You can lie to your trainer, your doctor, even to yourself, but you can’t lie to Bod Pod. It’s an egg-shaped contraption that uses air displacement to measure your body composition — a far cry from the scale in your bathroom. While I’ve had my fair share of intensive spa treatments and grueling personal training sessions, stripping down and stepping into the futuristic pod felt like I was unlocking a new level of wellness.
You can find Bod Pod and a slew of other high-tech health contraptions at Canyon Ranch — the wellness club that’s part gym, part spa and part new-age health clinic — in the Crescent Hotel in Fort Worth. It’s the first Canyon Ranch outpost in Texas and the fifth overall, following the original in Tucson, Arizona, and subsequent locations in California, Las Vegas and Massachusetts (the latter of which we’ve previously visited). The brand is going all-in on Texas, with a sprawling resort slated to open in the Texas Hill Country next year, and another planned for Houston.
The Fort Worth facility promises a holistic experience across diet, fitness, recovery and spiritual wellbeing, where members can address their health in a serene, spa-like setting. And those members pay for the privilege. Individual rates at the gym include a $5,000 initiation fee, plus $350 monthly dues, with discounts available for couples, corporate groups and those under 30.
But back to the Bod Pod. As I sat on a little bench inside the cocoon, the machine clicked and whirred over two 40-second sessions, eventually spitting out my readings with cold precision, calculating body fat percentage, fat mass, fat-free mass (muscle, bone, water, internal organs) and bone density. All in all, not bad for a constantly traveling writer with a hedonistic streak, who opts for decadent food and strong cocktails at every turn. But the printout and the very nice performance scientist running the show noted that there’s certainly room for improvement.
The Bod Pod is just one of several optional health and performance assessments available at Canyon Ranch. There’s a gait analysis system that’s basically a treadmill with a variety of high-speed cameras and pressure sensors, so a sports medicine expert can evaluate how you move to assess your joint health and identify ways to improve stride efficiency and correct imbalances. You can take a metabolic exercise assessment by wearing an elaborate mask while you exercise to determine your VO2 max and how many calories you burn when you work out. If you’re injured, or want to log some miles while reducing wear and tear on your legs, try the Boost Microgravity Treadmill, which uses air pressure to reduce your body weight by up to 80%, based on technology developed at NASA.
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They’re no longer just for Olympians. Take one today and live more tomorrows.All of that is just scratching the surface of what’s going on at Canyon Ranch. On the day of my visit, members did squats on the same Eleiko racks used at the Olympics, a woman was taking a private reformer Pilates lesson, a yoga class was in session and a spin class was about to start. If you want this to be your everyday gym, it’s a really nice everyday gym. And when you’re done working out, you can take advantage of the next-level vitality and recovery tools available with your membership.
Located on the third floor of the wellness center, the vitality and recovery area is solely dedicated to making your body feel better. Everything is self-led, so it’s easy to partake in as many modalities as you want. For starters, you can slip some Therabody compression boots on your legs to wind down after a tough workout, or enlist the lymphatic massage rollers to improve blood flow and soothe your tired muscles.
One unique device is the Shiftwave chair, which was designed for U.S. special ops and has now trickled down to me. The chair looks like an outdoor lounger studded with percussive discs. It reclines past parallel to reduce gravity’s toll on your body, then mechanically-generated pressure waves stimulate your nervous system over a preset course that can last just a few minutes or up to an hour. The pulsing is meant to reduce pain and stress, improve sleep and promote general relaxation. Throughout the program, your eyes are covered and noise-canceling headphones deliver rhythmic sounds, so it’s easy to melt into the darkness and forget that you’re actually lying still in a public space. I found the whole thing deeply relaxing and immediately checked to see how much it would cost to buy one of these for home use. (It’s a lot.)
Next up was a red-light therapy bed meant to reduce pain and reverse the signs of aging, and a dry infrared sauna that looks a bit like a tanning bed, but provides a vibrating massage and ionic salt air infusion. Infrared saunas have been shown to improve heart health, reduce blood pressure and stress, and even mimic the effects of exercise, all without the intensely high heat of a traditional sauna.
But don’t worry — there’s still a traditional sauna if that’s what you want. There’s a whole spa, with steam rooms, steam showers, whirlpools and just about every face and body treatment you can think of, from scrubs and mud wraps to traditional massages and high-tech facials. I got the IonixLight facial, which enlisted red light, microdermabrasion, exfoliants and creams — all things I should probably use more often on my regularly jet-lagged face. The goal was to improve muscle tone, reduce puffiness and increase cellular activity, so that my skin could stimulate its own collagen production, with the overall result being healthier, firmer and younger looking skin. An hour later, dare I say, I glowed.
Age comes for us all, but Canyon Ranch is proving that, if you’re willing to put in the time and effort, you can slow down the clock considerably. And if all else fails, you can always get that age-defying facial.
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