Kettering, OH Health and Fitness

Certified personal trainer Marie Clay can vouch for the effects of dance fitness firsthand: her programs helped her lose 63 pounds. She shares her story during Zumba classes, motivating her students to festively burn calories with easy steps rather than dangerous birthday-candle diets. Marie channels her decades of dance, teaching, and exercising experience at multiple locations, including her studio and local gyms.

Tac Force Challenge tests the strength of racers by putting them through the rigors of an adventure 5K obstacle course designed by power lifters, martial-arts experts, and special-operations professionals. The muddy, muscle-straining course houses 31 obstacles, such as rope walls, river dashes, unbalanced beams, log trips, and tunnels that force runners to use all their strength and jet-pack fuel to reach the finish line. Participants begin their first race ranked as a Private and advance closer to General as they complete each run. This progress is saved in the Tac Force database, which catalogs completion dates so that the government knows whom to call in the event of a sweaty-bicep shortage.

Women’s workout routines take flight at Femme Fatale Fitness. Students perform controlled maneuvers, dangling from aerial silks or learning aerial hooping and impressive tricks on a static trapeze as instructors teach circus-inspired classes that gently tone muscles and boost flexibility. Alternatively, guests amp up core strength in pole-fitness classes that show ladies how to perform airborne routines with sassy twists and spins around chrome poles. All of Femme Fatale Fitness’s classes, which also include cardio kickboxing, burlesque, and chair dancing, aim to help women feel more confident in their bodies, resulting in higher self-esteem without having to invest in costly magic mirrors.

Glow-in-the-dark palm trees rise above Englewood Fun Center’s 18-hole miniature golf course, greeting guests as they arrive to partake in any of the center’s indoor or outdoor attractions. Clients don Hawaiian leis before taking to the 18-hole, custom-designed mini golf course, where they will lope through a tropical pastiche of tiki huts, misting waterfalls, two ponds, and multiple bearded Tom Hankses. Indoors, scampering tykes can slip on socks and tumble freely among the cushy walls and elastic floors of the inflatable bouncing area, or try their hands at skee-ball and other games in the arcade. The indoor facility also encompasses three batting cages, where hitters shoulder their favorite bat or oversized banana and swing at soft or hardballs delivered at adjustable speeds and heights to accommodate all ages and skill levels.

At Skateworld of Kettering, families strap on their gliding shoes to coast across the rink to the sounds of kid-appropriate tunes. During themed skating sessions, guests can glide to Radio Disney tracks, Top 40 hits, and disco ballads before feeding one of many arcade games with their hard-earned tokens. Tired tots can refuel by sinking their teeth into pizza or working on the blueprints for their perpetual-motion clone at the concessions stand.

The individual attention of personal training and the camaraderie of team workouts converge at The Edge, a 3,000-square-foot kettlebell gym inside Personally Fit’s workout studio. Here, certified personal trainers lead three types of functional fitness classes that use tools such as weighted sleds and suspension-training harnesses to increase strength, burn calories, and gear up for Santa’s annual reindeer tryouts. During the studio’s signature kettlebell classes, students sculpt limbs and cores using cast-iron weights shaped like small cannonballs. To help to prevent injuries and reap each motion’s benefits, a Russian Kettlebell–certified instructor stresses proper form throughout the workout. The earth’s gravitational pull powers TRX classes, which help up to 10 students to master body-weight exercises using suspension-training straps. Since each movement can be tailored to a variety of skill sets, these workouts suit the needs of new exercisers and seasoned athletes alike. Built around a circuit of cardio and strength stations, boot camps boost fitness levels with sandbags and battling ropes, not piggyback rides from Richard Simmons.