The Class review Australia: Why celebrities love the online workout

Actress Emma Stone admits to feeling “terror” the first time she tried it. Gwyneth Paltrow says it’s “like 10 hours of talking therapy in just one hour”. Drew Barrymore does it sitting tearfully on her carpet, letting out long burps and laughing hysterically.

Welcome to The Class, Hollywood’s favourite workout. Designed to unite body and mind and to help “process emotion”, it’s a cross between a fitness regimen and a spiritual experience. And what was once available only to those able to attend its sold-out Los Angeles or New York classes has now gone global, with a digital studio broadcasting it to 71 countries so that we mere mortals may suffer. 

I first heard about The Class when my Instagram algorithm began “serving” me its new adverts, in which its celebrity devotees rhapsodise about it. There have also been collaborations with Alicia Keys and Harry Styles. Its non- famous attendees are similarly evangelical, with one saying it is “like a slow breakdown”, which, to be fair, is how I feel about most group exercise.

So what is all the fuss about? After being shown Stone’s advert for what seems like the 100th time, I signed up for a free trial of the 60-minute “signature” workout — Paltrow’s favourite, I’m told. Which is how I find myself in my living room, essentially dry-humping my gym mat.

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The Class is a mish-mash of yoga, Pilates, meditation and mat-based exercises such as burpees and jumping jacks. There are also less-traditional elements such as freestyle dance cardio (yelp), grunting, sighing and weeping, more on which shortly. It costs about $60 a month for access to the digital library and live-streamed classes with names like “Burn Off Fire” and “Tapping for Emotional Freedom”.

The Class was founded in 2013 by Taryn Toomey, a former Dior executive, whom I speak to over Zoom. It was after having children with her financier ex-husband, Mark — the couple have two daughters aged 11 and 13 — that Toomey decided to shift direction. She visited Peru to study “ceremonial work” under the guidance of a shamanic healer and trained as a yoga instructor, adding other elements such as breath work and cardiovascular moves.

She began teaching in an annexe room of her New York apartment building, for friends and other residents, charging $100 a month for three classes a week. Within two years it had become a word-of-mouth hit, with supermodel Gisele Bundchen a regular. In 2017 Toomey opened her NYC studio, which has healing crystals embedded in the floor. A Santa Monica outpost followed in 2022.

“I think the reason people love The Class so much is because you just come with whatever you have [to deal with] that day,” Toomey says. “The teacher will take you through a journey. You can celebrate, you can contemplate, you can express — it’s the difference between taking it out on someone and getting it out of the body. It’s just a different form of therapy.”

If some of the language around The Class sounds as if it could have come from the Duchess of Sussex, with its talk of authenticity and manifesting, it’s perhaps not a coincidence. Toomey was one of about 20 friends to attend Meghan’s New York baby shower in 2019. It’s unclear how they met — Toomey wasn’t at Harry and Meghan’s 2018 wedding — but their friendship has made headlines. In 2019 the couple were criticised for promoting The Class in a post about mental health awareness on their official royal Instagram page. Then, in 2021, a few days before that Oprah interview, the duchess was pictured wearing a $2,000 lapis lazuli necklace from Toomey’s jewellery brand, which The Class website says aids “in the revelation of one’s inner truth”. Powerful stuff, clearly.

“A friend actually gave that to her. That was not me,” Toomey says, taking a deep breath when I ask about their friendship. “I very, very much believe in the power of women staying together when they are in the centre of their heart and compassion and alignment. So I don’t know how to answer that question.”

I’m not sure how to understand that answer. “I really respect people’s privacy,” she continues. “When you lay your head down at night you want to feel good about the things that you did. I don’t want to spend time regretting my actions.”

What Toomey will say is that she has become friends with many of those who have taken The Class, because “they feel like they know you”. “If you take my class you can probably feel the rawness of who I am. I’m vulnerable to a fault,” she explains. “I really had to learn how to put some healthy boundaries in place in my life because I share everything. I think what really gravitated this global community together is that it’s a space that’s, like, ‘Come as you are’.”

