A Workout for Warriors: Union Street Athletics planning fall fitness party

Union Street Athletics’ Group Fitness team.

Every time we Les Mills instructors take to the stage, we often preach to our participants, “If you’re not willing to take risks and challenge yourself, you won’t reap the rewards.”

That sentiment certainly can apply to launches at our clubs. If we do the same thing over and over again, every three months, we run the risk of becoming too vanilla. And members like something challenging that’s going to push them to limits they never thought possible.

Over the last month, my teammates at Union Street Athletics and I have been just as hard at work off the stage as on in planning one of the biggest fitness parties that Maine will ever see.

On Oct. 19, USA, located in Bangor, Maine, will host a launch event we’re dubbing “USA Fit Fight: Workout for Warriors,” during which we’ll be showcasing five of our Les Mills programs and raising money and awareness for two worthy causes at the same time.

The fun kicks off at 8 a.m. with RPM and BodyFlow, followed by outdoor BodyCombat and GRIT Cardio classes at 9:15 and 10:30, respectively, and the day will be capped by an indoor CXWORX class at 11:15. A post-workout barbecue is on tap as well, and this will happen rain, shine, or dare I say, snow!

The charities we will be proudly supporting will be the Travis Mills Project and the DAV Transportation Program. For more information on both of fantastic these charities, visit www.travismills.org or www.DAV.org.

Participants will have a chance to try five awesome new releases – I’ve had a chance to do CX, RPM and Combat thanks to the Mega Quarterly down in Orlando I attended in August – and they’re all awesome! Not only that, if you try at least three classes, you’ll be entered in a drawing for a USA Fit Fight: Workout for Warriors T-shirt, courtesy of Berg Sportswear.

Now that I’ve covered the basics, let’s cover the benefits a little bit.

For one, this is an awesome opportunity for us to showcase why we are one of the top fitness clubs in the Northeast and New England, and to show that we have a strong commitment to a healthy, fit lifestyle. It’s also a fantastic opportunity to showcase five awesome programs and support two great charities at the same time. Doing classes outside is also a major attraction. We’ve set a goal to have over 100 people attend. I’m thinking we’re going to shatter that!

We couldn’t have made this possible without the support of many, many people in the community who have stepped up and supported us. Doing any Les Mills class outside is an arduous task, in terms of getting a stage, sound system, extra microphones, all that stuff. The reason I’m just going to leave it as “many people in the community” is because I know I’m going to leave somebody out. Everybody has been awesome, and this is going to be fantastic for our members. I think we’ll get quite a few new ones out of this as well!

This would also not be possible without all of us working together as a team to make this happen. From the first meeting, it has been a complete team effort and I have no doubts that Oct. 19 is going to be the best fitness party that Maine has ever seen, and one of the best ever showcased in New England. I’ve asked myself numerous times as well, could this be another baby step in getting some sort of quarterly workshop to the Cross Center in the future?

Oh, and for those of you who are wondering, BodyPump will be launched at the gym the following weekend (Oct. 25-26-27).

Ryan McLaughlin

About Ryan McLaughlin

BDN sports reporter Ryan McLaughlin grew up in Brewer and is a lifelong fan of the New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox, Boston Celtics and Boston Bruins. In "The Boston Blitz" he'll be sharing his perspective with BDN readers about what's happening on the Boston professional sports scene.