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This cold workout might be the secret to burning fat

Your summer body just might be made in winter weather.

The city’s first cold-workout studio — held in a temperature-controlled Flatiron space powered by four commercial-grade refrigeration units — will open in May. And it’s pretty chill.

“There are hundreds of fitness concepts out there, but ours is the only one below 68 degrees,” says Johnny Adamic, who teamed up with fellow personal trainer Jimmy Martin to launch Brrrn.

Depending on the class, temps will hover anywhere from a frigid 45 to a relatively balmy 60 degrees.

The idea has been about three years in the making: Martin had always been intrigued by the way some of his clients exercised in the cold — one told him she felt more motivated and just worked out better in the winter months. It occurred to Martin that with all the gimmicky fitness classes in the city — including dozens of heated options — there had yet to be a cold class.





He and Adamic tested out the concept in the walk-in refrigerator of Brooklyn’s Sixpoint Brewery. A friend who works at the Red Hook brewery invited them to use the space, where they experimented doing various aerobic and anaerobic exercises — and found they were working out harder just to warm themselves up.

Next, they took the idea to a Pennsylvania ice factory near Martin’s hometown of Swoyersville, calling up some of his old buddies to test it out.

In March, the pair took a group of instructors they had hired, with specialties in everything from yoga to spin, to a frigid two-day retreat in upstate New York. There, at the Sullivan County cabin of celebrity hair stylist Orlando Pita, also an investor in the studio, they perfected their program. On the snowy property, they tested out the classes, as well as different breath work to help them acclimate to the cold. Then they took a plunge in the Delaware River.





By the end of the trip, Martin and Adamic had devised three 45-minute workouts ($34 each). Their entry-level class, called First Degree, is a mix of yoga moves and breathing exercises done at 60 degrees — the temperature of “a crisp fall morning,” Martin says.

Second Degree is a cardio-based class performed at 55 degrees that’s meant to improve balance and mobility while sculpting leg and core muscles. It features high-intensity moves done with light resistance bands, plus a slide board for lateral conditioning, or side-to-side movements.

The most extreme option, Third Degree, is a high-impact 45-degree class that blends weighted rope exercises and dumbbell circuit training. In the more intense classes, participants might show up in a sweatshirt but feel ready to strip down by the end, Adamic says.





The temperature is controlled using the same refrigeration you might find in a grocery store. Four massive fan-coil units are attached to the ceiling above the studio.

Classes at Brrrn don’t begin with a warm-up, but a “pre-heat”: a routine meant to prepare stiff joints for more rigorous exercise. It involves loosening up with jumps and other movements, and the kind of breathing you might naturally do to warm up, such as blowing into cupped hands.

According to the founders, being in lower temps leads the body to burn more calories than it does in neutral or hot temperatures.

Plenty of studies have linked cold weather to fat loss: When the body shivers, it burns brown fat (or brown adipose tissue) to generate warmth. But researchers have yet to make the leap that exercising in the cold burns more calories.





A recent study from researchers at the University at Albany, for instance, found that people who hiked in 15- to 23-degree temperatures burned 34 percent more calories than those who hiked in 50-degree weather. But the study’s lead author, Dr. Cara Ocobock, Ph.D., says the extra calorie loss had more to do with external factors such as moving through snow.

“When you start exercising, your muscles produce heat, which keeps you warm if the outside temperature is cold,” she tells The Post. In other words, warming up the body through exercise stops the body’s cold-weather calorie-burning response.

“Bottom line,” Ocobock says, “you don’t end up burning more calories [while] exercising in the cold temperatures. You [only] burn more at rest in the cold.”

Still, cold workouts may be better for endurance, according to a study published in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, which determined that performance was best when the temperature was about 50 degrees.

“Heat can limit our body’s ability to perform at its best,” says Adamic.

Still, he and Martin admit that heat does have at least one redeeming quality: recovery. At the end of some of their classes, instructors turn on infrared heating lights, which have been shown in some studies to soothe pain and lower blood pressure. The studio also features an eight-seat infrared sauna, available both as an add-on to a class or as a stand-alone session ($34 for 40 minutes).

The founders hope that even at the end of a long winter, New Yorkers will give Brrrn a shot before heading out to enjoy the spring weather.

“We’re cool because the thermostat says so — but we have a vibe that’s very inviting,” says Adamic. “People are going to be very surprised when they realize, ‘Hey, this isn’t that bad.’ ”





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