Dim lighting in gyms is a flattering option
One of Vanessa Ramcharan’s favourite things about her workout at Liftonic, a strength-training fitness boutique in the meatpacking district of New York, is that it takes place in near darkness.
“The dark signifies that you are doing something special,” says Ramcharan, 43, a lawyer from Manhattan, who adds that the studio’s dim and red-coloured lighting flatters how her body looks in the mirrors. “It’s motivating when you look good. It makes you want to go back.”
Dim lighting has long been a hallmark of upscale fitness studios like Barry’s Bootcamp, Orangetheory Fitness and Soulcycle. But plenty of new studios and gyms, such as Liftonic, the boxing-inspired gym Rumble and the recently opened New York Sports Clubs Elite membership flagship gym at Astor Place, are also turning to darker lighting.
Some are introducing sophisticated lighting systems that do more than dim; they can bathe a room in mood-changing colours, simulate the outdoors or create a nightclub-like atmosphere.
“It creates a new emotional intensity,” says Michelle Ryan of Town Sports, which owns New York Sports Clubs.
Darker lighting may also help with focus, according to some fitness professionals. “You stop looking across the room to see what someone else is doing,” says Natalie Sessions, founder of fitness app Switchfit.
Other exercisers just want to avoid the spotlight. Take Andrew Coonin, a regular at Mile High Run Club in Noho and Nomad. “I’m not the fastest person, and I’m a pretty big guy,” says Coonin, 30, a director of accounts management at a tech company in Manhattan. The dark lighting helps Coonin feel more comfortable in the class, he says, and an elaborate lighting system at the studio, which simulates sunrise and sunset, has helped him power through challenging intervals.
“It’s a visual cue when the colours change that it’s time to push or recover,” says Debora Warner, founder of Mile High.
An atmosphere of “intensity” is what Alonzo Wilson, founder of fitness studio Tone House, wanted when he decided to hold his workouts in a dimly lit studio under red lights. The walls are painted black and the flooring is black turf, to enhance what Wilson referred to as a “Batmanchic” aesthetic. “I think of football, when the games are usually played at night,” he says. “It brings out the beast in you; it allows you to unleash your inner athlete.”
Except there is little evidence to support the idea that working out in the dark enhances athletic performance. Dawn Lorring, clinical rehabilitation manager for Rehabilitation and Sports Therapy at Cleveland Clinic Sports Health, cites a 2012 study of the impact of bright light versus dim light on physical performance. In that study, male exercisers exposed to bright light before and during their workouts performed at higher levels.
“Dim light seems to negatively impact the level at which people push themselves,” Lorring says. “Darker lighting also decreases a person’s sense of balance and body awareness. I’m not sure the positives outweigh the negatives.”
Still, Jenny Lieberman, 46, says the “pleasant” lighting at Orangetheory, a studio that offers high intensity interval training classes under orange-hued lights, was one of the reasons she had kept up with her workouts. Lieberman, an occupational therapist who lives in the East Village, says the fluorescent lights at the gym she previously belonged to were too bright and irritating. “I’m sensitive to them,” she says. “They give me migraines.”
The new David Barton gym, TMPL, in the Hell’s Kitchen, is tricked out with Ketra LED light bulbs. “In the right space, people spend more time. If someone likes how they feel, they come more and work out longer,” Barton says. “People always tell me how good they look when they take a selfie in the mirror, which they do all the time,” he says.
And when those gym-goers post those selfies on Instagram? That’s not bad for club business, either. n © NYT 2017