Or, as Paltrow put it in an interview with her pal Toomey for the Goop website, “It helps me so much to process my emotions in a way that’s so visceral.”

The bit that Paltrow admits to having found “difficult and embarrassing” at first are the sounds you’re encouraged to make during the workout. It does feel cringe-worthy to adhere to Toomey’s instruction to “let it out . . . yawn, burp, yelp” as she bounces around — grunting, sighing and making “brrr” noises. The 30-odd people in the studio following her in a free dance are throwing their arms around like toddlers: shaking, stomping and whooping as Toomey tells us to be “unique, funky and original”.

It’s total Hollywood bonkersness and yet, when I do manage it on the third attempt it feels freeing — well, as free as you can be when you’re worried about the neighbours spotting you through your front window.

Toomey is well aware that this particular feature of her class is the one that raises eyebrows. “Sometimes people talk about The Class like: ‘Oh, it’s the screaming and crying class.’ We’re actually not screaming. We’re just using different sounds to move pockets of energy from inside your body to the outside. There’s a release that happens,” she says. “Once you get some of the pent-up energy out of the way, sometimes what you realise underneath it is that there’s just a little bit of grief or sadness, or weeping with joy. And crying is such a cathartic thing. Crying is how a heart heals.”

And cry they do. “I think that there’s a lot of healing that goes on around people’s bodies, that they understand the body is a sacred temple, it holds their soul.”

Ah, the sacred temple. This is a refrain Toomey uses often during the meditation sections, as we place our hands on our hearts and abdomens and attempt to “move into the sacred temple of the heart”. Looking at the Americans on screen, utterly absorbed in what they’re doing, I wonder whether I’m being way too stiff about it all. “There’s no one who is too repressed for The Class,” Toomey says with a laugh.

As for me? In the hours after my session I feel relaxed but achy — something my regular Pilates class doesn’t achieve. I even find myself being drawn back for another class, curious as to whether I can let go a bit more next time. Perhaps that’s the secret.

7 other fitness classes to do at home

Tracy Anderson

Gwyneth Paltrow and Victoria Beckham are fans of the Tracy Anderson Method (Paltrow loved it so much she once invested in the business), which involves dance-based classes using body resistance and very light hand weights. The online program includes a new weekly workout, as well as access to existing classes, a digital magazine and meal planning guides. It’s at the upper end pricewise at $136 per month, but you get a 14-day free trial and a discount for annual membership.

Centr

Chris Hemsworth launched Centr back in 2019, featuring world class trainers including his own PT (and best mate) Luke Zocchi. The app includes 20- and 40-minute sessions of HIIT, Pilates, yoga, boxing and guided meditation, plus recipe ideas, a meal planner and stress and wellbeing support. It’s offering a free seven-day trial, and starts from $8 per month.

Train with Cass

If your goal is to get stronger this year, you can’t go past Cass Olholm’s new app. The Cairns-based fitness influencer, with 360K fans on Instagram, has created structured training programs incorporating weight training, strength and conditioning and HIIT with on-demand classes for $22 per month.

Peloton

With fans including sprinter Usain Bolt, actor Hugh Jackman and comedian Jimmy Fallon, the cycling classes have a cult following for those prepared to pay from $1845 for the spin bike, plus $35 a month subscription for unlimited classes. You don’t need a bike though — the Peloton app offers thousands of videos from $17 per month.

Yoga with Adriene

It’s little wonder that Adriene Mishler has more than 11.5 million followers on YouTube — she’s relaxed, builds your confidence and explains her moves in a way that even the most yoga-phobic can understand. New classes land on her free channel every month, in sections such as “beginners” and “back pain”.

Ashley Borden

The LA-based trainer Ashley Borden honed Ryan Gosling for his 2016 role in La La Land, as well as Reese Witherspoon and Christina Aguilera. Her 21-day strength, cardio and core programme needs no equipment and includes recipes and meal plans, all for $40. Ashleyborden.com

28 by Sam Wood

A list like this wouldn’t be complete without our Health of the Nation ambassador Sam Wood. His app 28 features at-home workouts for all fitness levels, meal plans and daily live messages from Sam. It’s $22 per month for the first three months.