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Grace White is a college senior who plays first base for Union University, a DII school in Jackson, Tennessee, and is majoring in Journalism. She is the Sports Editor for the Cardinal & Cream, the school’s student publication, and has a younger sister who plays in the Virginia Unity club organization.
In today’s Inside Pitch, Grace recaps her team’s workout experience at Hotworx in Jackson, Tenn., a gym that provides infrared heat saunas with virtually instructed workouts.
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You know that feeling when you’ve been outside or at the gym, and you’ve been working out so hard that you’re sweating through your clothes and breathing hard? You know that feeling of accomplishment?
Imagine that feeling multiplied by 100. That’s HOTWORX in a nutshell.
On a recent Saturday morning, the Union University softball team was invited to participate in HOTWORX workouts for an hour and a half. We got the chance to rotate through cardio classes, yoga classes, and the free weights’ section.
Before we got there, I imagined that this place would be one big dark, hot room with neon lights, and we would all have mats and have to listen to somebody at the front of the room and follow their movements.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
I walked in, and the first thing I saw was the wall filled with cute sweatshirts and workout attire. I had to rein in my love for clothes and pass up on the pale-yellow crewneck with “HOTWORX” across the front in light blue letters.
Then I realized that there was not just one big workout room, but instead, multiple smaller sauna rooms. And instead of an in-person instructor, there were TVs in the saunas with a virtual instructor and two additional people doing the workouts with them.
Two of my teammates work there so they split us all into groups of three because that’s the number of people that could fit in each sauna at one time. I was in a group with Zoey Neal and MacKenzi David.
Workout 1: Bands
I was kind of hoping we would start with cardio so that we could do hot yoga last because, in my mind, yoga would be the most relaxing thing. Instead, we began in one of the yoga rooms, which ended up being a band workout. We each grabbed one of the orange mats and towels and a foam roller.
Zoey opened the door to our sauna. “Bruh, it’s hot in here!”
I looked at the thermometer, which read 127 degrees.
What have I gotten myself into? I thought.
I started sweating as soon as we shut the door. We were a little late to the session so as soon as we got our mats laid down, we grabbed our bands and started doing lunges with alternating jabs and punches.
I felt stupid doing this, and I was wondering how in the world this was a workout. But before I knew it, sweat was literally rolling down my legs. I didn’t know a person could stand to lose that much sweat.
The lady in the instruction video talked the whole entire time. I know that she could not have been in an actual sauna when that video was recorded because there was no sweat on her, and she wasn’t even breathing hard. Neither were the man and woman that were doing it with her.
I was counting down the seconds for each exercise to be over, but it helped that I had Mack and Zoey to talk to and carry on with. Finally, the instructor lady said we could roll out. I was thrilled.
As soon as we stepped out of the sauna after the workout was over, the sweat instantly stopped pouring out of me. I don’t know if it was because of the drastic drop in temperature or because the heat in the sauna was infrared heat or both.
Workout 2: Stationary Bike
Next up, we had cardio. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to this because cardio is one of my least favorite things. Thank goodness the cardio was riding stationary bikes and not running, or I might’ve died in that heat.
We adjusted the bikes to our heights and started the workout. Somehow Mack always ended up in the middle, leaving Zoey and I on the sides, closest to the heaters. But that was just as well because I figured as long as I was doing it, I might as well sweat as much as possible.
And let me tell you, I sweated more in that cardio session than I probably ever have in my life. My hands were literally squishing against the handlebars because of how much sweat I had on me. I tried to dry the handles with the sweat rag I had, but it didn’t help.
My quads were roasted by this workout. The instructor lady kept having us go from heavy tension to medium tension to low tension, and let me tell you, that heavy tension was no joke. The workout was only 15 minutes total, but I think I burned more calories than I would’ve if I had just gone for a run.
Workout 3: Assault Bike
After that session, Mack convinced me and Zoey to do another cardio session instead of doing free weights. This time we did an assault bike workout, which was harder than the bike workout to me because I had to keep my arms moving and my legs moving basically the whole time. When we were on the heavy tension, I felt like I was moving in slow motion.
By the time we were done, I was exhausted. I had put on a light gray shirt that morning, but at the end of that second cardio workout, it was extremely dark gray.
Since we had about 15 left, we went into the yoga room for a “bun” workout. Let’s just say I was too tired to do anything in that room. All I did was roll out my mat and lay on it with my sweat rag on my head until it was time to leave.
Working out at HOTWORX was a one-of-a-kind experience that I’m really glad I got to have with my teammates.
When we left, I felt accomplished, exhausted, and ready for the best nap of my life. I highly recommend that you try it too because I don’t believe there’s anything else like it!
— Grace White, Extra Inning Softball correspondent