W3 Breast Cancer Event

To help the American Cancer Society raise money for breast cancer, Women’s Workout & Wellness is hosting a Zumbathon/ girl’s night out event on Saturday, October 20th from 4-7pm. We have many different vendors coming to pamper our guests, such as facials, nails, eyelashes, jewelry and more! We also have 2 hours of ZUMBA! With 5 instructors. We will also be honoring a few members and an employee who are breast cancer survivors. Their speeches will begin at 4:30pm. All members from ALL locations are welcome as well as their friends and family members who are non-members. The event is at our Berwyn location at 6342 W. Cermak Rd in Berwyn. IL.

We hope to see you there!

Women’s Workout & Wellness

Chicago Bridal Fashion Show & Expo!

W3 will be an exhibitor at Chicago Bride Magazine’s Bridal Fashion Show & Expo at Navy Pier on October 21, 2012. We are super excited for a great time and a chance to promote our bridal boot camps! Check out their website at http://www.chicagobridemagazine.com/photos/gallery.html. Admission to the event is FREE!!! So if you’re looking for anything wedding-related, this would be the place to go. And you can check out Women’s Workout & Wellness while you’re there!

Congratulations on Your 100-lb Weight Loss Goal!!!

We are so happy to feature one of our members from the Downers Grove location on our blog and also on our Success Stories page. Her name is Maria Bertucci-Runge, and she has had an incredible nutrition and fitness journey to reach a healthy weight, and WOW does she look amazing! The W3 corporate staff as well as the managers of all W3 locations want to congratulate Maria on sticking with it and accomplishing her goal! Nothing feels better than achieving what you most desire, and we are so proud that she was able to do this at one of our facilities. We are all about RESULTS, and seeing our members get the RESULTS they want brings our mission to life. Way to go, Maria! Your motivation to begin and your determination to keep going through those plateaus are an inspiration to all of us to keep trying for what we truly want.~ Thanks~

To read her story and see her transformation pictures, click here.

Again, congratulations. W3 is proud of you and wishes you the best of luck in any future health and fitness endeavors!

~W3 Corporate

$99 SPECIAL!!! ENDS FRIDAY!

LADIES!!! Women’s Workout & Wellness is excited to announce a special, 4-day sale!!! All W3 locations are running a special THIS WEEK ONLY. $99 for ONE FULL YEAR! No gimmicks- just $99 paid in full and a one-year membership to W3 is YOURS. All W3 locations, sale ending this Friday, Aug 10th. Hurry in- this special WILL NEVER BE OFFERED AGAIN! If you have any questions, please call the club nearest you. See you soon!

~W3

National Dance Day Success!!!

In celebration of National Dance Day, Women’s Workout and Wellness sponsored an event. We called it Girl’s Night Out and all proceeds went to the Dizzy Feet Foundation. All of the clubs had a Zumbathon plus more- either Hip Hop, Piloxing, etc. and had lots of vendors for their members and non-members that were visiting the club that night. Needless to say, W3’s Girl’s Night Out event was a ROARING success! So many attendees and SO much fun! Here is a Zumba clip from the Berwyn location, after an 1 hour ‘n a half of Zumba, showing the girls dancing to the National Dance Day dance. Thanks for everyone who came! We hope to have more events like this in the future!

Girl’s Night Out Event at W3!!!

In honor of National Dance Day on July 28th, Women’s Workout & Wellness is hosting a Girl’s Night Out event! All 7 locations will be hosting this event on Saturday, July 28th from 7-10pm **Except Monroe St. location will be held on Friday night, July 27th from 5-8pm**

This event is for members AND non-members! It is FREE, so come on in and bring whoever you’d like! It’s a party, so get ready to shop and have a good time as we have various vendors coming to each location to pamper you. Some vendors coming are nail salons, massage therapists, purse vendors, tea vendors, and more! *varies per location*

Each location will be celebrating National Dance Day by having a Zumba class and others will have Hip Hop classes and a Piloxing demonstration. For more information, contact the location nearest you to find out the specific details for that location (each location also has a theme if you want to get involved and maybe win something from a raffle!)

