Sweat Your Stress Out at Twist Yoga Studio in Plainfield

I made what might be a rookie mistake my first time at Twist Yoga Studio in Plainfield. I set my mat down right next to the heater. The heater that was set at 93 degrees.

I had been to hot yoga before, but the hot yoga I had been to had not been quite that steamy.

"It (was) intense more so that day because of the humidity," Amy Brinkman, one of three owners of the studio said. "In the summertime you do notice a difference."


The day I visited was one of the few hot days we had this year.
Brinkman owns the studio with Theresa Wilson and Jennifer Cisneros who had worked together previously in Naperville.

"The three of us were already working together managing another yoga studio that closed that was in Naperville," Brinkman said. "We really wanted to move into Plainfield into an area where there was more of a need for yoga."

The studio, located at 12337 South Route 59, Unit 141 in Plainfield opened in March.

Twist already has regular clients and offers more than just heated yoga.

"We just recently added meditation," Brinkman said.

In addition, they have two classes per week that are non-heated and the room is set to about 80 degrees for those classes.

"Offering the noon class is a way to say why don’t you try it without the heat first," Brinkman said of the two classes per week that are non-heated.

Regular heated yoga classes are set to 90 degrees and hover right around that temperature. The heat, though, is not meant to torture participants.

"The number one thing is probably because our muscles get warmer and then you can move more easily from pose to pose," Brinkman said.

In addition, the heat also allows people to focus more on being in the moment.

"You're just trying to stay in the pose; you're just focusing on the pose," Brinkman said.

The studio follows Baptiste-style yoga, but they are experimenting with other forms and combinations.

"What we love about our studio is that we have now been exploring," Brinkman said. "We even have a boot camp that combines circuit training with yoga."

Brinkman began her journey with yoga after finding that incorporating yoga in her life made a difference in every aspect of her life.

"I had always done yoga on the side and I was also a workout freak I finally realized the connection for me when I really got into practicing yoga consistently," she said. "Once you work in consistency with your whole self, that's when you see changes."

Brinkman is a licensed social worker and she found that yoga not only helped her clients, but also was a way for her to continue that piece of herself in a different way.

"I almost feel like I am doing that now in practicing yoga but I am not using words," she said. "I am really using everything I learned and more effectively than I ever have before."

Each of the teachers at Twist has a full bio available online.

The studio also offers a $40 introductory month of unlimited yoga to all new students.