Woodfield Country Club
New Fitness Centers Opens | Boca Raton, FL
The city of Boca Raton granted Woodfield CC a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy to open the Fitness Center early on October 5th. The remainder of the Cascades complex
is set to open November 9th. This includes the Spa, Blendz Café and the lower level Fitness Studio.
Per Woodfield Country Club:
Blendz - In addition to the traditional morning offerings like bagels, fruit and coffee, Blendz will now feature complimentary oatmeal. New items like Greek yogurt, cappuccino and espresso will be available for a charge.
Salon - The Salon will feature a brand new makeup display filled with Babor makeup products as well as an expanded Boutique complete with fresh lines of retail goods.
Fitness Studio - The new studio will be utilized for our gentle class formats such as Yoga and Pilates. It will also function as additional space for Small Group Training and expanded functional training.
So far my expectations for the gym have been exceeded. There is more than enough cardio equipment to handle peak hours of training. Treadmills, Ellipticals (both
Precor and
True Fitness),
Octane Fitness lateral ellipticals, traditional
stair masters, the difficult stair masters like walking up a flight of stairs (aka the Gauntlet), fan bikes, upright
Life Cycles, and recumbent True bikes. I might be missing some cardio equipment, but if you like variety with cardio machines,
Woodfield has it's members covered.
The fitness center also has a spinning room, upstairs private studio for training and classes as well as the upcoming downstairs fitness studio which was touched upon earlier.
As for strength training, the fitness center is well equipped. I have been strength training for a good 25 years now, and even competed in bodybuilding shows when I was in college (and won the 21 and under), I can be a bit of a snob when it comes gyms. I grew up on Long Island and trained with pro bodybuilders from Jimmy "the bull" Pellechia at Gold's Gym in Northport to Jimmy Quinn at Worlds Gym in New York City, and now Dareem Charles at my other Boca Gym, BusyBody, the type and variety of equipment will determine the crowd the gym draws.
There is a plethora of
Cybex Eagle NX and
Cybex Prestige machines that cover all body parts. Legs are well equipped with lying leg curls and seated leg curls for hams, leg extensions for quads, glute blaster for the rump, adductor and abductor combo machine and a leg press. There is also a smith machine and power rack for those that prefer free weights as well as a Cybex leg press. Not a fan of the Cybex leg press as that is where my only training injury came from when I had 990lbs on the machine and my knee gave out. Sounded like a 5 year old jumping on bubble wrap. Gave me a limp for a few years but I have recovered
New to the gym are the
Hoist Fitness line of machines. I think there are 4: chest, shoulders, back and biceps. I like these machines. They are very smooth and hit the muscle groups even better than Hammer strength machines (in my opinion). The trainers in the gym tell me 30% of the resistance comes from your own body weight. That's good because it's hard to find enough plates to load on these machines.
Before we get into free weights, there is a variety of other strength training apparatus. There is the heavy bag for boxers, good selection of medicine balls, rubber band training and TRX tension training. Woodfield finally put a dedicated stretching area for people to stretch out of the way and also train abs. It is located in the old Blendz café. The unusual thing about this area is the fish bowl off of the upper lobby - see below photo:
This may give some people apprehension about using the area located right in front of the window. Then again, attention seekers might flock to train in this area as well. Depends if your glass is half full or not.
On to the free weights. The floor has great sound suppression, so if you drop a dumbbell, whether 5 lbs or 120 lbs, the floor absorbs the noise. This is a big plus since the spa is located beneath the gym and won't disrupt those trying to relax. Smart move. As you guess, the gym is equipped with dumbbells from 5 lbs to 120 lbs. I am probably one of 5 people in the entire Club that actually use the 120's. There are preset barbells from 30 lbs to 120 lbs. I have heard that 120 lbs barbell is about to be removed in lieu of it's 20 lbs counter part. Makes sense and not a big loss. If someone really needs a 120 lbs barbell, there are more than enough plates in the gym to accomplish that with a barbell.
The free weight area is big and small at the same time. Woodfield dedicated a decent portion of the gym to free weights, but it should have been bigger. If there are 3 people in this area at the same time, it feels claustrophobic. Not good. This is why I start my training at 6:15AM in the morning to avoid the crowds that show up at 8AM after they had bagels and coffee at Blendz café. There is a Smith Machine, Power rack, 1 flat bench, 1 incline bench, a preacher curl bench, 1 seated calf raise and a variety of benches (3 incline/flat benches, 1 decline and 1 chair) that can be used with dumbbells or the smith machine, power rack or cables. The gym finally has a cable cross over machine which has a connected lat pull down, cable row and assisted pull up and dip machine. The gym permanently affixed the lat pull down handle and cable row handle to the machines, making less variety for back training. The only reason right now why i keep my separate gym membership at
BusyBody is for back.
Per Woodfield,
Coming Soon!
- High-impact wall in the Functional Training area.
- Water station near cardio machines.
- Gatorade, water bottles and protein bars will return to Cascades when the new Blendz Café opens.
- Junior Certification Program Wristband Policy - a new policy that will require certified Juniors to wear designated colored wristbands while using the Fitness Center. Stay tuned for further details.
- Fitness Studio - Woodfield's new first floor Fitness Studio will open soon and will provide additional space for gentle class formats and expanded functional training.
- AudioFetch - a new feature that will allow you to wirelessly sync your smartphone audio to TVs anywhere on the Fitness Floor.
- Performance IQ - state-of-the-art training program that wirelessly connects heart rate monitors and cardio equipment to allow real time display of performance metrics. Performance IQ and heart rate monitoring will be featured in select cycle classes beginning November 2.
I am a big fan of
Woodfield and am very excited for everything coming up. The gym is a great introduction into what
Woodfield has put into this 2 year renovation coined the Long Range Plan (LRP). Can't wait to see the remainder of Cascades on Nov 9th and ultimately the pool area, poolside restaurant and kid center in the Spring of 2016. This is a world class facility that is attracting young families in Boca Raton and I look to do my part to bring younger members into the Club now that the renovations are finally being unveiled.
If you see me in the gym, please feel free to say "Hi!" I tend to keep my headphones on and remained focused so I can get in and out of the gym quickly to get back to my family and so I can work on selling more homes within the Club and Boca Raton area. Definitely come up and introduce yourself. Just don't do it while I'm pressing the 120 lbs dumbbells :-)
This is not an official Woodfield marketing piece and all photos are property of Craig Greenberg, Woodfield Country Club resident and realtor.
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