Speaking of raffles, any money donated at the door will go to the Dizzy Feet Foundation and that person will receive a raffle ticket that will be drawn at the end of the night. Sample schedules are as follows:

  • 7:00- doors open
  • 7:30- class begins
  • 9:00/9:30- raffle drawings and vendor demonstrations

Again, the event is free and is open to all women. So get ready to party; we’ll see you there!

*Don’t forget to join our event on Facebook! Go to our Facebook page and join the event titled: “Girl’s Night Out Event at W3”

Women’s Workout & Wellness Prospect Heights

An unfortunate circumstance has come upon W3 that we feel needs to be brought to the attention of all and addressed before any negative opinions or thoughts are formed. We have recently made the decision to close the Prospect Heights Women’s Workout & Wellness location. Please understand that this is not a decision we wanted to make, but we were truly left with no choice. We did everything we could to keep the club running, but in the end, our efforts that we put into all of our clubs just did not hold strongly to this location.

The area of the Prospect Heights location has changed throughout the years, leaving the market a lot different now than it was when we first built clubs in this area. The downturn of the economy has affected all of us as consumers and as businesses. The economy has not fared well with the landlord’s ability to fill the many vacant spots in this shopping center. Also, if you drive north on Rand Rd., you will see similar situations in many of the shopping centers. All of the vacancy in our shopping center has negatively affected our walk-in traffic. Due to the inability to renegotiate a fair lease in favor of both W3 and the landlord, we were left with no choice but to close this location now that the lease is up.

We know the extreme inconvenience it is when your routine health club is closed. We know that we have very committed members at this location, and we are sincerely sorry that their W3 experience has to end. We tried the same tactics, special sales and programs at this location that we did at other locations. They worked at the others, but for some reason, they just did not take to the demographics of Prospect Heights. We hope the members are able to transfer to another location, but if not, we wish them the best in their future fitness endeavors.

We also want to thank Megan and her staff. Megan did an amazing job at this location. We have fought for two years to try to keep the club running successfully, and Megan has made a positive difference in every aspect. She has built a staff that is very hardworking and loved by the members. We want them, too, to transfer to another location to continue working if the travel is possible for them.

We want to make clear that in no way is the closing of this location a reflection of any other W3 location. It is simply the fact that our marketing and sales efforts that have worked in all other clubs just did not work here, and we believe this is due to the many factors stated above. W3 is planning on expanding throughout the Chicagoland area and is in the process of remodeling various locations.

We regret to inform all viewers of this unwanted circumstance, and we are sorry this is happening. Thank you to our members, all employees, and the manager for making the club atmosphere so positive.

Why Do We Insist on ONE Hour Workouts? Quality over Quantity!

Where did this misconception come from that we must workout for exactly ONE hour? I’m going to do weights for 30 minutes then hop on the treadmill for 30 minutes… Or I’m going to take a 45-minute class and then do 15 extra minutes of cardio…or I’m going to divide up my 1 hour of cardio into 20-minute segments on different machines, so I don’t get bored.. we’ve all been there, but do we know why? Why do we think we didn’t have a great gym session unless we stayed on the elliptical for at least 60 minutes? This is a very common misconception with people who exercise regardless of if their goal is to lose weight, get healthy, stay healthy, tone, etc. Let’s crack this weight loss myth!

First, it is important to realize that no workout is a bad workout. If you’re debating coming into W3 to workout, and you decide not to for reasons other than an injury or sickness, you will most likely regret it later (but you’ll never regret a workout). So, coming to the gym for 30 minutes is definitely better than not at all. But the question is still “why do we think that 60 minutes is necessary?” Maybe it was a goal that you decided to work up to, starting out at walking at 10 minutes and now you can do the elliptical for 60 minutes- great! But it may not be necessary. Quality over quantity in exercise oftentimes fares better than thinking how long you exercise is going to allow you to achieve your goals. Especially for weight loss, lifting a 10 lb dumbbell 10x over a 2 lb dumbbell 30x is going to get you results a lot faster. The quality of lifting a heavier weight will build your muscle, increase your metabolism and therefore, aid in your weight loss a lot faster.

