Evanston Gyms and Fitness

The northern-most branch of the Chicago Athletic Club family, the Evanston Athletic Club brings a modern and user-friendly gym experience to the North Shore. The 55,000-square-foot facility is equipped with all the required equipment for losing weight, putting on muscle, or building flexibility on cardio equipment, weight machines, and free weights. More than 100 group fitness classes fill the schedule, covering varied interests such as yoga, spinning, Zumba, and water aerobics in the indoor pool. The personal training staff can also help tailor workouts based on your particular goals and share encouragement with you as you transform from chrysalis to Dwayne Johnson.

In addition to its exercise areas, the gym also sports a kids’ club, sauna and steam rooms, and a large indoor rock-climbing facility. As beginners and experienced climbers traverse craggy surfaces while protected from the elements, additional challenges crop up on the gym’s 46-foot-high endurance routes and in the bouldering cave where climbers defy gravity without being strapped in by ropes.

Move Your Feet Sports' hour-long lessons teach all ages and abilities to serve and volley like professional bowlers who used to be tennis title holders. Classes for beginners, intermediate players, and advanced players ($25 each) are available at all three facilities. The staff of experienced instructors pump each hour-long lesson full of heart-pounding cardio moves, skill-building exercises, and techniques to crush competition like monster trucks crush hot-dog carts. Look under the Groupon tab on Move Your Feet Sports' registration page to see class options.

Yoga and fitness gurus guide students of all skill levels toward slimmer silhouettes in a noncompetitive atmosphere. The spacious studio’s sage-green walls, hardwood floors, and natural lighting provide a backdrop for yoga classes such as Hatha yoga and Forrest yoga, which gently twist torsos and stretch limbs through slow-moving poses. In Pilates classes, students build firmer cores, tighten muscles, and enable tendons to produce melodious twangs by propelling their bodies through a series of isometric motions. Students are encouraged to wear comfortable clothing to all classes.

With today’s side deal, $55 gets you three power hour classes and two circuit-training classes at One Mind, Body and Being (a $124 value). It should be made clear upfront that the power hours being offered at OMBB are not the kind you attempted that one night in the basement of Beta House. That said, you'll never know what to expect from a OMBB power hour; the workout changes every class. But whether it’s personal training, Pilates, yoga, or an hour of cardio, be sure to bring plenty of water and a towel or two. To boost your strength and flexibility, OMBB also offers circuit training, a fast-paced group workout that involves the studio’s props and equipment, blending strength training and cardio activity while increasing your flexibility and working all your muscle groups (note: requires a working knowledge of Pilates). If you feel like your muscle groups are just coasting by on their wit and good looks, OMBB will challenge them at their core.

At Blockhead Fitness, ACE-certified personal trainer Sean Block and his experienced fitness staff whip bodies into shape with custom full-body workouts in a spacious personal-training studio illuminated with natural light. Exercisers of all abilities can pair up with a trainer and take advantage of a wealth of fitness accouterments, such as free weights, medicine balls, and resistance-training apparatus, to slim down bodies so they can fit comfortably in kangaroo pouches.

Muscle your way to stronger fitness with today's side deal: for $50, new clients get a fitness assessment and two one-hour personal training sessions from GH School for Healthy Living, a $170 value. GH's two locations, in Bucktown and in Glenview, pack the latest and the most classic equipment for every possible hard-body requirement. This deal does not apply to sweating sessions at the Greg Hahaj Elite Studio in Bucktown. Call ahead to schedule your appointments.