Ellicott City Gyms and Fitness

The slim 20-foot storefront of Silhouettes for Women may look unassuming, but it opens to a 5,000-square-foot facility with two group fitness studios, private changing rooms, and a private weighing area. In addition to women-only fitness classes, personal training, and cardio equipment, the gym also offers nutritional counseling from certified weight-management consultants.

To symbolize the raw energy and intensity of their training program, Donna Pierce and Lauren Bunney named their gym—named "Baltimore's Best" by Baltimore magazine in 2010—after Costa Rica’s active Arenal Volcano, which relentlessly spews hot smoke and molten lava. Similarly, the fitness team turns up the heat of their fitness routines with the CrossFit regimen, which transforms bodies through simple, rigorous, no-frills workouts. Exercisers won’t find circuit training strength machines at Arenal’s 4,800-square-foot facility. Instead, they use free weights, medicines balls, and kettlebells to sculpt chiseled physiques. All students start out learning the proper form of CrossFit's functional movements before taking on the rigorous “workout of the day.” Sessions can be scaled to meet the fitness level of each participant, but always keep muscles guessing with varying reps, weight levels, and surprise trust falls.

Before he studied fitness at Purdue, Chris Tedesco learned the subtle art of inspiring others during a trek through the dessert. As a Marine squad leader, he needed to keep up morale while getting his troops to march across 36 miles of arid wilderness with him. This same determination saw him straight through to three Ironman Platoon championships. Today, as owner and founder of BodyQuest Personal Training, he brings those heat-honed lessons with him to each session, just as he did when he helped a snowboarder recover from near total-lower-body paralysis.

He and his team of four dedicated trainers partner up with clients, getting to know them, their eating habits, and their fitness goals to help them lead healthier lives. They constantly vary exercises via a circuit designed to keep bodies burning fat long after the workout and even tailor training-session soundtracks to suit clients' whims, so long as those whims don't include whale songs as covered by an eccentric theremin player. The exposed brick walls of his gym feature wooden sculpture and wall hangings that capture the feeling of motion, perhaps subliminally inspiring patrons to push themselves.

Weigh-in sessions begin September 6th, with scheduled stop-backs every few weeks until the final weigh-ins at the end of October. After all the dumbbells have settled and all the losses have been calculated, Fitness Quest 10 then throws a Biggest Winner Finale Party on November 1st to announce the winning team. For complete contest rules and regulations, click here.

Across the 20,000-square-foot expanse of Quest Fitness's workout space, personal trainers bark encouragement over the clanking and whirring of Hammer Strength and Cybex machines. Neon signs reading Cardio Fitness or Circuit Training glow white, red, and purple over their dedicated stations.

Everything about the gym is designed to exude an air of hospitality. A women's-only fitness area lends privacy from the asexual amoebas that so often make workouts unpleasant. Full-wall murals of rolling countryside surround the cycling room, their more cartoonish cousins adding color and interest to the Kidzone daycare center. After hearty workout, members can kick back in one of the steamy saunas or constantly tended tanning beds.

The expansive interiors of Axiom's three fitness centers are packed in endless rows of weight and cardio machines, group workout studios, pools, and basketball and racquet courts to help its diverse client base whip into shape. The knowledgeable trainers lead patrons in pumping their bodies on the fitness floor, and instructors helm more than 100 Zumba, yoga, water aerobics, and Les Mills classes each week. In their performance center, the trainers customize one-on-one or small-group programs, such as Ax-Fit, which helps firefighters, law-enforcement officers, and those in the military increase their power and endurance, and Sport Performance, which helps athletes train for their competitive physical pastime of choice. Kids aged 7 and older can hone their coordination and improve their athletic performance and growing up too fast in Kids Performance sessions that run hourly from 3:30 to 7:30 p.m., and older adults can stay in shape in the Silver Sneakers program. After sweat sessions, patrons can recharge at the Fuel Center juice bar, which serves up crushed-fruit smoothies, and nutrient-infused coffee and chocolate shakes.