For those that enjoy the chill and relaxed side of exercise with feel good vocals and acoustics, try reggae!

1. Lay your body down- Diego Roots
2. Watching the tide- Diego Roots
3. Drum & Bass- Diego Roots
4. Summer Nights- Iration
5. Reelin- Iration
6. Scoreboard- Katastro
7. Alone- katastro
8. Sweet summertime- the movement
9. those days- rebelution
10. santa barbara- rebelution

For those looking for a little push of motivation in their workouts with intense beats and style, plug in for hip hop.

1. random- g- eazy
2. alone- 6lack
3. prblms- 6lack
4. calm down- g eazy
5. releaser- kid cudi
6. illusions- kid cudi
7. halfway off the balcony- big sean
8. no favors- big sean
9. passionfruit- drake
10. can’t have everything- drake
11. recognize- PARTYNEXTDOOR
12. humble.- kendrick lamar
13. the heart part 4- kendrick lamar
14. blue suede- vince staples
15. free lunch- isaiah rashad
16. new bae- vic mensa
17. liquor locker- vic mensa
18. drive me crazy- vic mensa
19. juke jam- chance the rapper
20. no problem- chance the rapper
21. selfish- future
22. vitamin d- ludacris

For those looking for something eclectic and out of the ordinary, press play for EDM/House.

1. In time- Droeloe
2. Stacks- yellow claw
3. bounce- masego
4. lost run the crowd- bassnectar
5. wawa- party favor
6. masks- cavalier
7. the raid- wafia
8. matches- cash cash
9. for the love- griz
10. tonight- rufus
11. we left- rufus
12. all deez- buku
13. front to back- buku

Do you love our group training classes? Steel Revolution’s butt-kicking spin class? Trying new things and listening to awesome music? If you answered yes to any of the above, you should definitely check out this year’s Body Rock!

Body Rock! is a pop-up fitness event hosted by Highmark, Allegheny Health Network, and organized by Fame15 Creative. Registration starts at 8am and the event will keep going until 2pm. Body Rock! is in its second year, and features Pittsburgh’s premier fitness instructors and studios, all taking place within Stage AE. Body Rock! attendees can participate in multiple classes once on-site at no extra cost. You will also be able to shop with the owners from Ragged Row as they create a pop-up Boutique in house showcasing all of their unique athletic brands.

Classes will be happening non-stop on April 30th, from 9am to 1pm, both inside and outside at Stage AE. Union Fitness will have a big presence at the event: Steel Revolution will be kicking things off with spin right at 9am, then doing it all again with a special 1pm class; Davis will be blowing everyone away at 9:30am with his one-of-a-kind Fatbell Revolution class; and Amy will be teaching Rebuilt at noon to help you mobilize after working your body for hours.

You can get your tickets for Body Rock! right here at Union Fitness. Everyone that purchases a ticket gets a little something extra too: you choose a free group training class here at the gym, OR a free consultation and 1/2 hour training session with one of our personal trainers! Talk to Lindsey, Alison, or Beth at the front desk to get your ticket and choose your gift! Also, don’t forget to RSVP on Facebook for event updates and teacher profiles leading up to the event. We hope to see you there!

Workout from Anywhere Wednesday: Tabata Intervals

It’s March in Pittsburgh, so if you’re smart you’re planning a trip to somewhere sunny and tropical in the very near future. If not, it’s a safe bet you’ll be traveling for work or to see family in the coming weeks. If you find yourself in a tiny hotel gym with nothing but a few dumbbells and some questionable cardio equipment, you may be tempted to just press pause on your workout routine for a while. Don’t give in! You can get in some intense training anywhere, and it doesn’t need to take up hours of your precious vacation time either.

Enter Tabata intervals. You can get a killer workout done in just 4 minutes if you’re willing to give it everything you’ve got! Tabata intervals were created by Dr. Izumi Tabata, an exercise physiologist out of Japan. These intervals are a type of high intensity interval training (HIIT). HIIT training burns a lot of calories in a short amount of time, and forces your body to keep on burning extra calories even after the workout is over! Studies have shown that HIIT cardio is even more effective than steady state cardio (think running at the same speed for an hour) at burning body fat specifically (check out this 2001 study for all the nitty-gritty details).

What you’ll do: pick a bodyweight movement that challenges you but can be completed for lots of reps, like air or jump squats. You’ll work as hard as you can for 20 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, and repeat for a total of 8 intervals. Make sure to get a good warm-up and cool-down in too.

