By Emily Baer
Serious Strength personal training, located on the lower level of 169 West 78th street, offers the promise of big results for a small time commitment. Founded in 1998 by Fred Hahn, the personal training studio uses a special Slow Burn method of weight training combined with a diet high in healthful fats (think olive oil, fish, grass-fed meats and avocados).
Hahn guarantees that with just 30 minutes a week of this type of exercise and a daily eating plan you’ll see a large loss of excess fat and a dramatic increase in strength. It’s a perfect method for people who have barely enough time in their lives to sleep, let alone exercise.
What is this slow burn you may ask? I didn’t know at first either. According to the website “Slow burn is a resistance (weight) training system that uses a very slow, smooth, and controlled lifting and lowering repetition tempo. Slow Burn is very similar to the way the gentle but powerful martial art Tai Chi is performed in that there are no sudden, explosive or highly abrupt movements. Every exercise is performed in a controlled and focused fashion.” Focus, breathe freely, and move slowly and deliberately throughout your reps until you reach a deep level of muscle fatigue. This helps you increase your strength and endurance on the days you are resting.
When you’re in the studio, the metronome playing in the background helps to keep you focused, as well as keeping you in the right rhythm to complete the slow reps. There’s no blaring music or grunting and screaming muscle heads in the cozy 1,000 square foot sanctum of strength – only Zen-like quiet and at most, three other focused clients doing the same thing as you.
I was highly skeptical; getting the same or better results than traditional training in just 30 minutes a week of pumping the iron slowly seemed highly unrealistic. Surely, I thought, it would take more effort and time than that.
But sure enough, with Hahn and his incredibly knowledgeable staff of personal trainers I can feel a world of difference. My runs in the park are now not as daunting and my stamina has increased almost two fold as well as my running form. The five push ups I normally do have now increased to 8 (this is a big deal, folks!).
Books by Fred Hahn:
The Slow Burn Fitness Revolution
Slow Burn Home Workout for iPad/iPhone
Images via Serious Strength. This is a sponsored story.
