I think the gym is a sacred place-a place where you should feel safe. A place you should feel…read morecomfortable being yourself as you learn and a place to give your best effort without judgment. The staff at F45 have created this type of place. A place for you to get some me time and forget about the deadlines and the list of priorities.
I tried the seven-day trial for $7 and I was impressed with the staff, workouts, facility, equipment, and the cleanliness of the entire place, which includes the bathrooms. Every member carried a wash cloth and disinfectant spray with them throughout the class. They have a back to school special right now where you pay $99 for your first month and then you pay $160 per month, which includes the cost of a heart rate monitor. The earliest session offered was at 7:30 AM on weekdays, 8:00 AM on Saturdays and I believe 9:30 AM on Sundays. They have an earlier session at 6:00 AM on Tuesdays & Thursdays at the Birmingham location on Cole Street, I believe. For my schedule, I really need a 5:00 AM class.
The Coaches were professional, friendly, warm, knowledgeable, & supportive. They introduced themselves to me when I walked in and asked my name. They remembered my name too, which was great-"LET'S GO MITCH!" We chatted quite a bit over the seven days about the features and benefits of F45, the other locations & the possibility of starting to offer earlier classes.
Also, THEY HAD A DJ SPINNING MUSIC DURING ONE OF MY CLASSES!!! He played a great mix of music. It was awesome.
The workouts were challenging. They were HIIT (high intensity interval training) style workouts and every day had a different focus: strength, cardio, endurance, power, etc. Every set of each movement was designed for members to get as many reps as possible (AMRAP) in the allotted time of each set. You should definitely try F45 out for yourself!
THE STRUCTURE & FORMAT OF CLASSES:
The classes started with an introduction by one of the Coaches who introduced him/herself, the other Coach and they pointed out the newbie-me-and my brother in-law visiting from Florida. Then they discussed the focus, name and format of the class. One Coach described each movement while the other Coach demonstrated all movements that were going to be completed during class, then it was time for the warm-up. Once the warm-up was over, then we immediately started the workout at the station number that we were given. Every station had a different movement and the number of sets per movement differed every day. One day we did four sets of twelve different movements and the first set was forty seconds long with a fifteen-second break. Then a thirty-second set with a ten-second break, then a twenty-second set with a five-second break, then a twenty-second set and then there was thirty seconds to clean your equipment and move to the next station.
There were three monitors on the wall that showed someone demonstrating the movements with designated numbers, which made it easy to stay focused and to know what to do next. One day had twenty-seven different movements, so each monitor had nine different movements. We did two sets of each movement that day, which made for a total of fifty-four sets.
