Group bootcamp at CORE Fitness with instructor Cristina Lima. Photo by Cristina Lima.

I love working out, but I’ve missed being a part of a team. Last month, I got my groove back by signing up for a month of group fitness classes at CORE Fitness in Providence’s Wayland Square. As a mom of two young kids, I rarely have time to hit the gym in person because I work full-time and have kids’ activities or work events almost every night of the week. I start work by 7 a.m. and evenings are usually out of the question due to work events and shuttling my kids around to Cub Scouts, dance class and soccer practice.

During the pandemic, like many others seeking home fitness, I downloaded the Peloton app and started doing quick HIIT (high intensity interval training) and strength-training workouts at home whenever I could steal twenty minutes for me (I never sprang for the bike). But, after awhile (hello 500 workouts “alone but together!”), that has really gotten old. I needed a change.

While home fitness worked for me (and still does) over the past twenty-one months, due to the convenience of working out anyplace, anytime, I still missed the camaraderie you build in a gym setting (along with the muscles). CORE Fitness group classes involve boot camp, boxing, cycling, lagree, body-barre, fit bench training and more to get pumped up about tuning up your physique together. The instructors and other participants learn your name and encourage you to keep moving in each class (plus, they celebrate your birthday!). It’s a positive fitness clique I want to be a part of.

CORE owner Denise Chakoian has been in the fitness industry for more than twenty-nine years in the New England area. She always loved group fitness and taught aerobics, step aerobics and total body sculpting classes in many fitness facilities throughout the years, and eventually decided to leave the corporate world to open her own facility in 2006. After she went through cancer treatment for Hodgkins Lymphoma in 2018, she decided to create one fitness studio, CORE Fitness, with multiple types of group fitness classes under one roof.

I wanted to try a bunch of different classes. I opted for several pre-dawn classes (yes, 5:45 a.m.!) so I could fit in a gym sesh before work. The gym does not have childcare, so I had to sneak out of the house while everyone was still sleeping, and before they got ready for school. I found a few other …….

Source: https://www.rimonthly.com/core-fitness-gives-workout-fanatics-a-pre-dawn-or-post-work-energy-boost/