Saskatoon's Move N' Soar gym is offering a new acrobatic and artful way to work out for people of all ages.

There are no machines or weights involved — all the heavy lifting is done in layers of silk.

"It's a new way to exercise right, you don't have to be running on the treadmill," Yuke Miyaoka Block explained, one of the gym's owners. 

"You build strength in every part of your body. Muscles that you have probably never used before or knew you had."

Aerial fitness can take many different forms, the most recognizable is known as 'silks' aerial fitness. This involves a large panel of silk which hangs from a high place and is used to climb, twist, roll and spin on.

Its notoriety comes from sky high feats in popular human circus acts.

Yuke Miyaoka Block is a professional figure skater. She was first exposed to aerial fitness while working on a cruise ship overseas. While travelling in Europe she met another woman from Saskatoon, professional dancer Kelly Duncalfe-Baker, and together they decided to bring the new technique back home.

From a spectator's point of view, aerial fitness looks impressive and challenging, but Block said it's not as hard as seems.

"My mom, I had her try silks, it took her two weeks," said Block. "At first she couldn't even hang off the ground and then by two weeks I had her climbing all the way to the top. And she is 60."