Lastly, to demonstrate our point that a longer workout (such as 60 minutes) vs. a shorter workout is not necessarily better is the concept of HIIT- high intensity interval training. A lot of W3’s small group functional training is based around this concept of bringing your heart rate up for quick intervals and then back down again. The benefits of high intensity interval training and the speed at which this helps you achieve your goals far outnumber other types of exercise, such as steady state cardio on a treadmill. (and these workouts are definitely less than 60 minutes!) The benefits of HIIT, such as Tabata training, include time- efficient workouts, fat-burning during and after workouts, healthy heart, and weight loss (not muscle loss!) The fact of the matter is that during these short, intense workouts, most of your weight loss is coming from fat stores whereas steady-state cardio usually burns at least some muscle. If you’re looking to lose weight, just remember that longer does not always mean better, and you don’t have to stick to any specific (60 minute) rule. Get a good, strength training, fat-burning workout in, and you’re good to go. If you haven’t already, just try one of our functional training workouts. Don’t be intimidated. There are levels and modifications for everyone. Just try it- you’ll be amazed by how you feel afterwards and the results your body will see, too!

Inspirational Email from a Member

Opening up my email on Monday, June 4th, I saw I had an email from Jenny, the manager at the Monroe St. location. The email was titled “FW: Beginning Marathon Today!!!!!” I opened it and saw it was a heart-felt email from a member at the Monroe St. and Lawrence location. As you’ll see, she was so excited to start her training for the Diabetes 5K, a goal she wrote on Monroe’s bulletin board back in January. Well, she has accomplished her goal and feels better than ever! I personally wanted to share this email (after receiving full permission for the email and pictures) because it truly touched me that our members are not only seeing results but also realizing that our trainers and staff at W3 truly care about our members’ goals to make them future success stories. I told her that her email embodies the message that W3 tries to convey to each member and prospect every day, and I felt compelled to share it. Please take the time to read the email below (and reply); maybe you’ll feel inspired, too.
Thanks again, Butterfly, for allowing us to use your story. Your dedication is an inspiration!

Thank you for being there this morning, Judy.  I can’t tell you how
much W3 has significantly change–improved my life.  Today is the
first day of training for the American Diabetes 5K Marathon (October
7, 2012).  If they still have the board up at Monroe, you’ll see way
at the bottom I snuck my goal “to run for diabetes”.  I needed to hear
your voice and/or Jenny’s voice today.  Needed.  I was so nervous this
morning.  It’s a reality!

I lost 37lbs, went from a size 18 to a size 10 in jeans and 12 in
regular clothes.  My medication has decreased and for the first time
in life, I can run.  Thanks to Janice (Lawrence location) I can run.

Thanks for letting me share how much fitness and health has become
daily dialogue with me and my children.  As I said, my brother, who is
deaf and a year younger than I saw me after 6 months and was inspired
to run track.  We went to the grocers and went over labels (sodium
intake) and discussed healthier foods (Jenny and Janice and you are
just. . .I won’t start crying again, but I mean this when I say it
from the bottom of my heart–God Bless You.

Jenny, you prepped me for functional training–the best thing anybody
can do to learn about themselves (physically, mentally, etc.) !!!!  I
truly, truly miss you and I remain grateful for your advice.  Janice
Desiderio (personal/functional trainer is absolutely amazing!!!!).
I’m running.  I’m running!!!  I know she’ll say its all me, but nope.
She gives us all her undivided attention and constantly encourages.

I have been at the Lawrence location religiously, but will be coming
to the Monroe due to my job.

