Adult gymnastics at Chelsea Piers.   (Photo: Jeremy Liebman)

ADULT GYMNASTICS AT CHELSEA PIERS
23rd St. at the Hudson River
212-336-6500

If New York City’s bid for the Olympic Games has awakened your inner Mary Lou Retton—or if you’ve simply maxed out every cardio-sculpt class on the face of the Earth—try gymnastics. The hour-and-a-half class ($25, or $180 for a ten-pack) is the only exercise option we’ve found that combines the burn of adult workouts with the fun of child’s play. All skill levels will feel comfortable, from balance-challenged couch potatoes to the limber and lanky. Sessions begin with a group warm-up and basic tumbling drills—forward rolls, handstands, round-offs—that get progressively harder. Students simply repeat the skill that challenges them until they master it. For the second half, students focus on the specialty of their choice, like back hip circles on the uneven bars or front flips that instructors teach using in-ground trampolines and foam-filled safety pits. “Gymnastics gets all the small muscles you never knew you had in your shoulders, back, arms, stomach,” says Peter Kormann, assistant general manager of the Field House at Chelsea Piers and a former Olympic gymnastics coach. “You’re just having so much fun, you don’t realize how hard you’re working.”