injuries or to warn against doing something too heavy if anyone had lower back pain. They want you to work hard but within your means. We found this ourselves smiling and laughing at their commentary and hilarious one-liners despite the sweat dripping down our faces into our eyes. One of our favorites that we could remember was “Oh, it’s break time? We didn’t get the memo!” in response to someone not working as hard as they would have liked. Leaving that room with high fives and an enthusiastic “good work” from these guys is just the icing on the cake. These guys are awesome and we would go to their class every week if we could!
