The Body Lab KC’s MegaFormer: more than meets the thighs

Halfway through my 50-minute trial class at Leawood’s new Body Lab KC, studio manager Jena Green shouted into her clip-on microphone while upbeat dance-pop played in the background.

“Find your edge!”

I wondered if I could find a pair of scissors or a knife — something to slice away the resistance band looped around my heel. I’d been tied to a MegaFormer — a Transformer-like slab of workout gear — and now this buff blonde was yelling at me.

“You’re stronger than you think!”

That wasn’t saying much just then.

Green kept up her encouragement as she stalked this sleek, modern gym. Ten sweating people answered with grunts as they pushed through a first MegaFormer workout.

Developed by trainer and fitness entrepreneur Sebastien Lagree, the MegaFormer looks like something that Robert Downey Jr. might have assembled in one of the Iron Man movies — all straps, springs, platforms, and various moving and sliding parts — and the thing makes it theoretically possible to do hundreds of exercises, each designed to take traditional Pilates to a core-busting next level. The Body Lab is home to the first MegaFormer fleet in the Midwest.

It’s a challenge even for the pros. Just before class, I chatted with instructor Michelle Gardner, who had begun working out with the MegaFormer a few months ago. “I’m a personal trainer,” she told me, “but nothing could have prepared me for this.”

Now, with 25 grinding minutes of woman versus machine still ahead of me, I clung to a vision: the guilt-free cheese Danish that I planned to eat as soon as my heart rate came down enough. On my hands and knees atop the MegaFormer, with that resistance band around my heel, I kicked my leg upward a few more times. It wasn’t impossible, but it was so difficult that I burst into involuntary laughter. The MegaFormer was working. I could tell because of the pain.

A couple of key differences between the MegaFormer and a traditional workout, Gardner had explained, are speed and resistance. You might normally bang out 30 squats as quickly as possible at the gym, but the MegaFormer forces you to slow it down, using a mixture of cardio, Pilates, and weight training to bring your muscles to the point of fatigue. Ah, right, fatigue: the point at which your thighs turn to jelly and you just want to devour a raw steak and take a nap.

“You’ll be getting to know a lot of tiny new muscle fibers today,” she had said.

Almost immediately, I understood what she was talking about. With one foot stationary and the other on the MegaFormer’s sliding center platform, I did squats, lunges and a number of other familiar exercises at a decidedly unfamiliar pace: so deliberate that each motion was excruciating. The routine also included variations on planks, biceps curls and crunches, allowing me to become reacquainted with muscles I use only when I shovel the driveway after a heavy, wet snow. What the hell was going on under my ribs?

Most of my classmates that day were fairly fit, and everybody made it through the routine intact. But if I had tried the MegaFormer before I started working out regularly, about three years ago — when I counted walking downstairs and starting a washing-machine load as cardio — I’m pretty sure that the Body Lab would have needed a body bag. After the class, my legs were sore and shaking.

I asked operating partner Mike Green (Jena’s husband) what he recommended for beginners, people like the laundry-challenged old me.

He told me that, at the Body Lab’s other two locations, in Arizona (a fourth is planned for midtown), trainers recommend that newcomers attend one-on-one sessions to familiarize themselves with the machines before trying a full-intensity class. But in Kansas City, the MegaFormer is new to everyone — “We’re all in the same boat,” he said.

Mike Green asked what I thought of the class, which I had read could burn up to 600 calories. Instead of playing tough, I decided to be honest.

“It kind of kicked my ass,” I said. “In a good way.”

“Great,” he replied. “That’s what we’re going for.”

I had almost forgotten about that Danish.

The Body Lab KC opened December 1 at 4217 West 119th Street, Leawood, 913-808-5180. The first class is free; after that, it’s $35 per session. For more information and a list of classes and membership packages, see thebodylabus.com/studios/leadwood-ks.