Allison spent her childhood as a competitive figure skater and has also had 10 years of studio training in jazz, hip hop, and ballet. She was a member of the Primo Dance Troupe at the University of Illinois and continued to take dance classes at various studios in Chicago as she studied at Chicago-Kent School of Law. After starting her career as an attorney and spending most of her day at a desk, Allison realized she needed to join a gym that had fun group dance fitness classes and began taking WERQ at ENRGi Fitness with WERQ Master Trainer and Co-creator, Julie Steffen, and was hooked instantly. She obtained her WERQ certification in October 2011 and also holds a current AFAA Group Fitness Certification. See Allison’s schedule here!

Melissa grew up being involved in some sort of sport. Whether it was dancing at a young age, playing competitive soccer or tennis she made sure always maintain that healthy and active lifestyle. She is a Marathon runner, Trainer, Pilates Instructor and self-proclaimed “Cardio Queen” and has a lot of experience in a variety of training styles. She is dedicated to keeping clients motivated and challenged while keeping a high energy atmosphere and most importantly while having fun. Melissa loves bringing in her love of all things fitness into her classes and you will be sure to get a tough workout in! See Melissa’s schedule here!

We sincerely thank you for your loyalty and dedication to us over the last four years. You’ve played an essential role in making us so successful and helping us grow so quickly. SO QUICKLY in fact, that as many of you have noticed, we are just about bursting at our seams here at 676 N. LaSalle.

We are thrilled to finally announce that this summer we will be MOVING to a new, state-of-the-art facility at Ohio and Wells, right around the corner from our current location!!!

Below are just a few of the many EXCITING highlights:

If you’ve been thinking about signing up for an ENRGi membership, now is the time! Our new member rates will be increasing with the move, so sign up now to lock in our current membership rates. We have a great class schedule this Summer, including more INSANITY® classes starting in June, so sign up now and work out with us all summer!

Thank you for being so patient with us. We’ve wanted to tell you so many times, but we needed to get all the details in place. Our official moving day is still TBA, but we will blast it out as soon as we know.

As always, let us know if you have any questions, comments and/or if there’s anything we can do for you. We hope that you’re as PUMPED as we are!

With extreme excitement & gratitude,

ENRGi Management

Workout 1: Against the Clock!

Need: A clock or watch

Warm-up: 20 squats, 20 jumping jacks, 20 high knees, 20 lunges

Every time a new minute starts on the clock, you have to start back at the BEGINNING of the challenge, no matter how far you got in the last minute.  If you finish the challenge before the next minute starts, you get a short rest. Repeat each challenge for six minutes, then take a one or two minute break before starting the next challenge.

Challenge 1: 10 squat jumps, 5 lunges right leg, 5 lunges left leg, 5 bungees, 5 walking planks (from a forearm plank, step yourself up to a high plank using your arms, then back down)

Challenge 2: 10 push-ups, 10 mountain climbers each leg, 5 burpees, 5 high knees each leg, 5 star jumps

Challenge 3: 10 plyo lunges, 10 “mini-suicides” (run 3 steps, touch the floor), 5 triceps dips, 5 sit-ups

Workout 2: Running Pyramid

You’ll need: A watch and the great outdoors! Can also be done on a bike. Each “easy” is twice the length of the “hard” section that precedes it.  Go up the pyramid, then down.

Warm up 2-3 minutes walking.

15 seconds hard run – 30 seconds easy run or walk

30 seconds hard run – 1 minute easy run or walk

45 seconds hard run – 90 seconds easy run or walk

60 seconds hard run – 2 minutes easy run or walk

90 seconds hard run – 3 minutes easy run or walk

60 seconds hard run – 2 minutes easy run or walk

45 seconds hard run – 90 seconds easy run or walk

30 seconds hard run – 60 seconds easy run or walk

15 seconds hard run – 2-3 minute cool-down walk

We’ve scheduled the July trial for Saturday, July 13th from 2-4pm.  The workout will be timed and you will go in heats of four.  Most people will complete the test in 15-25 minutes, but we encourage you to stick around for the entire two hours and cheer on the rest of the participants.  It is a good idea to come a little warmed up, but we wouldn’t recommend doing another tough class or workout that day.  Save your energy and strength for the test to get the best results possible.

Levels will be provided, though some experience in our bootcamp/strength classes is recommended.  You’ll be able to track your progress not only with your overall time, but also with the level you are able to complete each exercise.  For example, if you can’t do a “real” pull-up this month, that’s ok! You’ll do a modified level for this trial and then maybe by next month you will be able to pump out those pull-ups!

Questions? Shoot us an email at info@enrgifitness.com or ask Fred or Robert when you’re at ENRGi. There are only 20 SPOTS available for this trial, so sign up seven days in advance!

The changes in your body will happen in correlation to the kind of exercise and training you put your body though.  If you want to run a marathon, your training will consist of running long distances and if you want to be an Olympic lifter, your training will consist of, guess what? Lifting heavy weights.  When you put your body through a HIIT workout, where it’s working at close to it’s 100% max effort, your heart and lungs will learn that they have to get stronger to adapt to those conditions. You’ve probably noticed that these kind of workouts get easier the more you do them! That means your aerobic system is getting stronger! Just remember to keep pushing yourself past your comfort zone, even though that comfort zone will be ever increasing!

Studies show that HIIT training also improves your metabolism.  Since it takes so much energy (=calories) to do one of these intervals, your body is also learning that it has to burn more sugar (=calories) instead of turning these calories into fat right away.  In fact, your body will keep burning calories at this high rate, even after you are done with class, showered and home on your couch watching Netflix!

