I love a good workout gimmick: Promise to distract me from my burning muscles, and I’m in.
So at first glance, H.I.I.P. Hype seemed like a dream. Short for high-intensity interval painting, the new hourlong class is a twist on high-intensity interval training, or HIIT. The popular workout style encourages quick bursts of intense exercise — squats, burpees and the like — followed by short breaks to catch your breath. In H.I.I.P. Hype classes, those breaks are used to paint whatever comes to mind.
“It distracts you from how hard you’re working out, so it makes the overall experience more fun,” says personal trainer and H.I.I.P. Hype founder Sayco Williams. And the idea is that the bursts of exercise get your creative juices flowing, resulting in introspective painting.
A group of 20-something women in a recent afternoon class held outside in a public park painted everything from pastel flowers to the park reinterpreted as a childhood bedroom.
But the class itself — or at least the one I visited — was more akin to a chaotic Jackson Pollock. An easel and a paint set tipped onto my legs midplank, and, for one participant, the class ended with a proposition from a homeless drifter. I was too entertained to feel self-conscious about onlookers, but the workout may not be ideal for shyer exercisers.
Williams says he’s working out the kinks, and the class recently moved indoors to a studio in Arts on Site in the East Village, taking the gawkers out of the equation. Still, he says, classgoers leave inspired.
“People have a lot of fun,” he says. “There’s a little bit of complaining when I’m pushing them physically, but afterward it’s positive.”
H.I.I.P. Hype is held twice weekly at Arts on Site, 12 St. Marks Place. $20, mats, paints and canvas included. Visit HIIPHype.com for details.