University Park Gyms and Fitness

Since 1986, Brian Lutz has taught a panoply of tennis players how to improve their game and savor the sport's social aspect. Over time, he honed his teaching techniques and eventually devised his own tennis curriculum. In 2003, that curriculum inspired him to launch TennisTip, a program where experienced instructors help adults and teens improve their tennis game through self-discovery and fundamental skills.

TennisTip instructors work to provide hands-off guidance and gentle inspiration, letting students discover their best game through strategic practice. Combined with tennis-specific cardio exercises and an emphasis on social bonding, the regimen seeks to form independent, effective, and affable players out of every student. Since first starting up in the Big Apple, TennisTip has expanded to a second location, where pros instill students with courtside skills amid the warm Miami sun and attentive pelican ball boys.

Shula’s Athletic Club—named for Don Shula, the NFL Hall of Famer who coached the Miami Dolphins to a Super Bowl trophy in 1972—doesn’t find it hard to fill its sprawling 40,000 square feet of space. A cardio room with more than 50 pieces of equipment, a spinning center, weight rooms, fitness-class studios, and basketball courts spread through the facility, luring athletes for independent workouts and personal-training sessions. Dozens of weekly fitness classes range from calorie-burning Zumba workouts and Vinyasa-yoga sessions to spin classes that help students practice for the day they have pedal-powered cars.

The athletic club also accommodates older exercisers with aquatic aerobics and seated Silver Sneakers workouts, and it keeps kids busy with confidence-building youth sports programs. Young legs run over a new 60-yard athletic field or nine lighted tennis courts where kids whack tennis balls and low-flying hot-air balloons with rackets.

An eco-friendly boutique and holistic wellness center, Sage Lifestyles inspires visitors to explore their spiritual side as they shrink their carbon footprint. Inside the boutique, guests can bask in the soothing scents of candles or leaf through books on topics such as organic cooking and green living. Vinyasa yoga classes meld ancient poses and breathing techniques into moving meditations, and chakra consultations can help clear bodies of energy blockages and accidentally swallowed Social Security cards.

One day, when she was out on the beach, Terri Cooper came upon and joined a free yoga class. She was so drawn to the idea of yoga for everybody that she soon founded 305 Yoga & Outreach. Fueled by karma yoga principles, Terri and her team of gurus create opportunities for people to “step into positive action and empower their lives” through the practice of yoga. To this end, Terri holds a free yoga and donation-funded class to create a studio where anyone can practice regardless of means. Profits from this class go to fund 305 Yoga’s nonprofit arm, Yoga Gangsters, which brings the multidimensional practice of yoga to youth suffering from trauma and poverty. 305 Yoga also serves as a yoga university, preparing practitioners to turn yoga into a career through three teacher-certification programs.