Hot Springs, AR Health and Fitness

The FastFit Training & Fitness tale begins more than three years ago, when Jeff McDaniel—named Fitness Business Owner of the Month by FitBusiness Insider in March 2012— started holding energetic boot-camp classes at a local park. Today, Jeff conducts classes within his own professional fitness studio, where he continues to lead the high-intensity workouts of metabolic exercises that have been lauded on NBC. Amid towering mirrors, dangling TRX Suspension trainers, and rows of colorful dumbbells, Jeff and his staff of trainers guide students of all squares through a diverse array of functional exercises, from crunches to climbers to handstands. Jeff has also designed an online fitness program with nutritional counsel and exercise videos, providing students workouts they can practice from hotels when traveling or from beneath neighbors’ backyard shrubbery when spying on tiki parties they weren't invited to.

Led by former college football player and Master Drill Instructor Delnorte Chunn, the crew at Fitness Bootcamp Inc. shows its clients how to boost endurance, increase muscle, and lose weight using only their bodies as resistance. Over the course of the outdoor boot camp, which combines strength and cardio training in functional exercises, participants track their daily deeds in food and workout logs. In turn, the staff keeps them motivated with daily support and nutritional education, as well as a survival party at the end of the camp.

Inside a sunny office tucked beside lush woodlands, Hot Springs-native Dr. Teale and the highly trained staff prioritize patient-centric care. A few moments in the bright, modern office—painted in soothing hues of mint and eggshell—exposes their covert mission to transform dental visits from a dreaded chore into a pleasant biannual ritual. Every exam room looks out onto a lush garden, though during rainy days or the long-foretold lawn-gnome uprising, patients can still find comfort in the cushy massage chair, personal TV, and music hookups. This general dentistry office maintains state-of-the-art equipment to closely monitor oral health, including a 3D x-ray, which captures skulls from ear to ear, revealing hidden roots, bones, and forgotten q-tips. After every treatment, patients refresh with a nourishing slick of lip balm before checking out their polished molars and bicuspid tattoos in the ornate looking glass dubbed the "Smile Mirror."

Inside West Little Rock CrossFit, bodies relearn how to move. The certified CrossFit trainers gear the routines not toward building bulky muscles, but creating natural motion: drills train clients to bend, lift, and perform just as they should at work or at home. Shunning industrial machinery, the workout of the day keeps guests engaged with free weights, medicine balls, and other functional tools, and blends core-strengthening drills with weightlifting moves such as squats, cleans, and presses. Trainers scale every routine to each client's ability, creating a supportive environment that welcomes everyone from athletes and firefighters to the everyday folks thrown over their shoulders.