At a glance, Folm looks like many a Los Angeles fitness studio. Located in the city’s Melrose Hill neighborhood, the new gym features a room of reformer pilates machines, an infrared sauna and stylish body-care products. But the name reveals Folm’s point of difference.
Folm is an acronym that stands for follicular, ovulation, luteal and menstrual. At the women’s-only gym, members can take workout classes ranging from ballet to weightlifting that match the stage in their cycle, like high-intensity reformer pilates for follicular and ovulation phases, and lower-impact pilates or barre for luteal or menstrual phases.
“The cycle syncing part of it, and just our approach to how we teach and to wellness, really clicked. And we couldn’t really find that anywhere. This is, kind of, your one-stop shop — where you’re not just going to a reformer studio, you’re not just going to Barry’s, you’re not just going to Soul Cycle,” said Anna Collins, who co-founded Folm with Cindy Gomez. “I want to be able to teach different classes under one roof and to give people variety in their body. Everything is a balance.”
Today’s wellness consumers don’t necessarily need a health textbook to understand what terms like luteal and follicular mean. Google searches for “cycle syncing” have risen 740% since 2022, while searches for “luteal phase” reached an all-time high in March 2025. The phrase has also gone viral on TikTok in recent months as wellness influencers use the term to package nutrition or mental health tips. In turn, a growing set of beauty and wellness brands have popped up to offer skin-care and fitness tips based on users’ menstrual cycles.
Folm founders saw an opening to tie that growing awareness in the menstrual cycle to the fitness world. Gomez and Collins met while teaching pilates together in 2020 and connected over their shared interest in cycle syncing before deciding to open their own studio. Following a soft opening on July 21, Folm opens to the public on August 4. Prices range from $30 for a single weightlifting class to $700 per month for unlimited reformer classes.
“We weren’t seeing any changes in our bodies. We were plateauing, not feeling our greatest, so low-energy and extremely fatigued. We started playing around with cycle syncing, and both of us got so into it and saw so many great results,” said Gomez. “And then, tapping into the community, [we found] the girls were feeling the same. There are so many women who do cycle sync and see so many benefits.”
Though new to the neighborhood, Folm comes with many established names in fashion and beauty behind it. Photographer Petra Collins, Anna’s sister, who has shot campaigns and editorials for the likes of i-D and Skims, provided visual direction to the space. Amenities partners include Nécessaire, Rare Beauty and Soft Services. Folm has also collaborated with neighborhood food store L.A. Grocery & Café on a custom smoothie to promote the opening.
Folm’s philosophy has already attracted founding members like “Euphoria” star Alexa Demie. But while framing a workout routine around menstrual cycles offers a way to stand out in a saturated fitness market, it also means wading into polarized political and medical territory.
Proponents of cycle syncing feel it sheds light on a part of women’s health that is often stigmatized and underresearched. But critics say discourse around cycle syncing also often runs parallel to conservative views of femininity and anti-hormonal birth control messaging. Some proponents make those ties more explicit: 28 Wellness, a menstrual-cycle-based fitness and nutrition app that launched in 2022, sells an $89 “Birth Control Detox” supplement kit.
According to Dr. Jennifer Peña, board-certified internal medicine physician and chief medical officer of women’s telehealth company Wisp, while there is a need for more research on the menstrual cycle, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists does not currently endorse cycle syncing as medically valid.
“There is not enough scientific evidence or literature to really support [cycle syncing] in a clinical setting,” said Dr. Peña. “I do believe that the practice of adjusting your lifestyle to make yourself feel better, generally, is always a good thing. But what we don’t want is people taking it to the extreme, as we say, and making it dogma that you have to do certain things throughout your cycle.”
Folm’s founding investor Dr. Erica Lehman, a Beverly Hills-based integrative physician and board-certified ophthalmologist who specializes in tick-borne diseases, said the lack of backing on cycle syncing from institutions like the ACOG speaks to a disparity between conventional and functional medicine.
“There are a lot of medical associations that have fallen behind with research and technology, and they have old school dogma,” said Dr. Lehman, who will also work with Folm to offer treatments like IV drips and supplements. “Women have access to so much information. They have further understanding of what’s going on in their bodies, and they don’t just depend on their gynecologist anymore.”
Folm’s founders say they encourage members to determine which classes are best for them, whether they menstruate or not, and that classes based on cycles are a suggestion rather than a strict routine.
“We’re so about whatever works for your body. You don’t need to menstruate, you don’t need to have a specific cycle,” said Collins. “I have a lot of friends with the hormonal IUD that don’t get their period, but they still feel their body fluctuate. So it’s just tapping into what you’re feeling.”
The label of “women’s-only” has become a political sticking point in the fitness world, as well. Fitness influencer Nathalee Barnett faced backlash in March when she clarified that her London-based women’s-only gym was not open to trans women. And, in July, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee barred transgender women from competing in women’s sports in compliance with executive orders from the Trump administration.
Folm’s founders said their space is open to “she, they, non-binary” members, and that they will leave participants to self-identify when signing up. They say restricting the studio from men is in response to seeing male clients make women uncomfortable in group class settings throughout their careers as instructors.
But such divisive politics around topics like menstruation and femininity are also, in part, what has driven a rise in the wellness industry in recent years, however consumers define wellness for themselves.
“[Cycle syncing] is a hot topic, in general, because America is so fucked right now. Women are like, ‘Wait a minute, why am I listening to what these men have been telling us?’” said Collins. “I feel like we’re finding our voice.”
