UPPER WEST SIDE — Most of us are wasting our time when it comes to working out, according to trainer Brynn Jinnett. We need longer periods of activity and different types of movements.
Jinnett's customized system, the Refine Method, combines lifting weights at a pace and intensity level that gets your heart pumping and your body burning fat. Jinnett started the method two years ago, first opening a studio on the Upper East Side before expanding to Union Square this past January.
Now, she's hitting the Upper West Side, opening a studio on West 72nd Street between Amsterdam and Columbus avenues on Oct. 3 that's much larger than the others and has more amenities, like a full locker room and showers.
"A lot of people hear about it through word of mouth," said Jinnett, "and they see their friends' results," who's confident the studio will do well on the Upper West Side.
For Jinnett, the goal is for her clients to leave tired, sweaty and feeling like they've really accomplished something.
"Many exercise programs work backwards; they latch on to a fad or find a hook and then create a class that fits," said Jinnett, but Refine views itself as a "as a 'filter,' distilling the latest and greatest in exercise science and applying it to the goals of our clients."
The method doesn't have any celebrity followers yet, though some celebrities have joined Union Square classes in the past, "accidentally," said Jinnett, who has trained Kelly Ripa, Ivanka Trump and Barbara Walters.
Often, Jinnett said, clients are timid about lifting the kettle bells or pulleys in the studio, and so Jinnett asks them to look at the size of their purses and realize that they're already carrying around 10 pound bags every day, so in order to make physique changes they'll need to lift more.
Jinnett, who grew up in New York City, is a former ballerina who said she used to believe that in order to look like a ballerina she had to work out like a ballerina. But that's wrong, she said; part of Jinnett's mission is to dispel what she sees as fitness myths.
On the company's site she writes, "Barre class workouts are popping up all over NYC where we're located and are at best inefficient and at worst potentially injurious."
She takes issue with the uncoupling of strength and cardio. The central ethos of the method is that the two should be combined.
"So many of my clients were working so hard and not seeing significant results which left me questioning things I held as 'fact'," she said.
Jinnett also dislikes repetition in exercise. "Most people are sitting at their desks all day," said Jinnett, so they need a variety of movements that help with mobility, in her view.
Unlimited membership is $300. To incentivize clients to attend more classes, Refine offers a "pay nothing upfront" program where your first class is $32 and each class you take after is $1.50 less than the one before and you pay at the end of the month.
Newcomers can also start with a four class pack for $80 followed by an eight class pack for $160.
