One of the things I hated about seeing January come to a close was the end of my trial ClassPass! In December I was approached about trying out the launching of ClassPass here in Atlanta. Of course, I jumped on the opportunity! A month of a free ClassPass membership to try out studios and classes? Yes, thank you. I told you a little about the launch HERE. I’ve wondered how many of you out there decided to give it a shot, or whether you are waiting to see if it is too good to be true.
Well, always honest here, I’ll tell you how my own experience was and I’ll give you the spoiler that it was a good one. If you are unfamiliar, here is the concept in a nutshell. In cities participating in ClassPass, a member pays a monthy fee of $79 – $99 depending on your city. For that fee, you can visit participating gyms or studios to take a class. The ClassPass website has a scroll down menu naming the participating studios. You simply find a studio, click on it and reserve your class. I found the website to be very easy to navigate. Through ClassPass you may visit one studio up to three times during a month. If the studio has multiple locations in a city, it still counts as one studio. So, for instance, if you ONLY wanted to do your spinning at Flywheel, you could only go three times in that month. If you look at the numbers, and you enjoy going to a studio for your workouts, ClassPass is worth a try. In larger cities where classes are $22 – $28 per class, and you enjoy getting in classes at different studios, ClassPass is a really good deal.
Here are the studios I visited during the month of January. I did not stray out of my norm as much as I had hoped. In fact, there was a particular studio I really wanted to try, but they did not join ClassPass until the last week of my trial and I ran out of time to fit it in.
I re-visited Pure Barre. It is a workout that I have told folks they need to try more than once to get the correct form and get used to the different moves that just kill those muscles we don’t normally use. I think with this workout it’s important to keep at it and also to try different instructors. Honestly, I had an instructor who wasn’t very perky and more like a robot. Maybe it’s just me but I like to see an instructor smile and give a little of their personality. Maybe she was having a bad day, so again, go back! My favorite part was the end of class where we did these excruciatingly painful ab moves. It was great work!
I went to the spinning studio, Flywheel. I pop into Flywheel now and then, when I can’t get into a Spin class at our Y, or when I need a short and super efficient and super pumped up cardio workout. I am definitely not a regular as I’m a little too cheap to
regularly pay full price for a 45 minute class! Therefore, I enjoyed being able to get the benefit of a great workout without creating the hole in my pocket. However, be aware when using ClassPass for FlyWheel here in Atlanta, that now there are only a couple of times available for ClassPass participants. This may also be the same in some popular studios elsewhere. Here, one of those times is 7:30 am and that just can’t work for my mornings of getting boys out of the door and to school. The other time is 12:30 pm, which I can do occasionally, but definitely not regularly. I learned this the hard way. I was able to reserve a time on ClassPass but when I got to the studio was told that it was not available through ClassPass. Since I was already there I had to pay for the class. So, if you are looking at ClassPass and want to use it a lot for this particular studio, just know there is a limitation on the times and dates your ClassPass will work.
I made it a point to get to one of my very favorite yoga studios, Red Hot Yoga. This is the place that I frequented when getting back into yoga after my shoulder surgery. In 
Hot Yoga there is only one down dog so the lack of a lot of shoulder work was great during recovery. I went to a couple of Power classes that really challenged me and tried out a couple of teachers that were new or that I hadn’t had in while. I always leave there feeling strong, flexible and completely wet.
Lastly, I went to a studio that has been on my “to do” list for quite some time, and I’m so glad I got out of my comfort zone to try this one out! I visited West Coast Workout and when I walked into my first class I was thrilled to see that the instructor was a gal I had trained with to teach at another gym. She’s energetic, encouraging and really put us through the paces with a mix of cardio, light weights that eventually felt like cement, bands and balls. I was drenched! It was a great class with a ton of variety so there was definitely no boredom factor. I went to a Yoga Tonic class taught by the owner, Tammy Stokes, that was a fast paced, fluid, very active flow class that truly worked every muscle of the body. At the end of class the participants are offered a shot of one of Stokes’ Lifestyle Tonics. Hence, the name Yoga Tonic. I wanted to try a couple of other workouts but couldn’t fit in the times with my schedule. I ran into some friendly faces at this studio and the classes were so invigorating and challenging that I will go back.
I wish I had had one more week in January to fit in a couple of more studios! I will say that there are some studios that I have been to in the past and some I have been told that I should try, that are not on ClassPass. That may change as I noticed that new studios were participating during my last week. I had a great month of switching up my workouts, and getting out of my normal routine. If you are one to like and want different types of workouts this may be your ticket. The website is pretty clear and straightforward as to their policies. If you sign up for a class under ClassPass and miss that class, which happened to me during my trial month, you will be charged $20. Things happen, you or your children get sick, traffic gets nuts, so just know if you sign up you’ll be charged if you miss. (However, $20 is better than the full price you can get charged at some of the gyms when you miss a class!) ClassPass allows you to put your membership on hold if you need to for some reason and during that time you pay $19 to keep the ClassPass active and you may attend one class that month. And, keeping a hold is better than thinking about just dropping and renewing. If you do decided to drop your ClassPass and then renew, you are hit with a $79 renewal fee along with your normal $79-99 monthly fee.
All in all, I would give it a go. If I wanted to take what I did for January, as an example, it would look like this: 3 classes at Pure Barre, 3 classes at FlyWheel, 3 classes at Red Hot Yoga and 3 classes at West Coast Workout. Assuming each of these classes is $20 each, and let me assure you they are more than that, I would spend $240. With ClassPass I would get all of these classes for $79. That’s a huge savings for the ability to get diverse workouts from these different places.
Have you tried ClassPass? Would you? Do you like to gym hop? What are your favorite classes? What are you wanting to try?
Enjoy your Day!
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