So come check out our High Intensity Interval classes, including INSANITY, Ropes Gone Wild, Velocity 360, and many others! Remember to push yourself to your 100% max effort and you will love the results!

200 Squats workout

In this workout you will do a total of 200 squats! This one is a killer so take breaks as needed, and if you can’t get all the squats in good form the first time, try to build up to it. Remember: keep your butt back, like you’re about to sit in a chair, your weight should be in your heels, keep your chest up and shoulders down and try to go down all the way so your thighs are parallel to the ground.  If your form slips a little bit, take a break! Go for quality over speed!

Warm up: 30 squats, 30 jumping jacks, 30 high knees

35 squats

Push-up and Jumping jack pyramid (start with 10 of each, then 9 of each, 8 of each, etc.)

40 squats (you’re at 105 now! More than half way!)

20 star crunches

30 second plank

25 squats  

20 star crunches

30 second plank

45 squats (You’ve got this!)

10 push-ups, 10 mountain climbers, 10 push-ups

25 squats

You’re done!

Outdoor Circuit Stations

Needed: Stop-watch or timer, 8 locations of your choice around a park, along the lakefront, or wherever you have some room to workout outside!

Warm-up: 20 jumping jacks, 20 squats, 20 high knees.  Repeat twice.

Assign each station a different exercise of the following:

1.  Squat jumps

2.  Jumping jacks or big star jumps

3.  Push-ups

4.  Low Squat hold (or wall sit if there’s a wall or fence nearby)

5.  Mountain Climbers

6.  Alternating lunges or lunge jumps

7.  Sit-ups

8.  Plank

At the top of the workout and between each station, do 5 burpees, run a full lap around all the stations, then go to a station and do the exercise for 45 seconds.  Keep going until you’ve done each station.  Don’t rest until you’re done with all the stations!

Take a 1 minute break and then repeat with 30 second intervals instead of 45 second intervals

We’ve had a couple questions come up about how this membership works, so here are just a few reminders/FAQ’s.  All of this information can also be found in the membership contract, which you can access from “My Info” tab on your account.

**The Challenge Membership CANNOT be put on hold.  The idea is that you are committed to the challenge EVERY MONTH.  There is a minimum commitment of four months for the monthly challenge members.

**EVERYONE’S visits are counted from the 1st of the month to the last of the month, regardless of when your auto pay date is.  So for example, last month we counted all the visits between April 1st and April 30th.  Again, if you’re ever confused about this, you can confirm it in your contract.  You can also check to see how many visits you have for the month, by clicking “Visit History” under your profile page.

**One visit means one DAY of coming in to ENRGi for classes.  So if you come in on a Wednesday and take Turbokick and Chisel, that counts as ONE visit.

**Remember, we’ve added some healing classes to our schedule, which also count towards your visits! So if you’re feeling crazy sore, come in for a stretching or yoga class!

Finally, we don’t want you guys stressing out about these visits or your membership with us.  Remember, even if you get some under visits charges every once in awhile, you’re still saving money overall with this type of membership! Let us know if you ever need recommendations on what classes to take, requests for new classes to add to the schedule or any other feedback to make our facility even better!

Workout 1: Suicide sprint bootcamp!

Need: Two trees (or benches or anything two things you can find outside) that are about 20 yards away from each other (you should be able to take about 20 paces running between them)

Warm-up: easy run or walk five times between the two trees.

One “suicide” = Start at tree #1, touch the ground, sprint to tree #2, touch the ground, run back to tree #1

Do one suicide, then 20 jumping jacks

Do two suicides, then 10 push-ups

Do three suidcides, then 20 squats

Do four suicides, REST for 30 seconds

Do four suicides, then 20 squats

Do three suicides, then 10 push-ups

Do two suicides, then 20 jumping jacks

Do one suicide.

Workout 2: The Music Workout

You’ll need: Space to move around, a park bench, an iPod and a playlist of your favorite upbeat workout songs! Should be about 20-30 minutes in length. Change exercises when the song changes!

Song 1: warm-up, keep repeating exercises until the end of the song!

20 jumping jacks

20 squats

20 high knees

20 butt kicks

Song 2: upper body, take breaks as needed, keep repeating until the end of the song!

15 push-ups, hands on the park bench

30 counts hold plank, hands on bench

15 triceps dips facing away from the bench

30 big arm circles from seated (do 15 front and 15 back)

Song 3: Legs, keep repeating until the end of the song!

10 step up on the bench with right leg

10 step up on the bench with left leg

20 squats or squat jumps

20 low pulses in squat position

3 laps running around the bench

Song 4: Cardio Blast! Keep repeating until the end of song!

15 burpees

15 jumping jacks

15 squat jumps

15 mountain climbers hands on bench

3 laps running around the bench

Then repeat the workouts for songs 2, 3 and 4 until the end of the playlist! Put a slow jam at the very end to stretch!

Rowing is a great workout for total body strengthening and cardio endurance.  Unlike running, it is both low impact (great if you’re recovering from an injury) and works both your upper and lower body simultaneously for a super efficient calorie burn!

Need more incentive? Everyone who completes the Row Challenge and gets at least one week of three 3000m rows will be entered to win a three day juice cleanse from Element Wellness ($185 value!) This fabulous prize is brought to you by Iamselfless.com

Come in before class, stay late after class, or sign up for a daytime Cross Training Trio spot. Rowers are available most of the day, as long as there is not a TRX, Core Burn or Warrior Conditioning Class going on.  Check our schedule to see availability.