Amanda Freeman’s no bullshit attitude toward fitness is one of the reasons she entered the boutique fitness space. “I wanted the Pilates body but with an experience like a Soul Cycle class,”she says. Working with fitness guru Sebastien LaGree, they created the strengthen, lengthen, and tone workout known as SLT in 2011. Despite not having a background in fitness, Freeman was adept at predicting the next big thing thanks to her past life as a trend forecaster and her popular daily health and wellness focused newsletter, Vital Juice. Eventually, endorsements from celebrities like Gigi Hadid and Natalie Portman started rolling in and SLT launched her into the fitness stratosphere.
That, in turn, inspired her latest venture, the spa-fitness hybrid Stretch*d, where clients are professionally stretched by certified Stretch*rs. “Everybody should be stretching,” she says, and there should be “a convenient way for them to do it in a cool environment that makes it cool.” Once again, she called on Brooklyn design studio Bright Architecture, which worked on SLT, for the maiden space in Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood. The green-infused studio is dressed in fun house mirrors and a wallpapered ceiling that features inspirational quotes. “I knew clients would be lying down and facing up at the ceiling, and I wanted the ceiling to be a focal point,” Freeman says.
With nearly 30 SLT locations across the U.S., Freeman is thinking of expanding her fitness empire to Chicago and Washington, DC. “Your studio is not just the environment that people workout in, it’s your calling card,” she adds.
