From striptease to belly dancing, fitness hounds are increasingly searching for something other than a treadmill to help trim their thighs.

Trapeze and other circus arts are the latest incarnation.

People in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York have for some time been flying through the air with the greatest of ease, while simultaneously sweating off the flab.

Rachel Stegman, a private trapeze instructor, hopes it catches on in Phoenix.

Tricks on a rope, fancy moves using two pieces of shiny fabric and poses on a trapeze are not just for circus folk anymore.

“It’s become a thing that is accessible to everybody,” she said.

Instead of counting out crunches or begging for “just two more” push-ups, Stegman teaches people the art of trapeze, fabric and rope, techniques such as those you’d see at Cirque du Soleil.

It’s not clear how many people are taking to the trapeze specifically, but it’s hard not to notice the variety of alternative fitness programs that now are being offered.

From pole dancing once practiced only by strippers to spy training incorporating kicking, climbing and self-defense, it’s clear some people in search of exercise desire something different.

Stegman, 32, knows the craft. She was trained by Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey.

You could say she “ran away” to the circus in her early 20s, where she perfected her moves from the trapeze to the rope.

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