When sticking to a healthy lifestyle, finding the right gym is like finding the perfect pair of sneakers or the best green juice recipe. It’s crucial that the gym is right for your routine and workout style. A few years ago, when we were looking for a gym to join in New York City, we tested out all of our options and landed with a membership to Crunch Gym.
Crunch is one of those stereotypical hip New York gyms that are portrayed in movies about life in the big city. Their facilities are massive, they have a smoothie and juice bar, bright neon lights shine on the walls, and on some evenings of the week there is a DJ spinning all the latest hit tracks for your workout playlist. All of this is great at creating a fun and funky atmosphere, but our favorite part of Crunch has got to be the wide variety of classes.
You can sweat, pump, dance, drum, sing, surf and even bounce your way to a toned and healthy body everyday of the week at Crunch. Running on the cardio machines, and using the strength training machines is a great workout, but no one can deny the fact that it can get boring quickly! Exercising is ten times better when you can laugh with your workout buddies, and Crunch’s classes are the best place to start.
Here are some of our top picks of classic Crunch classes:
Jillian Michael’s Body Shred
Jillian Michaels, the trainer from The Biggest Loser, designed this class to tone every inch of your body in just 30 minutes. In this short but sweaty class, you go through circuits of intense cardio, strength training, and active recovery targeting every major muscle group. Did you know that Jillian is known as the toughest trainer in America? After doing this class, we sure do believe it.
Beach Body
This one is self explanatory. The Beach Body class shows up on Crunch schedules in the spring as a countdown to summer and the bikini season. Each week the focus is on different body parts that help you prepare for some summer sun!
Surfset and Sand
This is one of Crunches newest and most unique classes, using surfing as a model for a great workout. Each person gets on a surfboard, that is on a platform to mimic balancing on a real board, and does exercises based on the moves of surfing to tone your muscles. This is definitely a fun class to try out, but it is also really fun to watch participants attempt to pop up on these wobbly surfaces!
Fat Burning Pilates
This class sounds straight forward, but don’t let it fool you…it ain’t your mama’s Pilates class! Forget about what you know about typical Pilates class using just a mat on the floor. This class uses some of the basic Pilates moves that you know and love, and mixes it with some dance moves, cardio exercises, and great music to increase the burn. We are regulars in this class, and look forward to sweating it out every week in Fat Burning Pilates.
Luckily for us in New York City, there are almost as many Crunch Gyms as there are Starbucks.
For anyone throughout the rest of the country, one of the 50+ Crunch locations could be near you!
