Westbrook, ME Health and Fitness

The instructors of Greener Postures Yoga welcome practitioners of all ability levels, leading through Vinyasa yoga that treats breath as students’ guide through dynamic poses. Greener Postures Yoga has also recently opened a new location in West Falmouth which allows them to offer a new range of classes including kids yoga, prenatal yoga, deep stretch yoga, and restorative yoga. Both expansive studios are heated to 95–100 degrees and retain their humidity, which enhances Vinyasa’s heat-generating flows and encourages detoxification through sweat and increased circulation.

After years traveling the globe and working in the fitness industry, Stephen and Antonia Anderson wanted to design a fitness facility that was as beautiful as it was functional. The duo eventually realized this dream, opening The Body Architect within a lofty building with wooden beams, exposed brick walls, and wall-to-wall windows that proffer spectacular views of Portland and Mount Washington. In front of these windows, rows of professional Precor and Cybex machines bustle amid the clang of strength and TRX suspension training equipment. Meanwhile, up on the roof deck, certified instructors conduct a variety of fitness classes beneath the sun, including boot camps, yoga, and personal-training sessions. Additionally, an onsite massage therapist stands by to help untangle muscles or knotted gym socks before or after members unwind in serene spa-inspired showers.

A mural of a radiant sun painted in oranges, reds, and yellows covers one of the walls at Portland Power Yoga, mimicking the warmth of the heated room where yoga instructors show ranks of students the proper way to extend their arms as they crouch on their mats. The heat helps facilitate deeper stretching and detoxification as students flow through sequences in 90-minute Basics, All Levels, or Intermediate classes. Instructors condense the same experience into a shorter session during Hour of Power classes and help groups hold extended poses in Yin Yoga, awakening students' connective tissues and convincing nearby deer that they’re actually statues. In addition to regular classes, the studio hosts community workshops with guest instructors and often works in tandem with the bodywork experts at Hara Holistic Health.

5,000 square feet of indoor rock walls outfitted for top-rope belaying and bouldering entertain guests of all experience levels at Maine Rock Gym. Visitors can partner up to climb meandering problems across varying angles and overhangs while staff climbers remain on hand to serve as belayers and to fend off curious mountain goats. Indoor, onsite clinics instruct climbers at introductory or advanced levels, and guides lead outdoor excursions to Maine's granite cliffs and New Hampshire's White Mountains. The gym also sets up a portable climbing tower at outdoor events and orchestrates team-building challenges, which improve communication and problem-solving skills more effectively than trying to teach the quadratic equation through interpretive dance.

Throughout the skating season from July to April, more than 60,000 people visit Portland Ice Arena for open-skate sessions, to play hockey, or watch an event. Public sessions during those months send skaters of all ages gliding across the rink. The arena also plays host to a number of other icy scenes, including learn-to-skate classes and practices for the AHL's Portland Pirates. Away from the 750-seat arena, the facility provides sharpening services, rentals, and a concession area.

The fully certified instructors at A Body of Work call on years of teaching experience, leading classes that combine movement, bodily awareness, and fitness within the center's bright, airy studios. In a variety of courses, teachers educate on fitness disciplines such as the Gyrotonic Expansion System, which employs special equipment to prompt joints, connective tissue, prehensile tails, and muscles to work in unison during stretching and strengthening movements. Group and private Pilates classes work to improve the posture and flexibility of bodies, and Hatha, Iyengar, and TriYoga practices burgeon focus, centeredness, and quests to discover inner koi ponds. The center also offers bodywork and massage, with therapeutic sessions ranging from deep-tissue and sports massage to trigger-point therapy and acupuncture.