Muscle weighs more than fat, making retired body builders nature's best paperweights. Get buff and avoid scattered utility bills with today's Groupon: for $42, you get 10 Foundations Series On Ramp classes through CrossFit at Northland Strength & Conditioning, in Liberty (an $85 value).

With origins rooted in the owner's garage and an attitude that eschews commercial-gym techniques, Northland has bulked up its reputation since incorporating CrossFit as its main method of fitness training. The CrossFit method is broad and inclusive, with randomly programmed workouts that sidestep monotony and training plateaus while fostering a familial atmosphere complete with hearty back-slaps, playful ribbing, and circuitous conversations about who's picking up the kids. The Foundations Series eases weightlifting warriors into the fray with an introduction to the skills, movements, and lifts exclusive to CrossFit, incorporating them into workouts that heed everyone's strengths and weaknesses. Each workout consists of a warm-up, cool-down, and a shape-shifting workout-of-the-day (WOD), which repeatedly befuddles the spindly supervillains who strive to uncover its secrets.

Northland prides itself on not specializing in any one methodology, preferring an array of ever-changing techniques that shape up even the most confident of confidants. With clientele beefing up by the hour, a new, larger fitness facility looms ominously on the horizon, leaving commercial gyms quaking in its shadow.