MIRROR is now lululemon Studio: Hybrid Fitness with the Ultimate Home Gym Experience

The time has come. MIRROR from lululemon, the high-tech smart home gym that fitness enthusiasts use for high-intensity interval training (HIIT), bodyweight workouts, yoga, and more from the comfort of their homes, is now lululemon Studio. lululemon Studio takes original classes and programs from premiere boutique fitness studios and features them on the lululemon Studio Mirror, meaning they can be performed virtually from essentially anywhere. 

The lululemon Studio hybrid fitness experience was built to satisfy the desires of the training community lululemon has built — “a hybrid experience that combined the convenience of at-home workouts with the community of in-studio classes.” The lululemon Studio: Hybrid Fitness classes are sourced from their Studio Partners, which include eight world-class fitness studios and 15 expert Studio Trainers, to help users reach their fitness goals.

lululemon Studio members have access to over 10,000 workouts across more than 60 fitness training styles all day, every day.

lululemon Studio Partners

Below are the Studio Partners utilized in lululemon Studio: Hybrid Fitness and what their training focus is:

• AARMY
  • Cycling and Bootcamp Training
• Rumble
  • Boxing and Strength Training
• DOGPOUND
  • HIIT, Strength & Conditioning, Boxing, Pilates, & more
• AKT
  • Full Body Circuit Training
• Forward_ _Space
• Pure Barre
  • Low-Impact, Full-Body Training
• Y7 Studio
  • Yoga (set to various music such as hip-hop and electronic dance)
• YogaSix
  • Yoga (focused on inward focus for improved balance, strength, and breath control)

lululemon Studio Trainers

Below are the 15 trainers partnered with lululemon Studios and their respective disciplines:

• Hollis Tuttle
• Gerren Liles
• Julie Sanchez
• Armond Jordan
  • Cardio, Strength, Kickboxing, Boxing
• Lance Parker
  • Cardio, Strength, Tai Chi
• Patricia Sabulis
  • Yoga, Pilates, Meditation
• Ashtain Rothchild
  • Cardio, Strength, Barre, Hip Hop Dance, Boxing
• Pilin Anice
• Lonnie Poupard
  • Cardio, Strength, Latin Dance, Ballet
• Rachel Nicks
  • Cardio, Strength, Yoga, Barre, Pilates, Meditation
• Xtina Jensen
• Kate Bergstrom
• Amanda (Robinson) Baxter
  • Cardio, Barre, Hip Hop Dance
• Chris Ryan
• Deja Riley
  • Cardio, Strength, Dance, Kickboxing, Boxing

lululemon Studio Mirror

The lululemon Studio Mirror is what it sounds like. It’s a home gym that streams workouts chosen through the lululemon Studio App. The lululemon Studio Mirror displays the trainer guiding you through each movement next to your reflection — hence, a mirror that functions as a normal mirror when not streaming workouts.

Streaming through the lululemon Studio Mirror is accomplished via a front-facing camera that displays to the 40-inch HD 1080p display. Optional lululemon Studio weights can connect via Bluetooth™ so reps are counted on-screen.

Why Train at Home?

If you are on the fence about investing or committing to a home gym, you can feel assured much of the science supports training at home. Access to home exercise equipment facilitates maintenance, may facilitate weight loss, and has been shown to improve muscle strength, muscular endurance, balance, and muscle power. (1)(2)

A home-based training system such as lululemon Studio Mirror, which is equipped with access to trainers via video, has been shown to improve cardiometabolic health, including reduced fat mass and better aerobic fitness when combined with a healthy diet. (3)

Furthermore, proximity to a physical activity facility is associated with higher cardiorespiratory fitness. Suffice it to say, a home gym is as close as a physical activity facility can get. Improvements in body composition and functional fitness from training at home or at a commercial gym are comparable. (4)(5)

So if training at home is potentially just as effective as training at a commercial gym, what does the research say about the specific kinds of training offered by lululemon Studio Mirror?

Training Style Benefits

lululemon’s 15 expert Studio Trainers cover an array of training disciplines, so let’s break down why each might be beneficial for your fitness goals.

Cardio

While cardio, meaning physical activity consisting of 55, 70, 85, and 90 percent of maximal heart rate, can be achieved by an array of exercises. Home-based and aerobic training at a gym has been shown to be similarly effective. (6)(7)

Furthermore, working with a trainer remotely, similarly to how lululemon Studio Members interact with the lululemon Studio Trainers, could actually lead to better results than training without one at a fitness center. According to a 2020 randomized control trial in The Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing, training virtually with a trainer “is feasible and effective [for] increasing amounts of physical activity [and] elevating exercise capacity.” (8)

Strength/Resistance Training

Current Sports Medicine Reports has shown resistance training offers the following benefits: (9)

• Reduce body fat
• Increase basal metabolic rate
• Decrease blood pressure
• Improve blood lipid profiles
• Improve glucose tolerance
• Improve insulin sensitivity
• Increase muscle and connective tissue
• Improve functional capacity
• Relieve low back pain

