Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
HOLIDAY WORKOUT SOLUTIONS TO KEEP YOU ON TRACK
With just days until Christmas, you might be hoping to get a final workout on Christmas Eve, before you take a day off from the gym to spend time with family. Or you might prefer not to take off in order to keep your routine up or because you need some decompression time from the intensity of family visiting from out of town.
Regardless, while many gyms have truncated hours on Christmas Eve, most are closed on Christmas Day unless they are a 24/7 gym like Anytime Fitness in North Coventry or the Pottstown Athletic Club in Pottstown.
If your gym is closed and you prefer to stick close to home to get some physical activity, you can always bundle up and head to the Schuylkill River Trail starting at Riverfront Park, Pottstown, for a walk or run. If the chilly temperatures forecasted have you wanting to stay indoors, you can consider starting up a free 30-day trial with Peloton’s digital fitness subscription and take one of their holiday-themed classes.
At the Pottstown Athletic Club, it’s a day like any other on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day since members can come and go as they please 24 hours, seven-days-aweek, regardless of holidays.
“There will be a lot of out-oftown drop-ins who come in who live outside the region and fly to the Pottstown area to see their family — there is a constant flow on Christmas Eve,” said Robert Matthews, executive director and co-founder of the Athletic Club with his late wife, Katherine. “They are involved with other Crossfit facilities and they have access here.”
He said the same goes for Christmas Day.
“On Christmas Day there are people that come in early and do their workout and then are heading to their families,” he said. “A lot of these folks are seasoned athletes who weigh their food and are experienced about what they do.”
Others will spend the morning with their family and then hit the gym afterward.
“They will come in and want to burn off some of those calories they consumed,” Matthews said.
Some members come because they are alone on the holiday.
“There are a lot of individuals out there who may be going through a challenging time in their lives and might be alone,” he said.
Access to fitness, regardless of financial standing, is the backbone of the Athletic Club’s mission. The inspiration behind ensuring all have access is personal for Matthews.
“I was raised by a single parent and we were very poor,” he said. “My mom was on welfare until I was about 12 and I remember trying to go and do karate classes and we just didn’t have the finances for it.”
He shared some circumstances where he has waived the Club’s monthly fee and instead has charged what someone can afford.
“Occasionally I’ll get a call from a young man or lady and I can tell in their voice they can’t afford it and then I’ll quickly chime in that, ‘you need to come in a see me and if you don’t have the financial means and we will make it available for you,” Morris said. “No one is turned away for financial hardship.”
He further explained how his Club, a 501(c), is there to serve the community in other ways, such as through it is a treatment program. There will be a special event coming up next weekend that is free and open to anyone who is going through recovery from alcohol or drug addiction, regardless of whether or not they
are a member.
“We are doing a special New Years’ workout for one of our programs called theweeklyfight. org,” he said, adding the program is part of CrossFit Pottstown Resurgence (CPR). “We have a large recovery program of recovery athletes and instead of partying they do New Year’s Eve at the Bar, which is the ‘bar’bell.”
Matthews said there will be a broad range of individuals and skill levels on the workout floor.
“We can meet anyone’s fitness level,” he said. “It’s a CrossFitbased program for anyone who is in recovery who needs support and is feeling a little cabin fever and wants to come around and be around a bunch of like-minded individuals — they are welcome to show up.”
Looking ahead to 2023, Matthews looks forward to three new programs the Club will be launching.
“In honor of my wife, we are getting ready to pull the trigger on adaptive athletics, adaptive paddling and adaptive wheelchair basketball,” he said.
The main goal of the programs is inclusivity.
“We aren’t looking to create a room for people in wheelchairs doing exercise,” he said. “We are looking to have people in wheelchairs have workouts with our regular athletes. We want them feeling the whole inclusive effect. We don’t want them separated. No one will feel isolated.”