Everyone knows that the only way to get to the gym week after week is to schedule an appointment with a personal trainer. It’s pure motivation to know that someone is waiting for you ready to work you out. Who hasn’t paid a huge yearly fee to a gym and gone once or twice during the entire year. The guilt, the waste, the sense that there’s somewhere you should be but you just can’t get yourself over there.
Awful.
The Park Slope Fitness Collective, located at 366 Seventh Avenue at 11th Street, is a perfect antidote to this problem. A space owned and operated by personal trainers, it has two rooms with most of the equipment you’ll find at a club plus free weights, mats and balls. There’s no membership fee or yearly dues. You simply pay for your training session and that’s that. The sessions are reasonably priced and the trainers are top notch.
Apparently, trainers at gyms are low men and women on the totem pole; they only see a fraction of what the client is paying and they aren’t well treated by management, which is ridiculous because it’s the trainers who keep the clients coming back.
For me, it’s refreshing to see a group of trainers with a healthy
entrepreneruial spirit, working for themselves, and running the show
the way it should be run.
My trainer, Elizabeth Pongo is the cat’s meow. She’s a very smart person who knows a great deal about the body. She also happens to be a stand-up comedian. She keeps me moving non-stop for a full hour; I feel like I’m really learning the correct way to do weight training and exercises. Each session ends with something she calls an "assisted stretch," which is a massage merged with a body stretch the likes of which I’ve never experienced. What’s more, she takes my goals very seriously: to get definition in my upper arms so I’ll look good in tand tops and to lose weight. I wanna be buff. Plus, she cheers me on when I tell her about my jogging my kids, my newest running bra. She’s really great.
I think the Fitness Collective is really on to something. If you want information about the Collective or a free first session with Elizabeth you can e-mail her at pongofitness@yahoo.com
Yours from Brooklyn,
OTBKB
The PSFC rocks. If you want amnenities go to equinox, if you want real results go here.
PSFC SUCKS! This gym offers no amenities for members. The equipment is old, the room is crowded so you are always barking your shins. Sure, it’s all about the trainers alright. Towels and the water station with cups in the back room were basically the ONLY amenities. Now they decided to get rid of that water station too. And, oh yeah, they just raised their prices. So it’s no deal.
Thanks for the piece on the park slope collective. I also train with Ms. Pongo and find her workouts very invigorating and productive. Love the photo, HC. thanks. MIW
Not only is working with Louise rewarding – but it is also FUN! For any interested parties – you can visit my web site – http://pongohealthandfitness.com
Being physical is not important for longevity, it is also fabulous to feel strong. Looking forward to new horizons – thanks to the Park Slope Fitness Collective – and all the team work that goes on between the trainers and the clients. It’s a great community.