Concordia’s Le Gym is offering two radically different programs for Concordia students this upcoming fall. The new classes, Gyrokinesis and Endurance: Body and Mind, were offered during the summer semester and will be returning in the fall.

For those who enjoy being pushed to their limit, Endurance: Body and Mind will be right up their alley. The class asks its participants to hold certain poses for extended periods of time, both with and without weights. The purpose of the exercises is to build muscle tone and to build mental strength, as the extended poses become quite painful the longer the class goes on, requiring intense focus to continue. As Le Gym spinning class instructor Cleo Roch explained, it doesn’t pay to come into the class overconfident. “One guy came in and was used to lifting heavy weights, so he took two ten pound weights to do the exercises. He had to quit after about five minutes,” said Roch with a laugh.

Instructor Omar Zabian created the class three years ago, and has worked in fitness training for nearly eight years. After playing soccer and volleyball professionally, Zabian came to focus on weight training. “I was my own guinea pig,” explained Zabian about his formative years learning the trade. He managed to build himself up to 205 pounds then back down to 160, and now works as a personal trainer for body-builders in addition to his work at Le Gym.

His search for a workout regimen that incorporated a lot of different types of exercises led him to the creation of this program. The class focuses on core exercises, meditation and muscle toning, and the exercises are derived from everything from martial arts to ballet. “I found that most programs were too repetitive,” said Zabian when describing why he started Endurance: Body and Mind.

Zabian is known for drilling his students in a military fashion, pushing them to exceed their limits and keep their focus. “I have found that people like to be pushed, and that people are generally too quick to give up on their own,” said Zabian.

At the opposite end of the spectrum, Le Gym is also offering another new course called Gyrokinesis. The course is a relaxation class from New York City that was originally called “Yoga for Dancers.” Naturally, the class’ instructor, Maria Kefirova, came across the class through her experience as a dancer.

“A few years ago, I had an injury, and I was looking for a workout that was a little softer than what I was used to,” said Kefirova. Gyrokinesis uses the whole body through various spiral shaped movements, as the word gyro means “circle” in Greek.

The class starts out slowly, as some of the more complex movements are hard to teach to someone who is new to the program. The class starts with some brief massaging of your major muscle groups, and then the students are asked to keep their bodies in constant motion. This particular aspect separates it from the currently more popular yoga, which asks its participants to sustain certain poses for a period of time. Gyrokinesis reminds Kefirova more of dancing, as the participants are asked to be in fluid motion most of the time.

The class is markedly different from most current forms of exercise. “In a gym, we work out in a linear way, contracting the muscles by lifting weights,” said Kefirova. Gyrokinesis instead works the muscles in a spiral motion, working every part of the muscle. It provides a more “introspective” workout, according Kefirova. She occasionally provides images of certain parts of the body to her class to help them better understand their own exercises.

“It’s about having a deeper understanding of the body,” said Kefirova. “Some people like to sweat and feel sore after they work out, but that’s not the only way to exercise.”

Kefirova and Zabian will be back to offer these two distinct disciplines starting in the fall semester.