Resistance training — defined as “a specialized method of physical conditioning that involves the progressive use of a wide range of resistive loads, different movement velocities and a variety of training modalities including weight machines, free weights (barbells and dumbbells), elastic bands, medicine balls, and plyometrics,” — is beneficial for all ages from youth to middle-age to elderly as a means to improve strength and “reverse…aging factors in skeletal muscle.” (10)(11)(12)(13)

Dance

Dance-focused and choreographic fitness classes can generate notable improvements in health-related quality of life, particularly for mental health and vitality. Dance fitness, such as Zumba®, can be effective for improving aerobic capacity and reducing body weight. (14)(15)

Pilates

Training pilates at home for just six weeks has been shown to increase core muscle endurance. It could also serve as a potentially effective means for easing chronic lower back pain. It has also been shown to be a safe and effective exercise for middle-aged and older adults and helped prevent becoming sedentary. (16)(17)(18)

Meditation

The benefits of meditation are culturally well-known. Strewn across health-focused social media pages are the positives meditation might offer. Unlike ads clamoring to buzzwords and false promises for attention, meditation appears to be the real deal.

Per Behavioral Brain Research, daily meditation for eight weeks “decreased negative mood state and enhanced attention, working memory, and recognition memory as well as decreased state anxiety scores on the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST)” — a valid and reliable acute stressor that can be used under experimental conditions. (19)(20)

Boxing/Kickboxing

While boxing and kickboxing may be on the opposite end of the fitness spectrum from meditation, these modalities can have similar benefits to balance the way dance fitness does. Those who followed a four-week program of Thai boxing dance fitness showed “significantly greater improvements in static balance…dynamic balance, and functional fitness.” (21)

People who followed a five-week kickboxing program, training for one hour per session three times per week, saw significant improvements in “upper-body muscle power, aerobic power, anaerobic fitness, flexibility, speed, and agility.” (22)mirro

Yoga

The benefits of yoga are unlikely to be a secret to anyone looking to train at home, but to reinforce that knowledge, yoga can be an effective method of cultivating mindfulness, managing and reducing stress, anxiety, and depression, and is just as effective as stretching for strength to improve functional fitness. (23)(24)

Take a Look in the (lululemon Studio) Mirror

If your fitness goals are to lose fat, improve your functional fitness or cardio, change your body composition, simply maintain a workout routine for a healthy lifestyle, or anything else in between, the lululemon Studio Mirror could be the tool to help you achieve them. Training at home can be just as effective as training at a gym, and lululemon Studio: Hybrid Fitness offers world-class workouts with expert trainers.

As of Oct. 5, 2022, the promo price with free delivery for the lululemon Studio Mirror is $795 USD plus a $39 monthly subscription.

