It’s been a couple of years since Ray Peleckas rebranded his Belmont gym into Burnin’ by Ray, an eponymous group workout that focuses on strength, cardio and nutrition. Now he’s planning to turn the workouts up a notch when the new Seaport location opens in early September.

“We have a live DJ in studio a few times a week,” he says. “We have the club lights that change to the beat of the music. It’s very club-like on the inside.”

That interior includes a lounge that fits a couple of dozen customers, locker rooms, a retail space with branded products from Lululemon, the main 2,000-square-foot workout room and a Body Tonic juice bar serving juices and housemade almond milk that you can preorder when you sign up for class. With 48-minute classes on weekdays and weekends, Peleckas is hoping to tap into partnerships with nearby businesses, residences and hotels to fill the sessions. There’s also a diagnostic area that will allow for oxygen testing (VO2 max), mobility screenings, strategy sessions and the BodPod, which Peleckas hails as one of the keys to the entire operation.

“This machine is used by the NFL, NHL and medical places. It calculates body-fatpercentage, fat mass, fat-free mass, resting metabolic rate and total energy expenditure,” says Peleckas, whose team then sits down and comes up with nutritional goals and guidelines that fit each member’s lifestyle. “We’re not telling everyone you have to eat chicken and broccoli. We’re just fine-tuning everything you’re doing. We focus on fat loss and not weight loss. That’s our thing.” 

Burnin’ By Ray’s 48-minute 1.0 class

• Burnin’ By Ray 1.0 focuses on strength and cardio, as opposed to the 2.0 class, which runs concurrent and only includes strength exercises.

• Customers follow prompts from a video that shows one of three programmed strength workouts: Chest and back, arms and shoulders, legs and glutes. Each month, there is a new set of three videos with new workouts focusing on those three areas.

• There is one instructor for 1.0 (40 people), one instructor for 2.0 (15 people) and there will eventually be one “roving” instructor helping people in both classes. The instructor provides attention to the members who need help making sure the exercise is done properly.

• There are 48 rounds in a class. Each round is done for 40 seconds, followed by a 20-second rest. You stay at one block for four rounds—cardio, then strength, then cardio, then strength—and go through 12 blocks each class.

Burnin’ by Ray hosts a grand opening on Sept. 17