A Fresh Approach to Fitness With Brenda Nieto

By MATTHEW MEYER | Reporter

With two straps attaching my ankles to weighted pulleys, I’m flat on my back on a cushioned bench, slowly rotating my legs in a circular motion as if running underwater.

Now I’m straddling the bench, feet back on the ground, stretching forward as I rotate a handle in slow, arching motions.

Soon I’m on my back once again, this time on a platform that slides along an angled track, using my feet to push off a stand and leap backward, sliding to the top of the track and then gently returning to the bottom for another jump.

Within an hour I’m sweaty and exhausted, but also feeling relaxed.

I feel more limber than I have in months. The stress I carried into my workout has seemingly vanished. And I’m dizzied by the sheer variety of the exercises I’ve just accomplished.

Standing beside me, Palisadian studio owner Brenda Nieto looks as enthusiastic as she did the moment we began. With a smile she asks: “Can I show you one more?”

From her space in The Village, Nieto is running me through an introduction to GYROTONICｨ, a holistic exercise method developed by Juliu Horvath, a Hungarian professional dancer who suffered a series of debilitating injuries during his career in Romania and created the system to rehabilitate.

Horvath’s approach makes constant use of rhythmic, circular movements and corresponding breathing patterns. The exercises are meant to flow together and move the body’s joints through a full range of motion without being jarring.

Nieto is a certified trainer in Horvath’s method—and she came to the practice with strikingly similar roots. She, too, was an accomplished professional dancer, with the esteemed Martha Graham Dance Company in New York, when she started to suffer from chronic injuries.

Nieto turned to GYROTONIC to recover from a knee injury and fell in love with the method, ultimately deciding to become a certified teacher full-time.

She was training in Atlanta when she met beloved Welsh actor and former Palisadian mayor Sir Anthony Hopkins and his wife, Stella.

After befriending and training both, and sharing that she was considering moving to Northern California, Nieto told the Palisadian-Post that the Hopkins convinced her to move to Los Angeles instead.

“They gave me so much support,” said Nieto of both Stella and Hopkins, who originally helped her buy the method’s specialized equipment and start her practice in LA.

Now, Nieto owns the equipment herself and operates her own studio, though she’ll always be grateful to the Hopkins—whom she still trains—for helping her get her start.

Nieto’s success is part of a broader boom across the fitness realm—it’s an industry that the Bureau of Labor Statistics expected to grow nearly 25 percent between 2010 and the early 2020s. The more than $20 billion-per-year industry is buoyed in particular by the popularity of studios like Nieto’s—personalized, one-on-one training sessions catered to clients’ specific needs.
Nieto’s new studio is a sanctuary.

Tucked away inside the eclectic Atrium Building on Via De La Paz, the space is intimate without feeling crowded. A screen door provides a cool breeze—one I was grateful for by the time my workout was half-done—and a view of Pacific Palisades from the space’s upstairs vantage point.

Aside from some artwork and simple furniture, the studio is dominated by the method’s signature equipment. Nieto glides between them, snapping pieces into place and adjusting each machine into a variety of formations, tailored to my size and abilities.

That’s the beauty of this approach to fitness, Nieto said. It can be used just as effectively for injury rehabilitation as it can for a strenuous workout.

I came in healthy and ready for a challenge, so Nieto helped me work up a sweat.

But for many of her other clients, Nieto explained, she’s able to use the machines to create a therapeutic experience for someone suffering from ailments such as scoliosis or a bulging disc.

Regardless of the nature of the workout, Nieto said there’s a common thread: People leave with a sense of calm, feeling more in touch with their body.

I certainly did: The exercises’ rhythmic quality, the focus on using proper breathing technique and Nieto’s omnipresent voice of calm, confident encouragement helped me get lost in the experience.

I often surprised myself with just how much I was capable of when I focused on the movements and slowly progressed toward more difficult exercises. The worries I had when I entered the room were temporarily lost.

That’s the beauty of it, Nieto said: “You forget about your life and just go into your body.”

For more information, visit brendanieto.com or call 310-745-9494