Beastanetics Celebrates 15 Years of Affordable Outdoor Fitness at McCarren Park

Many gyms and boutique fitness studios have been popping up in the neighborhood in recent years, and many of them come at a hefty price tag.

However, getting in shape doesn’t have to be expensive — or complicated, for that matter. Enter Beastanetics, an outdoor program that’s been offering affordable back-to-basics fitness classes on the McCarren Park turf for 15 years.

In 2005, certified personal trainer and general jack of all trades Tim Haft started running Punk Rope, a jump rope class set to punk rock, out of the Greenpoint YMCA. Though the class is no longer in the neighborhood, that venture set Haft off on his mission to bring alternative methods of fitness to people in the North Brooklyn area. And in 2009, Beastanetics was born (first in an office in Manhattan before relocating to McCarren Park).

“I really fell in love with the neighborhood,” Half recalled. “And I realized a lot of folks just don’t want to be in a gym, that’s not their culture. They want something that’s friendly, communal, small and efficient, and then the timing has to work for them. We were getting a lot of artists and writers and musicians.
It was just so exciting, ’cause a lot of these people weren’t runners, they weren’t exercisers. They weren’t really doing much of anything. So this was all new to them.”

In its early days, Haft remembered having nearly 60 students split between 10 classes a week. The program has changed over time, including, like everything else, being sidelined by the pandemic and forced to go virtual, before officially returning in late 2021.

But what hasn’t changed is the approach to fitness. Beastanetics focuses on bodyweight interval training with a simpler-is-better approach easily adaptable to goals and ability levels through common exercises like planks, lunges, squats, pushes, and the occasional jog.

“With interval training, there’s some good science and there’s a lot of not-so-good science,” Haft said. “I just try to meet people where they’re at and there’s a definite structure to the program. It’s based the intervals, the amount of time of work and the recovery time. Nail the basics, and then you can add on.”

The small class structure, typically 10 attendees or less, also lends itself to hands-on coaching and modifications when needed.

“If you have a good solid core structure and you’re mindful of people’s prior injuries or their imbalances and it’s a small enough group that I can monitor people and give them alternatives and then talk to them after, I think that’s one of the bigger selling points,” Haft explained.

Haft has curated a diverse crew of students, or “Beasts,” ranging in age and fitness objectives and jobs — including someone who’s been coming for 14 years and the co-owner of Chez Ma Tante. And in its fifteenth year, Haft would be content for things to stay just as they are (though growth and new students are always welcome).

“I’m thinking as I’m approaching the milestone, ‘It’s been a good run,'” Haft laughed. “If it doesn’t last a ton longer, that’s okay. I’ve been very, very lucky. But hopefully it can keep going. I think there’s still enough people that don’t want to be in a gym.”

Beastanetics can be found on the turf (weather permitting, of course
— the program actually just came back for the season this month) twice a week around 8:15 a.m. The program costs $80 a month, which averages out to about $10 a class. More info and registration is available here.