Paulette’s Studio of Dance looks
more like a stylish salon than a standard workout venue. Moreover,
poles run from the ceiling to the
floor and strips of silk flutter down
from the beams.
At her studio, 4853 Monroe
St., Paulette offers pole dance fitness and aerial fitness, a yoga-based
workout in which students use silks
to suspend themselves in the air (all
while in graceful positions). Paulette’s studio is one of several Toledo
workout venues offering unique exercise options in the season of New
Year’s resolutions.
Paulette’s Rita Yunker of Whitehouse
started pole fitness at Paulette’s about
a year and a half ago when she was
looking for a unique dance class.
“I needed something for me because I’m a mom and a wife. I needed
something to do for myself and hopefully get my happy hormones going,”
Yunker said with a laugh.
“It perks me up if I’m having a
bad day. … I’m much more confident
now than I was. The social aspect in
wonderful. All the [fellow students]
are really friendly,” she added.
That social aspect is important
to many of her students, said Paulette, who has offered pole fitness
since 2006.
“They like the camaraderie of
the class. … The support is what
they’re telling me they love. It’s
a workout in disguise. So you’re
having fun; you’re dancing; you’re
doing cardio/strength training, but
it’s not the monotony and the repetition,” she said.
Increased confidence is another
benefit, Paulette added.
“That comes as a surprise to
people. They come here to get fit and
the benefit is they find themselves
walking taller, feeling more confident
as they go about their day,” she said.
“Everything gets a little sparkle to it.”
The family-friendly studio also
offers ballroom dancing, belly
dancing, hip-hop/lyrical dance for
kids and yoga, among other classes.
Paulette, who was a dancer in
Las Vegas, started teaching ballroom
dancing and “that led to pole fitness,
which led to the aerial fitness.”
“Pole fitness became big quite a
few years ago and out of my own interest for it, I was intrigued,” she said.
“I tried it for myself and I fell in
love with it, like all the students do,”
Paulette added. “I learned of aerial fitness and I love trying new things so I
saw it and heard of all those benefits
and thought it would be a nice addition and nice complement to the pole
fitness classes.”
The dancer said she does see a spike
in class attendance around the New
Year. Paulette said that many of the resolution-season students do stick with it.
She advised, “Nothing comes overnight. You have to work hard and I
think that’s why having a group around
you, working out with you, keeps you
coming back.”
Studio Fitness, aka Pole-Licious
Fitness, 1413 Bernath Parkway, offers pole fitness in addition to Zumba,
chair dancing and belly dancing. There
is also a pole fitness class designed for
fuller-figured women.
Karen Everage, co-owner of Studio
Fitness, said she gravitated toward pole
fitness because she was bored with the
standard gym workout.
“[I] just decided this was a fitness I
could stick with because it was a little
sassy, but it also built core strength
and upper-body strength so it gave me
what I was looking for at the time and
it didn’t feel like I was working out.
It was more like I was having a good
time,” she said.
She emphasized that the pole
classes are a fitness regimen above all.
“[Pole dancing] does have a negative stigma to it, but I try not to use
sexy; I use sassy. And I always say this
is a pole fitness class … the dance part
is a plus. The emphasis is on fitness,”
Everage said, adding some of her students are older than 60.
Studio Fitness does get an influx of new students come January,
Everage said.
“The people who come in January,
they may last to February and then
they fall off. And then you might see
them again next year,” she said with
a laugh. “I think they’re a little less
dedicated, although they all have
good intentions.”
Everage said that making a resolution to work out is something that
needs to be thought out.
“Being in shape is a mindset. You
can’t wake up one morning and say,
‘I’m going to start a fitness program.’
You have to train your mind to accept
that for some time and get it in your
head, that this is something that is
going to stick,” she said.
“Just like the time you put into
purchasing a home or changing
jobs, you have to put that energy
into, ‘I’m gonna get fit; I’m gonna
get healthy.’”
CrossFit LifeSport
Todd Ovall, owner of CrossFit
LifeSport, 1121 Water St., said he is
wary of taking on new clients during
the beginning of the year.
“If someone comes in January or
February, I’m very dubious of their
drive. I’m not going to turn them
away, but I really grill them a little bit
more about where they are in life, how
serious they are about it,” he said.
In 2000, Greg Glassman founded
CrossFit in California.
“It’s constantly varied functional
movements done at high intensity,”
Ovall said, adding that intensity varies
depending on where students are psychologically and physically.
Patrons of CrossFit can expect a
different workout, outlined by their
trainer, whenever they enter the “box,”
or gym.
“It could be anything. It really
changes up a lot. One day we’ll do
bear crawls and another day, we’ll do
sort of like sit-ups and push-ups, body
weight stuff, and then one day it could
be all Olympic lifting or power lifting,”
Ovall said.
“[CrossFit] came up through military, police and fire personnel because
the nature of their job is they don’t
know what the next day is going to
hold for them.”
The program has three categories: metabolic conditioning,
which could include activities like
running, rowing or jumping rope,
weight lifting and gymnastics,
which includes exercises like pushups that utilize body weight.
CrossFit students can also expect health and wellness education
in addition to their workout.
“All the movements are biomechanically efficient so we teach
people how to move better. It’s very
educational first and foremost. We
teach people about movement. We
teach people about food. We teach
people about sleep and then just try
to push them down the road, get
some concepts clear in their head,”
Ovall said.
“[CrossFit’s] on ES PN now and
I see in on Reebok commercials,”
Ovall said.
