It was Saturday night in South End, the room full of gyrating bodies and beats pulsing through the marrow, a laser projector beaming multicolored fireflies that danced on the ceiling and glow sticks whirling in the darkness.

Youve seen this before. Its what raves were 20 years ago. Its what group exercise looks like now.

OK, lets open up the hip flexors, called Beth Lange, who co-owns Moga Charlotte, a nearby yoga studio. She was leading a 20-minute yoga session during Moxy Madness at Midnight, a self-described yoga rave gone mad at where else? Fight Gone MAD, a high-intensity fitness club on South Boulevard. OK, excellent!

The DJ eased the Black Keys pounding Gold On the Ceiling into Bob Marleys mellower No Woman, No Cry. The 80 or so participants contorted, sweated and smiled.

Yoga is usually a quiet, contemplative activity that emphasizes concentration and self-awareness. This, not so much. Folks laughed and chatted as they stretched and the music played.

Then the session switched, moving to another instructor and another 20-minute session, this one high-intensity interval training: 20 seconds of full-bore calisthenics and aerobic exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest, repeated again and again. Its practitioners claim interval training burns fat more effectively than the usual aerobic exercise. Then a brief break, then another yoga session, then more interval training. It lasted four hours.

This isnt the traditional way to have a rockin good time on Saturday night, but it represents a trend thats soaked deeply into fitness clubs and yoga studios around the country: bringing in DJs with playlists customized to specific workouts and classes.

Fitness companies are even co-licensing with music labels to market and sell workout compilations, as detailed in a recent Wall Street Journal article. The resulting sessions are commonly called yoga raves, and theyve become quite popular in the last few years.

Our own twist on it

In Charlotte, Coby Kraft and Brad Schamel, a pair of 29-year-old childhood friends, had recently founded Moxy Events, a fitness events company. Kraft works for his familys lighting business, and Schamel is an Army Ranger captain on inactive duty and cycling out of the service. Theyd always wanted to start some kind of venture together, and they incorporated Moxy Events in August.

Continued here:
Charlotte workout combines yoga , calesthenics and a different kind of playlist