Alamo Gyms and Fitness

LA Boxing’s fight-centric gyms ditch the polished look of wood-floored workout studios for gritty, competitive spaces filled with 150-pound punching bags and intense workouts. Like a baker molding gingerbread men, LA Boxing sculpts six-packs with boxing, kickboxing, and mixed-martial-arts classes. Although instructors and students agree that the gym’s atmosphere may enkindle intimidation in first-time attendees, most experience boosted self-confidence after conquering their first class. Private training sessions further stoke courage with workouts that leave patrons with the exhilaration of having survived 12 rounds in the ring or five minutes in a high-school lunchroom.

As the sun rises over the emerald greens and fairways of Grayson Woods Golf Course, the shadows cast by Mount Diablo in the east recede and players tee up to test their mettle against the challenging par-27 course. Each of the course’s nine holes is nestled between trees and water hazards, raising the stakes and level of difficulty for junior, adult, and senior players alike. Alongside the main course, players develop their orb-rolling stroke on an 18-hole putting course that sits atop an ultra-modern surface free of divots, dirt clods, and rigs drilling for untapped sources of iced-tea-lemonade. The staff, which includes a PGA professional and an LPGA professional, offers private lessons to give improving players an edge at regularly scheduled tournaments such as the Junior-Senior Open and Ladies’ Day.

At Head Over Heels Athletic Arts, an experienced staff crafts a roster of sports and gymnastics classes, all anchored in the philosophy that, given the opportunity to explore the body’s athletic capabilities at a young age, participants can greater achieve their goals and increase their self-esteem well into adulthood. Open since 1977, the fitness center enables everyone from toddlers to adults to stay active through social endeavors designed to strengthen the mind and encourage sportsmanship more effectively than crossword-puzzle relays. Gymnastics classes cultivate strength and flexibility, propelling several past students to national levels of competition, and circus-arts sessions harness the expertise of internationally trained performers to illustrate a story via colorful costumes and aerial twists. Beyond teaching youngsters and frustrated penguins to fly during trampoline and tumbling classes, coaches train at the Behavioral Intervention Association in order to mold classes to special-needs students’ unique demands.

Five days a week, Head Over Heels opens its colorful gym floor to kids aged 2 and older for an unstructured, supervised playtime, during which kids can bounce on trampolines and dive into the foam pit to rescue friends from drowning in their own imagination. The facility also hosts special programs within its rainbow walls, from birthday parties and camps to weekend childcare sessions intended to give parents an evening alone.

Helmed by founder Tom Rezendes, NorCal Golf Academy’s PGA professional instructors believe that there are infinite ways to swing a golf club. In this spirit, they help each student find his or her own best approach, taking into account physical limitations to craft goals that are as lofty as the berries on a berry bush. The indoor facility’s wealth of technology helps the teachers create such individualized road maps with three practice bays outfitted with K-Vest motion analysis—a system that uses wireless sensors to assess movement patterns—and GC2 launch monitors, which depict ball flight on flat-screen HDTVs.

The PGA professionals take all this information into account while offering recommendations. Operating on the premise that there is no such thing as a quick fix and that overall fitness is key to a good game, they also focus on adding new drills over time, and encourage students to participate in the facility’s golf fitness classes. The specially designed workouts can help golfers build a solid swing and generate the muscle needed to fight off water-hazard gators.

The two soccer fields and batting cages housed inside the San Ramon Sports complex grant athletes of all ages ample space to take kicks and whacks at their sphere of choice. The rubber infill turf fields host year-round soccer leagues for adults and juniors and can also be used for lacrosse-team practices. The batting cages hurl both softball lobs and baseballs at 35–80 miles per hour, allowing batters ample space to practice firing off line drives or psychically altering pitch trajectory.