Profile

Former middleweight boxing champ Michael Olajide Jr. and ballet dancer Leila Fazel (who also created Ian Schrager’s Agua spas), opened this sleek, industrial-looking fitness center in the meatpacking district in 2005. The studio offers a handful of total-body workout classes, all of which use a variation of techniques that stem from boxing, including the signature Aerobox class, the upper-body-focused Aerosculpt, and Aero3, which, like the rest of the classes offered here, is set to loud dance music and uses only free weights and jump ropes for equipment, focusing on footwork sequences that require not only endurance but quite a bit of coordination. Aerobarre, taught by Fazel, incorporates ballet moves like sautés (jumps) and is designed to give lean, dancerlike results. Outside the large, no-frills room where classes are taught, there’s a small boxing ring and mat area, which members who pay the studio’s monthly fee (rather than paying by day) can utilize for their own customized workouts. The mod locker rooms, with the same red-white-and-black color scheme as the rest of the studio and equipped with showers and toiletries, act both as a place to change and a lounge to catch up. — Randi Eichenbaum

Visitors are welcome to pay by the studio’s day rate of $40; however, for a $160 monthly fee (after a one-time $500 initiation fee), members can have access to unlimited group classes and private training, among other amenities.

Pros
Aerospace’s classes are by no means run-of-the-mill, and unlike what you will find at most gyms.

Cons
There aren’t any beginner sessions offered, and many first-timers may have a tough time following along to the classes’ choreography.