When it comes to excuses to skip our workouts, we’ve come up with a lot of creative ones over the years (“I need to be here when my Amazon package is delivered just in case they can’t find the front door!”), but these days the excuse is real: Gyms are closed. We’re here to report, however, that that’s not actually an excuse anymore (sorry not sorry?) as plenty of fitness studios are taking their classes, training sessions, and group fitness workouts to the great outdoors where you can break a socially distant sweat in the fresh air. Here are five spots to hit up before summer is over.
Tenafly
Barre bad-asses Hillary and Daine have taken this fat-burning fave to the Retro Fitness parking lot, where participants squat, plie, and tuck their way to toned everything. The crew uses chairs as ballet barres and even provides patio umbrellas for shade. They were most recently offering the class every weekday at 9:30am, but check their Insta for the latest schedule. And if you can’t make it in person, the class is also offered online so start figuring out the best barre in the house.
Allendale
This midfulness-focused fitness studio has always been about variety, offering everything from cycling to yoga to dance cardio workouts. Currently, the Define crew continues to offer a full roster classes via Livestream, but to beef up its options, there are also multiple in-person outdoor classes on the weekly schedule, including the high-energy Bounce, (taking place on those fun mini trampolines) and the barre-heavy Body class. You can peruse the schedule here.
Various Bergen County locations
The yoga studio’s schedule is (not surprisingly) overflowing with flow classes you can take online, but we love that the studio is also offering outdoor Vinyasa classes in multiple locations, so you can get your downward dog on under the open sky outside at both the Mahwah and Hohokus locations and even the leafy Stable park in Ridgewood, a location that has Zen written all over it. Sign up here.
Englewood Cliffs
Power up with yogi exradrodinaires Claire Rosen and Allison Miller, who lead all-level power yoga sessions at wide-open Witte Field Johnson Field. There’s even an early-riser 7am session that’ll (hopefully!) give you a fighting chance against pandemic fatigue ... for a few hours at least. Get the schedule and sign up here.
Cranford
Yes, we know, it’s a bit of a drive, but totally worth the ass-kicking, calorie-scorching workout you’ll get thanks this mega-motivating coach who’ll have you sprinting, stair-running, crunching, and punching so hard on the high school field, any remaining quarantine pounds will be toast. DM Rafa to get in on the action.