References

1. Jakicic, J. M., Winters, C., Lang, W., & Wing, R. R. (1999). Effects of intermittent exercise and use of home exercise equipment on adherence, weight loss, and fitness in overweight women: a randomized trial. JAMA, 282(16), 1554–1560. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.282.16.1554
2. Chaabene, H., Prieske, O., Herz, M., Moran, J., Höhne, J., Kliegl, R., Ramirez-Campillo, R., Behm, D. G., Hortobágyi, T., & Granacher, U. (2021). Home-based exercise programmes improve physical fitness of healthy older adults: A PRISMA-compliant systematic review and meta-analysis with relevance for COVID-19. Ageing research reviews, 67, 101265. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.arr.2021.101265
3. Roberts, C. K., Segovia, D. E., & Lankford, D. E. (2019). Effects of Home-Based Exercise Training Systems, Combined with Diet, on Cardiometabolic Health. International journal of exercise science, 12(2), 871–885.
4. Dowda, M., Pfeiffer, K. A., Lobelo, F., Porter, D. E., & Pate, R. R. (2012). Cardiorespiratory fitness and proximity to commercial physical activity facilities among 12th grade girls. The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine, 50(5), 497–502. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2011.09.018
5. Islami, F., Saghebjoo, M., Kazemi, T., & Hedayati, M. (2021). Gym and home-based combined training in men with primary hypertension: are they equally effective on functional fitness profile, body composition components, and biochemical parameters of hypertension?. Clinical and experimental hypertension (New York, N.Y. : 1993), 43(8), 758–771. https://doi.org/10.1080/10641963.2021.1960365
6. Swain, D. P., Abernathy, K. S., Smith, C. S., Lee, S. J., & Bunn, S. A. (1994). Target heart rates for the development of cardiorespiratory fitness. Medicine and science in sports and exercise, 26(1), 112–116.
7. Aoike, D. T., Baria, F., Kamimura, M. A., Ammirati, A., & Cuppari, L. (2018). Home-based versus center-based aerobic exercise on cardiopulmonary performance, physical function, quality of life and quality of sleep of overweight patients with chronic kidney disease. Clinical and experimental nephrology, 22(1), 87–98. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10157-017-1429-2
8. Chiang, S. L., Shen, C. L., Chen, L. C., Lo, Y. P., Lin, C. H., & Lin, C. H. (2020). Effectiveness of a Home-Based Telehealth Exercise Training Program for Patients With Cardiometabolic Multimorbidity: A Randomized Controlled Trial. The Journal of cardiovascular nursing, 35(5), 491–501. https://doi.org/10.1097/JCN.0000000000000693
9. Kraemer, W. J., Ratamess, N. A., & French, D. N. (2002). Resistance training for health and performance. Current sports medicine reports, 1(3), 165–171. https://doi.org/10.1249/00149619-200206000-00007
10. Faigenbaum, A. D., & Myer, G. D. (2010). Resistance training among young athletes: safety, efficacy and injury prevention effects. British journal of sports medicine, 44(1), 56–63. https://doi.org/10.1136/bjsm.2009.068098
11. Westcott W. L. (2012). Resistance training is medicine: effects of strength training on health. Current sports medicine reports, 11(4), 209–216. https://doi.org/10.1249/JSR.0b013e31825dabb8
12. Seguin, R. A., Eldridge, G., Lynch, W., & Paul, L. C. (2013). Strength Training Improves Body Image and Physical Activity Behaviors Among Midlife and Older Rural Women. Journal of extension, 51(4), 4FEA2.
13. Dahab, K. S., & McCambridge, T. M. (2009). Strength training in children and adolescents: raising the bar for young athletes?. Sports health, 1(3), 223–226. https://doi.org/10.1177/1941738109334215
14. Barranco-Ruiz, Y., Paz-Viteri, S., & Villa-González, E. (2020). Dance Fitness Classes Improve the Health-Related Quality of Life in Sedentary Women. International journal of environmental research and public health, 17(11), 3771. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17113771
15. Vendramin, B., Bergamin, M., Gobbo, S., Cugusi, L., Duregon, F., Bullo, V., Zaccaria, M., Neunhaeuserer, D., & Ermolao, A. (2016). Health Benefits of Zumba Fitness Training: A Systematic Review. PM & R : the journal of injury, function, and rehabilitation, 8(12), 1181–1200. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pmrj.2016.06.010
16. Suner-Keklik, S., Numanoglu-Akbas, A., Cobanoglu, G., Kafa, N., & Guzel, N. A. (2022). An online pilates exercise program is effective on proprioception and core muscle endurance in a randomized controlled trial. Irish journal of medical science, 191(5), 2133–2139. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11845-021-02840-8
17. Batıbay, S., Külcü, D. G., Kaleoğlu, Ö., & Mesci, N. (2021). Effect of Pilates mat exercise and home exercise programs on pain, functional level, and core muscle thickness in women with chronic low back pain. Journal of orthopaedic science : official journal of the Japanese Orthopaedic Association, 26(6), 979–985. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jos.2020.10.026
18. Denham-Jones, L., Gaskell, L., Spence, N., & Pigott, T. (2022). A systematic review of the effectiveness of Pilates on pain, disability, physical function, and quality of life in older adults with chronic musculoskeletal conditions. Musculoskeletal care, 20(1), 10–30. https://doi.org/10.1002/msc.1563
19. Basso, J. C., McHale, A., Ende, V., Oberlin, D. J., & Suzuki, W. A. (2019). Brief, daily meditation enhances attention, memory, mood, and emotional regulation in non-experienced meditators. Behavioural brain research, 356, 208–220. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbr.2018.08.023
20. Allen, A. P., Kennedy, P. J., Dockray, S., Cryan, J. F., Dinan, T. G., & Clarke, G. (2016). The Trier Social Stress Test: Principles and practice. Neurobiology of stress, 6, 113–126. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ynstr.2016.11.001
21. Areeudomwong, P., Saysalum, S., Phuttanurattana, N., Sripoom, P., Buttagat, V., & Keawduangdee, P. (2019). Balance and functional fitness benefits of a Thai boxing dance program among community-dwelling older adults at risk of falling: A randomized controlled study. Archives of gerontology and geriatrics, 83, 231–238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archger.2019.04.010
22. Ouergui, I., Hssin, N., Haddad, M., Padulo, J., Franchini, E., Gmada, N., & Bouhlel, E. (2014). The effects of five weeks of kickboxing training on physical fitness. Muscles, ligaments and tendons journal, 4(2), 106–113.
23. Tong, J., Qi, X., He, Z., Chen, S., Pedersen, S. J., Cooley, P. D., Spencer-Rodgers, J., He, S., & Zhu, X. (2021). The immediate and durable effects of yoga and physical fitness exercises on stress. Journal of American college health : J of ACH, 69(6), 675–683. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2019.1705840
24. Gothe, N. P., & McAuley, E. (2016). Yoga Is as Good as Stretching-Strengthening Exercises in Improving Functional Fitness Outcomes: Results From a Randomized Controlled Trial. The journals of gerontology. Series A, Biological sciences and medical sciences, 71(3), 406–411. https://doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glv127

Featured Image courtesy of lululemon Studio