The studio’s founders and owners, Johnny Adamic, who worked on Mayor Bloomberg’s obesity task force, and Jimmy Martin, a certified personal trainer and former college wrestler, said that the idea to open their cool temperature studio in 2013 came from Mr. Martin’s experience training a client. “We were in a gym where it was pretty hot, and she got faint and had to stop,” Mr. Martin said. “She told me that she was from Boston and loved exercising in cold weather because she found it easier.”

As a former wrestler used to competing in matches in non-air-conditioned settings, Mr. Martin had long thought that profuse sweat equaled a more challenging workout. “I was intrigued by her reaction to the heat and by what she said but started researching cold temperature workouts and found lots of evidence to support how she felt,” he said.

Dr. Ira Jacobs, a professor of kinesiology at the University of Toronto, for one, has researched the phenomenon of cold weather workouts and found that people can exercise for longer and harder, and thereby burn more calories, if they can slow down the rate at which their body temperature increases.

“When you work out, you produce heat, but your rate of perceived exertion is less when it’s colder, making exercise seem easier,” he said.