KAATSU Personal Training Gym – Adamas

Our trip next took us to Osaka. While we didn’t have much time in Osaka, we were fortunate to experience an entire KAATSU workout from start to finish at Adamas. Trainer Mari Masuda arranged for us to observe a workout with one of her clients who is fluent in English. This was great, as we could ask his impressions of the workout and KAATSU.

Mari has been running Adamas for the past 14 years and she has built her business from the ground up by providing KAATSU training. The space at Adamas is not large, especially when compared to gyms in Canada, but it’s plenty for one-on-one and small group training. Mari offers personal KAATSU training as well as hot yoga classes. I can imagine it’s easy to heat up the space given its size.

The workout started with Mari applying KAATSU to get the client’s arms warmed up. Then she put him through his paces. One of the client’s major complaints is a stiff neck and back from a lot of desk work. He finds he feels much better after Mari’s KAATSU workouts. It was obvious from watching Mari that she has a great deal of experience working with people and setting up appropriate training exercises for them. While KAATSU is a great addition to a workout, it’s the trainer’s expertise that makes the difference. 

Mark took her client through an arm workout then switched over to legs and core work with KAATSU. None of the weights were heavy. The bar for chest presses and weighted squats was 20kg and that was the heaviest weight used for the exercises. Still, the client was working hard. We got tired just watching him!

One thing I found interesting was that the client said he had been doing KAATSU training for 20 years, starting in high school on his sports teams. He continued from that point on, moving all around Japan but working with different KAATSU trainers everywhere he lived. He thinks KAATSU training is the best because it doesn’t cause DOMS due to its use of light weights. Mari has been his trainer for the past year or so and he said she’s the best trainer he’s worked with. It was obvious she knew her stuff, both with KAATSU, and with her training methodology.

Our visit to Adamas was highly educational. We got to see a great example of how trainers can use KAATSU in a small space, how KAATSU was integrated into a workout, and of course, we met some great people while doing so! A huge thank-you to Mari’s client, and to Mari and her staff for their generosity!