Merritt Clubs Blog

You may be a master of self-discipline, but if you find yourself bored with your current routines, the following will you help bring the passion back.

Hire a Trainer. Sign up for a boot camp, or a one on one session with a trainer at a Merritt Athletic Clubs. Trainers can give solid advice and the encouragement you need to make it past a plateau.

Compete. Sign up for an event, like the Merritt Challenges, or join a team. The social support a team gives you can fire up your resolve for a healthy lifestyle. Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is an important component in a healthy lifestyle.

Go for the gold. Give swimming a try. The pool can introduce you to muscles you didn't know you had! It is not too late to take a class if you had never learned to swim.

Take Martial Arts Class. Karate is a great place to start. Attending a weekly class as a newbie is a challenge to even the very fit. Build your confidence and focus while learning practical new self-defense skills.

Virtual Workouts. Technology can give your workout the boost of energy you need. Reserve a spot in the XRKade to kick boredom to the curb once and for all. Play your way out of boredom through an exhilarating session of Dance Dance Revolution or virtual sports like snowboarding and cycling.

Contact us to help you break out of boredom and into an enjoyable pursuit of a healthy lifestyle.

A healthy lifestyle will make you look and feel good. Eating right and exercising will give you a naturally high amount of energy to keep you active throughout the day. If you want to change your lifestyle and follow a healthy regimen, try these simple steps.

Get Enough Sleep

Your body depends on a full night’s rest to gain the strength it needs for the next day. Insufficient sleep will cause your body to feel run down and sluggish, even if you miss just an hour. Keep your sleep schedule as balanced as you possibly can to boost your energy level up.

Mental Health

Using your brain and exercising its ability is a key factor in eliminating stress. Reading a good book will allow your body to relax and keep your mind from thinking about the stressors in your life. Yoga and Pilates are excellent forms of exercise that release stress as well. Positive relationships with friends and family actually do the body good as well. Smiling and laughing reduces stress while negative relationships can cause worry and physical conditions such as headaches and stomachaches.

Good Diet

Eating nutritious meals full of fruits, vegetables, nuts, lean meats, and grains will keep you on the right track. Try to avoid sodium high and greasy foods as much as you can. These foods will also increase your physical performance and you’ll notice the difference week by week. Remember to drink plenty of water to provide nourishment to your body and flush out toxins.

Physical Exercise

You can prevent health issues by working out at least 3 days a week. Mild to moderate exercise is all you need to keep up with your healthy lifestyle. At Merritt Athletic Clubs, we have all different forms of exercise for you to participate in. You can choose from core, cardio, strength and interval training. We also have sports clubs such as running, aquatics, swim team, and basketball to keep your energy levels balanced.

If you’d love to participate in one or more of our clubs, contact us!

Exercise and rest are both vital to your wellbeing, and 24 hour gyms may help you sleep better. If you’re tossing and turning because your schedule doesn’t match the nine to five world, maybe you need a new fitness club.

You’ve probably heard advice about not exercising vigorously right before bed, but you may not have known why. It’s based on the theory that intense aerobic exercise increases stimulating hormones like adrenalin in your blood and raises your body’s core temperature slightly. Once elevated, your body temperature stays higher for a while and then falls to a temperature a bit lower than normal about six hours later. That cooling off makes it easier to fall asleep and stay asleep.

This is all great if you get off work at 5, squeeze in a kickboxing class and loll around for several hours before bed. If you travel extensively or have a schedule that varies due to shift work or different classes each semester, it gets a lot more difficult.

A 24 hour gym will let you work out whenever is ideal for you. In addition to avoiding intense activity before bed, you may also want to work out as soon as you wake up no matter what time that happens to be. Some studies show that people burn more fat during workouts before breakfast or anytime their stomachs are empty.

We should mention that some experts think that working out regularly is the important thing and don’t attach much importance to the time of day so experiment to find what works for you. Almost everyone does agree that reducing your exposure to light for a couple of hours before you retire promotes better rest. That’s because TVs, computer screens and other sources of light trigger your brain to stay alert making this another good reason to visit a fitness club earlier in your day or evening.

Merritt Athletic Clubs is the largest fitness center operation in the Baltimore area with several 24 hour gyms to fit your lifestyle. These include the 24 HR Downtown Athletic Club, Buckingham, Canton, and Cranbrook facilities. Contact us to learn more.

Come check out all the exciting things we have going on this summer here at Merritt Athletic Clubs at Cranbrook! We have summer dance camps that will be starting up; we have numerous programs that will be running such as our new biggest loser event called "The 6 Weeks Summer Slim Down", and our new group fitness schedule that we will be kicking off in July. We will be offering a Zumba party at the end of the month of July so if you enjoy dancing this is something you definitely do not want to miss out on. Also we are always looking for new ideas to do at the club so if you have something in mind please let us know, and we will do everything we can to make it happen! When you are in please introduce yourself to our staff here at Merritt so we can get to know you much better. We have Kai Kroeller who is the club manager, John Alban who is the assistant club manager, Vernell Silas and Chris Gajewski in the sales department, and Robin Coady on the front desk. Please give a huge Merritt welcome also to Briauna Snowden who will be starting in July as our new club advisor. Thank you and we hope to be seeing you around the club all summer long!