Pleasant Prairie, WI Health and Fitness

Sandi Knox, the co-founder of Body Balance, has devised her own set of workout DVDs and appeared on Breakfast Television to showcase her exercises. Along with co-owner Sheldon Gephter, she oversees a fitness studio that hosts group classes in latin-dance-inspired Zumba, kick-boxing workouts, and yoga. Their eclectic boot-camp workouts consist of cardio, circuit training, resistance training and more, rather than imitating traditional workouts in which everyone holds a squat until they fall asleep. Elsewhere in the facility, Eric Payment, the studio’s on-site massage therapist, kneads away aches from neck ailments and sports injuries on his memory-foam massage table.

Patricia Hockin, a devoted mother with an MBA, has something else up her sleeve: she’s also the founder and owner of Miss Pole. After deciding that her life needed some serious changes, Patricia enrolled in pole-dancing classes and was so inspired, so enthusiastic, and so dramatically altered that she decided every woman should have the opportunity to feel confident, strong, and sexy. Hence Miss Pole was born.

At Miss Pole, she leads classes that explore the sensual and physically challenging aspects of pole dancing and sensual dance. She leads beginner, intermediate, and advanced pole-dancing classes that cover hundreds of moves that tone the entire body. Other classes include lap dancing, burlesque, and sexy/sassy stretching.