Hopkins Gyms and Fitness

At Steele Fitness, the steady hum of workout machines can hardly be heard under the shouts of instructors leading individuals and small groups of students through custom workouts. Adjacent to a fitness-fashion boutique with high-end apparel from Hard Tail, Bliss, and Lululemon Athletica, the 10,000-square-foot studio comes alive with energy during workouts that draw on a seemingly endless supply of strength-training and cardio equipment. Functional tools such as kettlebells share the workout floor with machines such as the Technogym, whose rotating pulley system facilitates more than 200 sculpting moves. Muscles also test their might and endurance against stair steppers, spinner bikes, and Life Fitness treadmills that bolster aerobic endurance and maximize calorie burn. When they aren’t designing fitness regimens or demonstrating exercises, trainers lead grocery-store tours to help clients craft healthy meals and distinguish eggs packed with protein from empty-calorie bocce balls

In Sanskrit, svasti means a state of health, contentedness, and wholeness. Svasti Yoga's instructors allocate wellness services that reflect these meanings by shepherding clients toward greater holistic health during yoga classes and ancient healing rituals. Fourteen varieties of yoga challenge beginners and advanced yogis alike with flowing postures, breathing techniques, and pouring mugs of tea using only the shoulder blades. Ayurvedic therapies unite with Western luxuries in spa treatments that apply botanical ingredients and massage practices that encourage unity of body and spirit. Svasti Yoga also offers Eastern philosophy–inspired counseling services to help to bring tranquility to all facets of clients’ lives.

CorePower Yoga founder Trevor Tice knows yoga is much more than a tool for increasing physical strength. "We've seen first hand emotional breakthroughs, physical improvements, and most of all, a new found confidence and balance our students carry from the studio into their daily lives," says Trevor. To further their holistic efforts, CorePower provides additional services and programs across various locations. Some outposts house spas where visitors can quiet their minds with a massage or facial, while others host Karma Yoga events wherein teachers lead free classes for cancer survivors, and students share home-cooked food with homeless youths.

But yoga resides at the heart of CorePower's mission to inspire as many people as possible, so each studio boasts a range of classes that accommodates all experience levels. Truly serious students can conjure pensive expressions as they enroll in a yoga-teacher-training program, and all patrons can take comfort in knowing their studio was built from recycled materials and equipped with energy-efficient fixtures.

Inside The Yoga Pioneers’ 105-degree studio, students stretch while reaching for inner peace with relaxing, expert-led poses. Shoes siesta as bare feet are cushioned by natural cork flooring. The eco-friendly radiant heating system helps loosen muscles and facilitate stretches. To bolster students’ physical health, teachers ensure 60- and 80- minute classes cycle through traditional poses that challenge the body to bend and balance like a slinky walking a tightrope. Filtered air circulates around the 1,200-square-foot studio, cleansing lungs as pupils practice deep-breathing exercises. After class, students may decompress with a shower, and share experiences while munching TYP's famous apple treats in the lobby.

In pirate lore, those who walked the plank seldom did so with a smile on their faces. At Edina Aquatic Center, guests can't help but grin as they meet the same fate, Rather than plunging into choppy seas, though, they grab onto a bar and trapeze off of the board, gliding down a cable line suspended over a pool before dropping gently into 6.5 feet of cool water. Named the Shipwreck Express, the zipline anchors the center's kid-friendly watery attractions along with two towering slides, a playground surrounded by shallow water and misting geysers, a surf simulator, and water cannons with which guests can soak friends or help out thirsty birds. In addition to its fun attractions, the center caters to practicing swimmers and divers with an Olympic-sized pool divided into lanes and a diving well with 1- and 3-meter diving boards.

In 2009, Kelly Larson, Jenn Holm, and Wendy Waibel turned what was once just an empty space in a strip mall into a serene yoga haven, replete with cushy cork flooring, soft lighting, and a modern sound system. Along with a team of certified yoga teachers, the trio strive to share yoga's physical and mental benefits with practitioners of all fitness levels, packing their schedule with classes suitable for beginners, advanced students, or children. They lead a variety of styles, including gentle Yin yoga, more advanced hot yoga, and prenatal yoga designed to help alleviate the aches and pains in pregnant women or undercover FBI agents masquerading as pregnant women. For more cardio-centered workouts, they offer Latin-infused Zumba dance fitness sessions.

Yoga 4 You is also the only studio in Minnesota licensed to teach Yoga Body Boot Camp—a total body regimen that fuses yoga and adrenaline-raising moves inspired by the popular shows The Biggest Loser and Survivor.