Yonge Lawrence Village gym offers true back-to-basics training

The newly-opened Inspira Athletica, located in Yonge Lawrence Village, is fairly inconspicuous from the street. Inside the deep and narrow studio is a dim and undeniably intimate setting. It‘s refreshingly free of space-age, gimmicky workout equipment. Instead, you‘ve got the basics — a couple bikes, a rowing machine, some more complex weight training apparatuses in the back and a wall of weights and mats.

Co-founder and coach Chas Cook is most proud of their north wall, made of freshly finished pale brick. “It's kind of like a Starbucks for fitness,” he explains enthusiastically.

Indeed, Inspira feels current and cool without being aggressively trendy. Moreover, the workout offered is completely personalized. Of course, any personal training institution will tell you that they gear their workouts to the client, but as Cook has me lie down and perform several resistance and mobility tests, I can‘t help but feel that the team here makes more of an effort to get to know their clients.

Cook takes me through a short series of simple workouts — such as basic squats, pushups, curls and planks — but introduces variations, instructing me to shift my weight into different muscles and add resistance in certain areas. It makes a huge impact without being overwhelming or confusing.

And despite literally pushing your body, Cook says that the gym‘s philosophy is not to be pushy. Also a health coach, he says, “Someone might come to us and they eat a burger every day. We‘re not going to say, ‘stop eating the burgers,’ but we‘re going to say, ‘eat more of these vegetables.’ We hope that in the end, they decide to just eat the vegetables instead… We don‘t like telling people what to do.”

This philosophy is carried through within the walls of the gym — you’re pushed without it feeling pushy.

Inspira Athletica offers private training sessions, at a base cost of $100/hr with Cook, and $80/hr with their other trainers, as well as a schedule of group fitness classes offered at a base pay of $20/hr per person. Packages of 10, 20, and 30 sessions are available. 

Inspira Athletica, 3374 Yonge St., 647-238-3904

Bree Rody-Mantha is Post City’s news editor and resident fitness junkie. When she’s not covering Toronto politics, she’s off climbing, running, spinning, dancing, yoga-ing and writing about it. You can follow her on Twitter.

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