The photos attached are preparing for a dinner, in front of my
artwork, something else and my sister.  I have 13 more pounds to go,
but today, finally, I put the scale away.  My focus has shifted more
to strength training.  Okay. I know I’m babbling.  I’m not as bad as I
was this morning, thanks Julie and Judy for listening.

I don’t care if you all are tired of me saying thank you, but thank
you, thank you, thank you.
—
Sincerely,

Butterfly Harris

And her reply back to my email:

Good afternoon Jamie:

Thank you so very much for your kind words.  You have my permission to print my letter and use which ever photos I sent you deem suitable.

If I may make one request. . .   W3 at both the Monroe and Lawrence locations were significant to my positive results. Jenny Hagen, Manager, Monroe location and Janice Desiderio, Personal and Functional trainer, Lawrence location. I had my functional training with Janice.

The thing that’s so great about W3 is how great these women collaborate and promote each other and each others location; I love that.  When I talk about W3, I speak of both.  I’m a result of a collaboration. They’re as different as siblings within a “family” and being a part of W3 family has and continues to be one of the best investments of my life.

I’m sure you receive countless letters of gratitude from members; thank you for your feedback from mine.  I have to tell you, when I walk through those doors–at both locations, the staff of trainers, instructors and front desks always make me “feel welcome to achieve”. I (like I’m sure many of your members have their impacting W3 person) will probably remember Jenny and Janice for the rest of my life. I look forward to becoming a long time member like so many.

Continued success.

___________________________

Continued success indeed! Thanks again. Only at… the W3.

Jamie

Happy 30th Anniversary W3!!!

Women’s Workout World, now Women’s Workout and Wellness, has been in business for 30 years! What an amazing 30 years it has been. A special thanks goes out to our long-time members who have been with us for the past 10, 20 and even 30 years! You have trusted us with your fitness goals and have been with us during grand openings, remodels, fitness trends, new classes, new instructors, numerous  promotions, special boot camps, breast cancer walks, American Heart Association walks, and now you’re here to see our newest, results-driven program- functional training. Your dedication has proven to us that W3 is succeeding in reaching women across Chicagoland in making YOU fit, healthy and happy. And of course, thank you to all of our newer members who are adjusting to our programs and putting their faith in W3 to motivate and help them achieve all of their goals. We, at corporate and at each W3 location, sincerely hope that we have made a positive impact on your health and life each and every time you walk into a W3, take a class, hop on a treadmill, or get your butt kicked in a group functional training! We are continuously educating our staff and trainers to be the best in providing you with the best workouts and information as possible.

Taking a look back, we have come a long way in fitness. It’s actually kind of funny… we used to think standing there with vibrating bands would help us shed pounds and going over a roller would roll the fat right off of our bodies! (Seriously- check out the pictures!) We used to lift 3lb weights because we didn’t want to “bulk up!” We did hours of never-ending cardio. Basic aerobics. Jane Fonda workouts. Jazzercise. The era of “skinny-fat people.” The past few years, we’ve seen new programs come in to play: Zumba, Turbokick, high intensity interval training, a push toward strength training and of course, our own W3-exclusive formats! (We didn’t always have our core-defining workouts of Kickin’ Core Ball and Body Sync…but HardBody has been with W3 for awhile longer!)

 And now we are on to the greatest thing we could possibly be doing in the fitness world. (And I guess we can call this the era of the toned, fit woman!) We are training our body the way it should always have been trained- functionally- to be functionally fit and perform everyday tasks without any problems, without an ache or a pain. It’s awesome! And we are pushing toward making everyday lifestyle changes and taking a proactive role in our health and in our lives. Of course, we could not accomplish any of our company’s goals without our amazing staff (especially managers!), motivating trainers, empowering instructors and dedicated members- new and old. Thank YOU!

We are so excited for the future and for the next 30 years of W3 as we continue to strive to be the best at what we do- the best group exercise programs, the best personal and group training programs, the best provider of results in Chicago! Cheers to the next 30 years and many more after that!

Only at…

The W3