The machines retail for $10,000 each, but the studio is leasing them.

“Opening a business in New York is expensive because of commercial real estate and because treadmills take up more space per square foot,” Ms. Warner said. “The reaction a lot of our investors had is, ‘Why hasn’t this been done before?’ ”

And Ms. Warner responded, “We haven’t gotten you all together in a room.”

David Siik, 34, went another route, forging a partnership with Equinox, which acquired SoulCycle in 2011, to offer classes at its locations in Los Angeles, Chicago and 11 gyms in Manhattan. He devised his Precision Running program with nearly a dozen different workouts designed for casual runners as well as competitive ones.

“I wanted to bring the heart and soul of running inside,” Mr. Siik said.

John Henwood, a former Olympic middle-distance runner from New Zealand and a running coach based in New York who will be directing the Run studio, is confident the studio model will translate. “SoulCycle showed us this concept works,” he said. “The boutiques are where it’s at these days.”

One of the first treadmill studios popped up in the late 1980s in Los Angeles at the Martin Henry Fitness Studio in West Hollywood. But once big-box gyms like Crunch opened, with resources to hire teachers and offer a more diverse fitness experience, Martin Henry closed. Boredom and repetitive injuries were other factors in the rise of the full-service gym, according to Donna Cyrus, Crunch’s senior vice president of group programming.

“People in New York and L.A., they go where it’s the place to go,” Ms. Cyrus said. “And then one day someone says, ‘This hurts. I did that in class.’ ”

The creators of the current crop of treadmill classes insist that their methods will stick because they are based on sports science.