New Britain Gyms and Fitness

The Strike Zone II gives parents a positive place to bring their whole brood for athletic, academic, or musical enrichment under one polymathic roof. While one child raises a joyful tune during music lessons, another can enlist a tutor for help with memorizing multiplication tables or searching the Gettysburg Address for hidden emoticons. For the athletically inclined, Mark Stevens—formerly a coach at the Division I, II, and III collegiate levels—heads up a staff of baseball and softball instructors who help cadets hone hitting, pitching, and fielding prowess during four-packs of lessons. The onsite batting cage lets hitters practice churning out frozen ropes within a safely confined space, and the practice pitching mound offers young hurlers a place to practice building moats for protection against charging batters.

Muvement is as much a gym as it is a physical-fitness lab. Certified strength and conditioning specialist Michael Houle and Jill Houle, who holds a BS in nutritional science, team up to invest clients with practical workout regimens and an intimate knowledge of how the body works on a physiological level. Before new clients lift their first weight at the studio, a personal trainer consults with them about their exercise and health history and runs physical assessments and lab tests to identify potential obstacles related to the immune, digestive, hormonal, and detoxification systems. Next, Jill draws on her background as a professional nutritionist to recommend a diet suited to the client’s unique metabolism, and explains how the body breaks down calories and nutrients. Even their fitness regimens take a holistic approach. Whether in group or personal-training sessions, functional movements using resistance bands, TRX suspension, and kettlebells incorporate multiple muscle groups and joints into each exercise, building a physique more balanced than two eggs riding a seesaw during the spring equinox.

Though Fitness By Design houses a collection of cardio and weight-training equipment, it isn’t a typical gym. Rather, it’s a workout studio, where personal trainers and clients meet in private areas to strive toward fitness goals free from the crowds and exhausted dumbbells associated with larger venues. Besides one-on-one coaching, the team of trainers can also provide custom nutritional plans and illustrated workout regimens. Their 5K race prep helps newcomers dart with confidence, as a Boston Marathon–qualified trainer guides runners through plans and then runs races alongside them.

Since its 1965 founding in Venice Beach, California, Gold's Gym has dotted the globe with more than 600 locations where professional athletes and exercise newbies gather under the umbrella of personal strength. Nearly 3.5 million Gold's members chart and aim for their fitness peaks, perspiring beneath the gaze of certified personal trainers or pedaling beside peers at cycling sessions. In a diverse lineup of group classes, patrons strengthen cores, finger-paint pictures of ninjas in martial arts, and amp up heart rates along to the pulsating soundtracks of Les Mills routines. Many Gold's Gym locations stockpile futuristic amenities, such as cardio machines with individual iPod docks and televisions that help keep patrons motivated.

Spanning four locations, Club Fitness caters to health-seekers with its expansive cardio rooms, personal-training sessions, and group fitness classes. Most studios boast an impressive array of amenities, such as a private, women-only area, shake and supplement bar, kids' club, tanning beds, and weights that lift themselves and then high-five you. Guests can work out on the sprawling cardio decks, or get sweaty in group fitness classes that include intense interval training, Bodypump, and yoga.

Floor-to-ceiling mirrors reflect 2,700 square feet of glossy, hardwood floors ringing with the staccato of dancing high heels. Brass poles sprout from the floor, supporting whirling women as they learn sensual routines and build upper-body strength by suspending themselves skyward.

Pole Control Studios' owner, a seasoned performer with a BA in sports science, designs programs that scale up in difficulty while centering around fitness. The studio inducts exercisers in the flirtatious art with an introductory class, where each dancer learns correct posture, transition work, and how to use high heels to tap out Morse code. From there, guests foray into more than 75 types of empowering fitness classes that build on the basics, imparting techniques for climbing, controlled spins, or inversions. Pole Fit and Sensual Stretch supplement pole-dancing prowess with intense cardio, squats, lunges, and body-elongating posework.