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New to hot? Read this first.
Everything worth knowing before your first heated class.
How hot is it, really?
Our signature hot studio runs between thirty-eight and forty degrees depending on the class. Hot Yoga and 26&2 sit at the top of that range. The conditioning classes — Kettle, Shred, Sculpt, Box, Calisthenics — run a little cooler, because you’re moving considerably more and generating a great deal of your own heat.
For context: a hot bath is around forty degrees. It’s warm. It is not the same as a sauna, because you’re moving and your body is cooling itself the way it’s designed to.
What’s the infrared studio, then?
A different way of getting warm. Conventional hot rooms heat the air; infrared panels heat the body directly. The practical result is a room that feels milder to be in while the warmth itself goes deeper into muscle and connective tissue.
If the idea of forty degrees is the thing stopping you, start in the infrared studio and work across when you’re ready. Plenty of people never bother working across, and that’s a perfectly good practice too.
What it actually feels like
The first ten minutes are the hardest part of your first class, and possibly of your first month.
Your body hasn’t worked out what’s happening. Your heart rate climbs faster than it would in a cold room. Your instinct will be to leave, and that instinct will feel extremely reasonable.
Then, somewhere around minute twelve, it changes. The heat stops being a problem to be endured and becomes the reason you can suddenly get somewhere in a hip opener you’ve been fighting for two years. Almost everyone who stays in the room for one full class comes back for a second.
What to wear and bring
What to wear
Less than you think. Fitted rather than loose — loose clothing gets heavy with sweat and stops working. Avoid cotton. It absorbs, holds, and drags.
What to bring
Water, at least a litre. A mat and a towel — we hire both, and all memberships include them free. A change of clothes, and something to put the wet ones in. There are showers.
Before
Hydrate through the day rather than in the ten minutes before class. Eat something light two hours before, not twenty minutes before. Arrive fifteen minutes early.
After
Drink more than you feel like drinking, and add electrolytes if you’ve done a conditioning class.
Who shouldn’t do hot classes
Heated exercise is not right for everyone. Please speak to your GP before booking if you:
- are pregnant or trying to conceive
- have a heart condition, or high or low blood pressure
- have diabetes
- are prone to fainting, dizziness or heat intolerance
- have had recent surgery or an acute injury
- take medication affecting hydration, blood pressure or temperature regulation
If you’re unwell, unusually tired, hungover or dehydrated on the day, come to the Movement Studio instead. It runs unheated all week and nothing is lost.
You’ll complete a short health declaration when you book your first class. It takes ninety seconds and it exists so our teachers can look after you properly.
The unwritten rules
Stay in the room if you possibly can. If you need to stop, lie down on your mat rather than walking out — leaving and returning drops the temperature for forty other people and, more importantly, standing up and walking when you’re lightheaded is the one genuinely risky thing you can do in a hot class.
If you do need to leave, go. Then come back in when you’re ready.
Phones stay in the lockers. Talk before and after, not during. And if it’s your first class, tell the teacher — every single one of them would rather know.