Fitness: For the Fun of it!

[I hate cardio! I’m not good at it and I find it boring and not fun! My cardio is my sports! Besides that, I don’t do much in the way of cardio. This article is about  doing exercise and cardio for fun, not just for the sake of working out. I haven’t been to one of Ryan’s classes yet (I won’t lie, I’m scared to) but I promise I will in the next few weeks and I’ll let you know how it is!]

Hey everyone. My name is Ryan Cairns. I’m a personal trainer at Scotia Square Nubody’s in Halifax, NS. Fitness is my passion and I love to help people realize and achieve their personal fitness goals. I am also a fitness and physiological assessor/tester with the Canadian Sport Centre. What that means is that I put elite provincial athletes through fitness tests to see their levels of fitness in their respective sports. However, I’m not writing about either of those things today. Today I want to talk about my other job. I am a fitness instructor for a company called Ufit.

So, what is Ufit? If I had to describe it in one word I would say “FUN!”.

What if I told you that you could get fit and have fun doing it? Now what if I told you that it could be done for $5 dollars a class? I understand that exercise is like pulling teeth for some people. Ufit is a fitness class that is an amazing workout that provides great results and you are guaranteed to leave with a smile.

A little back story about how I got involved with Ufit. One summer back home in Charlottetown, PEI, I decided to go with a roommate to Ufit for the first time. I love to exercise and I’m always up for trying something new, so I went. The instructor was this huge 6’4″ monster of a man who commanded the attention of the 90 participants in his class. Yes, I said 90, and that was a smaller class. As the class went on the instructor had us all sweating, smiling, dancing, and singing along to the amazing music that he played. I liked the workout so much and had so much fun I went back. After a couple of weeks of going, this guy came up to me and asked if I would ever be interested in becoming an instructor. I was caught off guard. I was a personal trainer with no desire to teach fitness classes, but I listened to what he had to say and I was sold. That was two and half years and about 300 classes ago.

What is a Ufit workout? Ufit is a fitness class where the participants follow along to the best of their abilities at their own pace to the moves of the instructor. After a couple of minutes of “cardio” the participants perform an exercise that is displayed on a pylon in front of them.  It ends up being about 15-20 seconds of the exercise and then they follow the instructor again for another couple of minutes. The class is an hour and 16 exercises will be done in total. That’s the workout, but what is harder to explain is what happens at a Ufit class.

There are people of all ages, shapes, and sizes having fun and improving their health. The class is really all for YOU. Participants request songs, sing and dance along, and SMILE. It is rare that a class ends with someone not wanting more songs and more exercise. It is a completely accepting and non-judgemental place to come and exercise. The founders Gordon McNeilly and Eireann Rigby wanted to make a fitness class where people didn’t have to pay a lot of money to go to a place where everyone is usually uncomfortable anyway (aka the gym). Ufit was born and has helped thousands of people lose thousands of pounds and have fun and all for $5 dollars a class.

Ufit is something you have to experience for yourself, whether you are a seasoned gymrat or someone new to exercise. Bring a friend and come check out a class. I teach Saturdays and Sundays at Halifax Grammar School Gymnasium (945 Tower Road). It’s on Atlantic St, a side street across from the SMU Tower Gym. Join the Ufit Halifax facebook group to find you all the details. No commitments, just $5 dollars at the door. For more info about Ufit check out Ufit.ca

Yours always in fitness and wellness,

Ryan

Filed under: Fitness Tagged: Fitness

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