Here’s an example Tabata workout for you to try. If you’ve even taken our U.Fit Bootcamp class, you know how fond we are of burpees! Get creative with your movement choices! We’d love to see someone try a jumping lunge version.

Let us know how you do! If you’re in Pittsburgh and want to give HIIT a try, stop by our Sweat Equity class on Wednesday mornings at 6:30am. You’ll get a warm-up, 20 minute HIIT workout, and be cooled down and on your way out by 7:00. Did we mention it’s one of our free classes?? There’s no reason not to stop by and give it a try. We’ll see you there!

Wellness Retreats Near and Far

You know the drill – New Year’s Resolutions prompt us all to be better, look better, feel better. We join gyms, declutter and meal prep. But once January ends, motivation can stagger when we’re faced with 11 more months of commitment. Instead of being swayed by the easy way out, be your strongest YOU by taking part in a wellness retreat.

Studies show (https://www.spafinder.com/blog/spa-travel/why-you-should-go-on-a-wellness-retreat/) that wellness retreats, detoxes, yoga and meditation have the power to give mental and emotional healing by helping you make changes from within. You can set your reset button, bask in a beautiful location with delicious food, learn something new and take home positive memories.

Wellness retreats can help you find a great balance, and luckily there are a handful of locations offering retreat packages near Pittsburgh.

1. Nemacolin Woodlands Resort

   Distance from Pittsburgh: Farmington, PA (1.5 hour-drive)
   Types Offered: Holistic Living Package, Healing Art of Massage, Universal Love Retreat, Fitness and Adventure Retreat, Longevity & Brain Health, Diet and Nutrition, Yoga & Meditation, and a Rise Up Retreat for Entrepreneurs.

2. Himalayan Institute Pittsburgh

3. Distance from Pittsburgh: Mt. Lebanon (30 minutes from Downtown)
   Types Offered: Learn to Meditate, Getting a Good Night Sleep, Breath Awareness Practice, and Ayurvedic Yoga Consultations

4. Ayurveda Integrative Wellness Institute

5. Distance from Pittsburgh: Robinson Township (30 minutes from Downtown)
   Types Offered: Holistic Healing Spa Therapies for Perfect Wellness and Panchakarma Detox Herbs and Oils

Interested in venturing further away from Pittsburgh? Here are some top-notch retreats (http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/23/travel/wellness-retreats-2017/) around the USA.

1. 1. Glow Wellness

Distance from Pittsburgh: Princeton, NJ (5 hour-drive)
Types Offered: Relax, Cleanse & Glow Weekend Retreat, Healthy Weight Loss Weekend Retreat, and The Total Cleanse Weekend Retreat

1. 1. The Wellness Collective

Distance from Pittsburgh: Ranchero Santa Fe, California (6-hour flight)
Types Offered: Movement & Fitness, Attitude & Perspective, Nutrition & Toxicity, Sleep & Respite, Relationships & Connection and Stress & Balance

1. 1. The Arrigo Programme

Distance from Pittsburgh: New York City (1.5 hour-flight)
Types Offered: Biodynamic medicine, breath work, precision bodywork, Tibetan pulsing and a psychological-astrological hybrid

Or, Try out Union Fitness!
Union Fitness is more than just a gym. It’s more than a place to lift weights, take yoga and spin, run on a treadmill and climb an elliptical. At Union Fitness, we strive to deliver a holistic fitness experience that will help you disconnect from everyday responsibilities and reconnect with your inner self to accomplish your goals. In itself, a membership or class pack at Union Fitness can lead to a stronger, healthier you.

Planning to Succeed: How to tackle meal prepping

I reached the point in my training where I realized that if I wanted to see real results, I had to deal with my diet. We’ve all been there: working out harder and harder each week, but never seeing a big change on the scale. The missing link is almost always our diet, and one of the best tricks for sticking to a healthy eating plan is learning to meal prep. Once or twice a week, make the time to get in the kitchen and pre-make a few meals. The easiest way to start is by prepping your lunches. That way you know your workday meal meets your nutritional needs and you don’t get stuck buying expensive (and often unhealthy) takeout. So, without further ado, my list of practical meal prep tips.

Shop with a list (and stick to it).

The most important aspect of meal prep success is having a plan! If you anticipate cooking on Sunday afternoon, take some time on Saturday to map out your meals for the following week. This sets you up for a successful shopping trip to buy all the things you need (and none of the things you don’t). Mini-tip: never go to the grocery store hungry. That’s how you end up with a cart full of chocolate and not much else.

