<p>Everything depends on your individual franchise. At my curves, you only get weighed and measured when you want to, you can use your ipod, and although they have products available, there is never a sales pitch. The owners of my franchise is also very community conscious. We do food drives, book drives, and collect money for other charities as well.</p>
<p>I don’t even know where there is a curves in my city & I have slacked off on going to my old gym, but this one is so close it would be really hard to have an excuse.
[Welcome</a> to CrossFit: Forging Elite Fitness](<a href=“http://www.crossfit.com/]Welcome”>http://www.crossfit.com/)
plus it sounds hella fun.
If it doesn’t kill me.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Life summed up in two simple sentences! Love it!</p>
<p>Curves is not for me, for a lot of reasons. However, my MIL has belonged done Curves for at least five years and loves it. She started gaining weight in her 50s, tried a couple of gyms she did not like, could not ride her bike or walk for long outdoors in the winter and then found Curves. She lost the weight she had gained (10-15 lbs) and has not gained anymore. She goes five days a week and a great thing for her is that she travels a lot and can almost always find a Curves to work out at. </p>
<p>Personally I find it impressed that she’s been doing this workout for so long and has never, not once, had an injury of any kind so she’s been able to be very consistant. Also, when she was fighting cancer and chemo left her very weak, she was able to scale the intensity of her workouts way back but still got the boost of the social and physical aspects.</p>
<p>Personally I find it impressed that she’s been doing this workout for so long and has never, not once, had an injury of any kind so she’s been able to be very consistant</p>
<p>I find that the most difficult line to walk is increasing my workouts, but not getting hurt so that I have to slack off. I am really bad with my knees- they don’t like me- I can’t do stair machine & I can’t do a lot of presses ( I am double jointed & hyperextend)
The key is not to stop- but to increase just enough so that you can see results.</p>
<p>You definitely can get your heartrate up at Curves and they do have you measure your heartrate on the circuit. I do think that a treadmill is going to burn more calories overall though. My Curves has the Curvesmart program where the machine measures your performance, etc. and I think the report on calories burned at the end is much higher than what is burned. I think Curves works really, really well for some people and is especially wonderful for women in their seventies and beyond. I also think that, as with any exercise program, the really important thing is whether you do it. For me, the Curves is a few blocks from my house and right next to my grocery store. It’s so easy to go and then pick up a few grocery items and be home in less than an hour. When I tried the Y, it was such a production and so far away that I knew I would never keep up with it. It’s better to do something that you’ll actually do on a regular basis than to exercise sporadically.</p>
<p>I think part of my workout problem is that I’m on beta-blockers, to prevent migraines. The beta-blockers work great with no side effects except that I can NOT elevate my heartrate above a certain level. It gets to a certain rate and that’s it - it won’t go any higher, like a regulator on an engine. I used to be able to get it to go higher before I started with the beta-blockers… and I also used to have migraines at least once a month. I’ll take the trade off and keep my beta-blockers!</p>
<p>I have to thank Curves for getting me back to the gym after years of driving kids around. It was convenient for me and not intimidating. I enjoyed the social aspects but after a while I felt I needed more. I graduated to Contours which uses real weights but has no treadmills, ellipticals, etc. On the downside, both places have very limited hours (close early on Sat and not open on Sunday). I then joined a “real” gym for a while but I didn’t take advantage of the classes and the A/C was terrible - a dealbreaker for me. </p>
<p>For the past 2 years, I have been going to Planet Fitness. It is a great deal at $10 a month, is very clean with great A/C and equipment. No classes - but I didn’t use them anyway. The members and staff are nice but I do miss the chatting we did at Curves.</p>
<p>Re post #19 – the reason Curves wouldn’t want members listening to their iPods is that there is a tone on their recorded music that is the signal for each person to move to the next station on the circuit. The whole system is built on the idea that everyone exercises for the alloted time at their station and then each person moves in unison to the station immediately to their left (with the circuit moving clockwise). During peak hours when all stations are filled, this is pretty important – and someone listening to their own headsets is going to miss the signal.</p>
<p>If you don’t like that system… then you wouldn’t want Curves – but there’s a reason they have that rule.</p>
<p>calmom, I could hear the “Please move to the next station” perfectly well thru my iPod. I moved at the right time. They claimed the wire on my iPod headphones was a safety hazard.</p>
<p>Went by this morning with an appointment to check it out. First red flag:hours are 8am to 1pm and 4pm to 7pm. What?? Next red flag, three women using the system, all women I know and none looked like they were breaking a sweat. All three are in worse shape than I am. Third red flag, although I had an appointment the employee spent five minutes talking to a current member about insulin and blood sugar. Never even stopped to say hello. I walked out without going through the visit. Done.Guess I will get motivated to get back to my regular gym.</p>
<p>I went back yesterday, wanted to get weighed and measured. The last two months (while doing other forms of exercise) I’ve finally dropped a little bit. I was not losing with Curves alone. However, I was glad I went back because I’d gotten a bit sick of the treadmill and needed a little variety. The women were happy to see me and it felt good to exercise some of those muscles that the treadmill wasn’t working. Also, during the stretch time I did some of my yoga stretches (something I started doing the last few months) and felt good about adding that in. But I realize that Curves alone is not aggressive enough for me. However, it is good on those days when the weather precludes being outdoors and/or I just don’t want to get on the treadmill.</p>