New year, new you: here's how to get fit in 2018

Make exercise fun again with these gruelling but gratifying workouts

The first few months of a new year often come with promises to kill it in the gym. Keep workouts fun and interesting with these Beijing exercise classes.

Dance

Twerk at Paradise Lounge Beijing

Inside the Park Hyatt building, wellness centre Life Affinity’s twerk classes are designed for beginners, each one-month session starting out with an intro and increasing in difficulty over eight classes. To a soundtrack of American hip-hop, these 60-minute classes walk you through a warm-up, an intense booty-bouncing routine and, finally, a cool-down and some much-needed stretching.

Classes take place on Tuesday and Thursday evenings and cost 180RMB each (first class is 90RMB). Add WeChat ID 'tiantangshuwu' for more info.

Aerial Hoop at Skyline Dance Lab

This all-encompassing full-body workout combines core strength and dance moves, and is a major endurance test that works muscles you didn’t even know you had. Beginners start by learning mounts and basic poses on the steel hoop, or lyra, and eventually put all the movements together to form a toning aerial sequence. It improves flexibility, tones muscles and is genuinely entertaining. It’s also a lot harder than it looks, so keep your lofty expectations in check.

Individual classes from 150RMB (your first class is 49RMB); multiple class passes are available. Add WeChat ID 'Skyline-Dance' for more info.

Circuit

F45

A Time Out favourite, Australian fitness empire F45 landed in Beijing last year, and somehow is both incredibly gruelling and impossibly fun. The 45-minute workouts have you rotating between stations, combining workout styles that target multiple muscle groups at all times. Involving a line-up of exercises with medicine balls, sleds, free weights and kettle-bells, one of the best parts is that every class is different.

Month-long passes 2000RMB (and your first week is free). Add WeChat ID 'F45TRAINING' for more info.

Basefit

With locations in Choayangmen and Sanlitun, Basefit offers open gym sessions but group classes and personal training are the gym’s forte. Popular classes like Booty & Curves, Cardio Club and the upper-body-focused Push are typically 60 minutes and walk you through ever-changing circuits full of bodyweight, kettle-bell and TRX exercises. Classes are often quite full, but at Basefit, the camaraderie is part of the fun.

Ten-class passes cost 1,100RMB. Add WeChat ID 'BaseFitChina' for more info.

Yoga

Sup Yoga at A+ Wellness

At Sup Yoga, or stand-up paddle board yoga, participants perform hatha and vinyasa poses on top of a paddle board from, in A+ Wellness’ case, an indoor swimming pool. Because of the board’s constant movement, this yoga is a killer core workout and excellent balance training. Compared to more traditional classes, moves are performed much slower on the board than on land, which is an important trick for not falling off.

Classes are at 10am every Saturday and cost 350RMB. Add WeChat ID 'apluswellness' for more info.

Electronic Yoga at iBody Rock

If you love the benefits of yoga but find traditional classes too quiet, iBody Rock’s Electronic Yoga class combines the best of both worlds. At the hour-long classes, your instructor-DJ spins upbeat tracks while adjusting postures. And with a location just inside Gongti, it may be the endorphin rush you need to get pumped for a big night out.

Individual classes from 220RMB. Add WeChat ID 'iBR2016' for more info.

Spinning

Space Cycle

Space Cycle is full of dancing coloured lights, smoke machines and candles, and many of the studio’s 60-minute classes are based on a music genre or artist, which can include anything from Chinese electronica to Madonna and Elton John anthems to American hip-hop. For anyone who truly believes the soundtrack makes the workout, Space Cycle is bang on, with a focus on getting participants moving to the beat.

Individual classes cost 258RMB (first class is free). Add WeChat ID 'spacecycle' for more info.

Gu Cycle

At Gu Cycle, you’re pretty much cycling inside a nightclub with dance anthems to set the pace. Trainers also act as MCs and, between dropping new tracks, scan the room to correct form and keep you motivated. Every intense cardio class also features moves with dumbells to help target your back and arms as you ride.

From 160RMB class. Add WeChat ID 'gucycleapp' for more info.

For more information on F45, hit 'Read more'.

More from Time Out Beijing