Brighton, NY Health and Fitness

At Rock Ventures, climbers of all ages and experience levels scale challenge-filled walls lining the 18,000-square-foot facility. Classes impart students with surefooted spirit and fundamental climbing skills such as anchoring the rope for comrades. In addition to individual challenges, the center hosts several group events, ranging from team-building weekends to kids' birthday parties and summer camps. Rock Ventures grants discounted admission to veterans and their families with advance reservation on Saturday mornings, and helps disabled climbers conquer the rocks by using block-and-tackle systems to hoist themselves up.

Owner Kent Winchester informs his work at Rock Ventures with a multifaceted history of leadership and team-building experience, including a stint in the Peace Corps.

What began as eight racquetball courts in 1978 has grown into a family fitness center housing exercise machines, group classes, indoor pools, volleyball, basketball, and a smoothie bar. Penfield Fitness and Racquet Club members make use of an endless supply of free weights and Technogym or Life Fitness cardio equipment equipped with TVs for personal viewing.

A team of trainers leads 99 group fitness classes each week, such as Zumba dance aerobics, Pilates, and yoga as well as nationwide programs including Les Mills and SilverSneakers. In keeping with their heritage, trainers host racquetball lessons, leagues, and tournaments for adults and children. Members can take advantage of free childcare services and cool off after workouts at the club’s onsite smoothie bar instead of attempting to somersault into a passing ice-cream truck.

The top-level Pilates, GyroMovement, and cardio equipment at Pilates Plus rivals that of a high-end health club, complete with a full-service spa. It's the instructors, however, who use their years of training and unbridled passion for fitness to foster the tight-knit, motivational community of a small gym. Whether conducting yoga classes or doling out healthy tips at the nutritionist-run, onsite café, the staff goes out of its way to make fitness a convenient part of its patrons' lives. The spa's therapeutic massages, facial peels, and waxing treatments make for great post-workout rewards, and the heat from the infrared sauna sinks more deeply into skin than in traditional saunas to further encourage weight loss or make popsicles easier to drink.

Dr. Jack Bertolino, a board-certified physician of family medicine, and Jeffrey Leathersich, RPA-C, sit at the helm of the medical center's nonsurgical weight loss and beauty programs. They emphasize deliberate forethought and in-depth consultations to ensure that patients achieve their goals through weight loss or anti-aging treatments. To these ends, the skilled professionals never remove their monocles as they thoroughly execute fractional skin resurfacings, apply Botox for women and men, or beam away unwanted hair with lasers.

High Performance Golf’s professionals—who call on more than 25 years of collective experience—help golfers to hone their game by using advanced technology to break down swings. The golf pros use video analysis, K-Vest 3-D motion-capture systems, and launch monitors to dissect each pupil’s mechanics and sweaty palm tendencies. The data generated by these systems enables the instructors to develop personalized plans for students' improvement, helping them to reach goals more efficiently in private and group lessons. The professionals incorporate training exercises for specific muscle groups, and their facility lets students practice indoors or at an outdoor range. Additionally, High Performance Golf’s PGA Tour simulator invites players to swing through the fairways of famous courses without having to wrestle the feral caddies that lurk in their water hazards.

In "Understanding CrossFit," founder Greg Glassman says CrossFit’s “specialty is not specializing.” Flower City CrossFit's dedicated instructors certainly follow that philosophy, providing their members with a slew of constantly changing exercises that incorporate everything from boot camp-style cardio and body-weight routines to Olympic lifting, climbing, throwing, and basic tumbling. Classes are held multiple times per day, and might feature the Workout of the Day, focus on athletes prepping for the CrossFit Games, or help children prepare to face another week of extreme recess. But exercisers will rarely see the same workout twice. In fact, some classes introduce completely new techniques, such as self-defense seminars, dodgeball tournaments, or the occasional Barbells for Boobs event, which supports low-income and uninsured women in need of breast cancer prevention screenings.