Holt Gyms and Fitness

Moonlight pools in the gym’s entryway as the nighttime visitor stops to fumble for her keycard. It’s 3 a.m. She worked the night shift again and wants to work off some tension. Her fingers grasp the small plastic card and with a quick swipe, she’s inside. Immediately enveloped by the warm glow of Snap Fitness, she joins the other late-night exercisers in pounding on the treadmill and lifting weights before the sun rises.

Accessible 24/7 via keycard, guests enter Snap Fitness to tone their physiques on myriad cardio and strength equipment day or night. During staff hours, they can seek out fitness assessments and one-on-one sessions with personal trainers, which ensure all moves are performed effectively, topped with a dose of motivation. The trainers devise personal fitness plans for each guest, taking into account their strength, cardio, and flexibility conditions to help them tackle weight loss, boost overall body strength, or attempt to finally unveil the mysteries of arcane cable-weight machines.

For six weeks, Spartan Fit Center's FitBody challenge plunges participants into group fitness classes focused on burning calories and building strength. The immersive program offers exercisers both nutritional guidance and accountability. Spartan Fit Center's instructors also teach drop-in fitness classes such as kickboxing.

An all-female team of fitness and nutrition experts creates a spa-like setting at Elements to help women feel comfortable while working out instead of toiling in a weight-filled warehouse. European-designed "smart" machines use advanced technology to personalize workouts by greeting each member by name, remembering their personal settings and performance, and serving as a digital coach throughout the session. For a more human touch, the center's personal lifestyle coaches develop highly tailored diet and exercise plans for each member, following up with them to provide support, encourage progress, and check for untied shoelaces. After workouts, women can relax in the detoxifying warmth of an infrared sauna or atop the warm, soothing jets of a hydromassage bed.

Dietz Creek Golf Range promotes on-course improvement with a multifaceted golf practice and service facility. Flush drives pierce the atmosphere above the course’s 300-yard driving range, where grass tees accommodate those who prefer a natural feel and turf mats cater to pacifistic 5-irons who consider divots barbaric. To fine-tune their short-game feel, players can chip balls at the short-game area or splash them out of the practice bunker. Inside, the darkened wonderland of Dietz’ Creek’s glo golf course invites guests to steer orbs across a black-lit circuit of rail-lined corridors teeming with obstacles including tricky ramps, a loopty loop, and swooping pterodactyls.

Draped over the tree-spotted hillocks of the Michigan countryside, Meridian Sun Golf Club's 6,090-yard course welcomes golfers to hit through its pristine fairways and enjoy its natural splendor. The course eases players into the round with a wide-open, straightaway front nine before challenging swings and waggling sand wedges with a shorter back nine populated by multiple water-lined holes. Risk-reward shot opportunities await throughout the round, including the tee shot on the par-3 13th, where balls must clear nearly 190 yards of water on their way to the green. Club owner and PGA professional Bill Mory—whose golf career spans multiple decades and includes playing in the PGA Tour's Buick Open, where players ride in 1950s Buick Skylarks in place of golf carts—presides over the grounds, conducting lessons at practice facilities that include a 4,000-square-foot practice green and a driving range with 15 hitting stalls. After rounds, golfers can bask in the sunset at the patio of Khakis Restaurant, the club's on-site grill.:m]]

Course at a Glance:

• 18-hole course
• Par 70 from men's tees; par 71 from ladies' tees
• Length of 6,090 yards from the farthest tees
• Link to scorecard

In 2001, founder Carrie Rezabek Dorr began teaching dance classes in her very first studio. A lifetime of choreographing and performing across the United States had prepared her to teach others how to nurture their passion for dance. But an interest in fitness led her to explore mixing ballet and exercise in an effort to bolster her students' health and flexibility while reducing their chance of injury. Now called the Pure Barre method, Carrie’s fitness regime tones the hips, seat, arms, and abs by combining small movements with barre exercises that tone without building bulky muscle. This new regime ignited a fire under her students that soon spread to other studios across the United States. Today, instructors from Alabama to Washington continue to teach Carrie's method, while she continues to refine her techniques and search for the lost city of El Dorado.