Throw Down®

If you’re looking for a true high-cardio dance fitness format, this is the class for you. Throw Down features choreographed routines with an emphasis on hip-hop throwbacks and top hits. The newest routine is the only routine broken down before jumping into a cardio-packed playlist.

That last part is what makes this class what it is. Once the new routine has been taught, the playlist runs. Routines come one after another with only the gap between tracks to catch your breath, and the class stays at that intensity until the cool-down. It is closer to a performance set than a lesson, and it is the reason people leave genuinely wrung out.

Because the routines carry over week to week, regulars build a shared repertoire. Songs you learned a month ago come back around and you already know them, which means you can stop thinking about the choreography and start actually performing it. That is the point at which the class gets addictive, and it is also when it gets hardest — you stop pacing yourself and start going full out.

This is the most demanding class on our schedule and we would rather be honest about that than have you arrive on the wrong night. If you are new to dance fitness, start with Throw Down® 101, where every routine is broken down step by step and questions are expected. Come across to Throw Down® once the movement feels familiar. Plenty of people run both for a while, and that combination is the fastest way to pick it up.

You can absolutely take it at your own level. Going half-out on a track you do not know yet is a perfectly good way to spend it, and marking the arms while your legs recover is what everyone does at some point in the hour. What you cannot do is expect the playlist to wait for you, which is the honest difference between this class and 101.

Bring water and a towel, wear shoes you can pivot and land in, and give yourself a few minutes at the end for the stretch — after an hour at this pace your legs will want it.