It's All About That Convict Body

Locker Area (Jail Cell Door Cameo to the Left)

Post Successful Prison Break Flex

It’s all about that “ConBody”. As the slogan of the gym emphasizes “Do Your Time”, the founder of the group fitness class, Coss Marte  developed a unique and effective exercise program without the need for any equipment while doing his time. With such a strong and almost intimidating name, what makes ConBody different from other workouts? Well to start off, you literally enter into a jail cell-like confinement space as the class door leading towards the main exercise room is made of jail cell bars (as shown in the picture above). Appearance aside, the trainers aim to guide you through a variety of resistance exercises using only your body weight. There’s no other equipment required and no shoes allowed in the exercise room (Tip – we would recommend you to go barefoot to gain tractions when performing the different exercises). The class will help to build personal discipline through a unique blend of cardiovascular training and bodyweight exercises that take advantage of the resistance properties of everyday objects. Additionally, the trainers apply military techniques to space constraints intimately familiar to city-dwellers and individuals who reside in small, constrained spaces.

Even before the workout class, we were very intrigued by this idea of leveraging a person’s harshest and darkest experience to empower others physically and mentally, which is something that we respect the founder, Coss and his fellow trainers (Sultan Malik, Ray Acosta and Shane Ennover) very much so for. Perhaps many of you would agree, working out on a consistent basis and constructing the body that you want day-in and day-out is not merely a physical act, it is about mental toughness and focus. As you may already suspected, all of the trainers did their time in the “big house” and they each bring something different based on their experience to feature into their workout.

Our trainer was Shane Ennover (Instagram – shanes_fitness_world) and our ratings for this class is as the follow:

Motivation (4.3) – The class started aggressively, there was a lot of yelling and pumping up, so it is natural that it caught us little off guard. Shane had great energy throughout the class, it’s hard to believe that our class was his third class in the row! He kept up the motivating chants throughout the workout; one may call it "tough love", but he was very good about correcting your posture if needed and very professional throughout the workout. One of our favorite motivational quotes from Shane was "Why you lying?!", which he repeated many times throughout the last part of our workout or the abs portion when you're experiencing all types of soreness in your whole body body.

Amenities (3.3) – The amenities here are not the best we've seen and the overall facility is relatively small. That said it is suffice for your basic needs - storage, shower and workout towels.  

Intensity (4.2) – Our class reflects a bootcamp-like style of training. Our trainer, Shane was relentless, we did not have many breaks throughout the class; intensity was definitely on point right from the gecko. Additional element of intensity comes from the team/group oriented routines. To elaborate further on that point, we had to perform certain exercises as a group, for instance, together we had to do lunges around the room, relay style, finishing by holding a half-squat position against the wall, so if you let down during the exercise, you're ultimately letting down your teammates and making them suffer (um... does remind us a bit of this workout class called Tone House - a little bid of foreshadowing for ya...). Again, intensity of the class was on point. 

Overall (4.0) – A great workout overall, well choragraph class in a weight-free fashion, which is pretty cool. The class helps you to realize that you really don't need a lot of space or fancy equipments to get in shape, all you need is your determination and let your creativity do the rest. Again, we cannot emphasize enough that we really appreciate what the founder and trainers are trying to accomplish and have accomplished so far.

Class Location:

294 Broome Street (C-Level)

New York, NY 10002

-L&L