Buy the right tupperware.

I didn’t realize the importance of this until I had disorganized mounds of randomly sized tupperware literally falling out of my cupboards and drawers. Having a set of uniform tupperware will take a little bit of stress off when you’re right in the middle of cooking up all your food. You’ll thank me later. You can find lots of tupperware options on Amazon; this one is my favorite.

Crock pots will save you heaps of time.

Included in this tip are rice cookers, pressure cookers or any other tech gadget that does the hard work for you while you leisurely sip coffee on the couch or do other fun things like nap. You can cook up whole meals in the crockpot, bulk prepare rice, or just prep all of your protein for the week with this ridiculously simple salsa chicken recipe.

Frozen veggies are your friend.

While fresh produce is delicious, let’s be real: it’s Pittsburgh in the winter and that stuff just isn’t looking that good. Frozen veggies pack the same nutritional punch as fresh produce, but they’ll stay good for much longer and if you shop carefully, you’ll end up spending a bit less too. Frozen produce is picked at peak ripeness and immediately flash frozen, meaning it’s going to be even more fresh than what you find at the front of the store this time of year. Another bonus, it’s easy to mix and match frozen veggie options, so you’re not stuck eating broccoli all week long.

Know when to ask for help.

Have you been working on your meal prep skills for weeks and feel like you’re spinning your wheels? It’s probably time to call in the experts. Many of your Union Fitness staff members utilize nutrition coaches and we encourage all of our members to do the same! That’s why we made sure to include a personalized diet plan with for our 8-week challenge participants. Mike Dolce works with some of the country’s most successful athletes on their diets, and he’s putting a plan together for Union Fitness members that are tackling either the Strength Project or the Steel Revolution Spin Challenge. There’s still time to sign up for a challenge and get access to all the training and nutrition tools you need to meet your goals this year.

Take these tips and jump right in! We’ll be adding some of our favorite meal prep recipes to future blog posts, so keep an eye out. See you in the gym!

Wounded Warrior Project

At Union Fitness, our primary goal is to build a community where our members are passionate about fitness, but we also aim to foster a mindset of giving back to the community outside of our walls. We were fortunate enough to host our first (hopefully of many) events with the Wounded Warrior Project.

First, I’d like to thank Luke Koval for reaching out to set the event up with us. Second, I’m honored that we had about 10 veterans show up for the event. Some were experienced lifters, others hadn’t touched a weight since leaving the service or since their injury, and others had never done any strength training. It was a challenge for our staff, but a blessing as well. If it were easier to get stronger… if the weights lifted themselves… we would never learn any lessons from pushing ourselves and digging deeper to find out what we’re really made of. Well the same goes for coaching. If you explained it once and your members got it, then how would you ever get better. Fitness in general is one big puzzle. We’re just trying to put the pieces, very individualized pieces, together.

The second blessing was the fact that due to these veterans’ sacrifices, we were able to spend a peaceful afternoon together going over training, recovery, rehab, and techniques for mental clarity. Lifting, running, spin, yoga, or whatever you gravitate towards is as much or more for your mental health than it is physical.

To summarize, everyone started to filter in around 1pm. As I said, we had ten veterans, but about 20 people in total. Some girlfriends joined us as well as other training partners and friends for moral support. Our coaching staff gave a brief insight into who we are, what we do, and our philosophies at Union Fitness. Then we flipped the script and had the veterans share with us whatever they were comfortable with- training experience, branch, reasons they were here, injuries, goals, etc. It can be a therapeutic experience to discuss some of these openly, but we have to understand that in order to support these men and women sometimes, especially early in their recovery, they don’t want to share much if anything at all.

We let them guide the afternoon, and they really just wanted to get some input on their strength training and technique, so we moved on to coaching the squat, bench, and deadlift. Even some of the guys that had never squatted before were looking really comfortable under the bar after about a half hour of coaching. There were a couple that squatted over 400lbs, a handful that benched over 300, and some really good looking deadlifts too!

Afterward everyone chowed down on some food that the Penn Brewery donated for the event. It’s nice when the local community supports a new business, all for the sake of giving back to our troops. Our next event is already scheduled for January 31st. Stay tuned for updates! And email us at join@unionfitness.com for any details or if you’d like to make any donations for our veterans!