Visit to a sponsor

     As an added benefit/requirement to our Challenge, we are encouraged to visit some of the sponsors and their establishments to redeem services offered free of charge to the Challenge participants.  Each participant received a punch card attached to a lanyard at the kick-off meeting.  We were told that in order to be eligible for any prizes we must redeem free services from each of the sponsors on our punch card.  More free stuff?  Cool beans.  (You might be a child of the '80s if you recognize that phrase.)
     I believe that in order to keep everyone from showing up at one sponsor and putting them out of business or severely hampering normal business, the cards for different teams had slightly different mixes of the various sponsors.  Mine lists the following: Carolina Core Pilates, Massage Envy, Franklin St. Yoga, Jazzercise and Women's Only Workout.  As you can imagine a red blooded male like myself who guards his man card with every fiber of his being, wasn't too enthused about many of these options.
     In fact, I wasn't so sure it was going to be easy to redeem the free services offered to men (for the Challenge ONLY) from Women's Only Workout.  The WCHL staff assured us at the kick-off meeting that the sponsor had agreed to the listed services.  So after a few days of intending to call and make an appointment and failing miserably, I asked my wife to set up the appointment.  When she talked to the person who answered the phone, they asserted that, "No, there are no men allowed here."  Upon some gentle prodding, the staff person handed the phone to "Kevin" who said that there was no problem and set up the appointment.  This evening was the scheduled date.
     I arrived at my appointed time and found out that there was no record of my appointment in the system.  Kevin, who happens to be the owner of the establishment, remembered speaking to my wife and seemed very perturbed that the appointment was not there.  He asked me to have a seat and wait for a few minutes.  Later Kevin would explain to me that I was the first man from the Challenge to talk to them about redeeming services, so it was still a pretty new idea for the staff.  As I sat and waited, a truck load of ladies came in.  (My appointment was right in the middle of rush hour).
     One of the staff members, a personal trainer, took me back to a room where she performed my Functional Movement Screening.  I basically did a few exercises or movements and she assessed my ability to perform the actions without difficulty or lack of range of motion.  She scored each item and reported back to Kevin.  He then did my Wellness Assessment and prescribed some corrective exercises.  Afterwards he offered me one of their smoothies and I opted for the Strawberry Classic.  I asked and was informed that all their smoothies have less than 300 calories, no fat and plenty of fiber because they use real fruit and not fruit juice. 
     Overall, I'd say I had a good visit.  Kevin and I discussed the health anti-benefits of sitting (which I do all day) hunched at a computer.  He pointed out the benefits of functional fitness to someone who suffers from my ailments.  I told him that Paula had us do a boot camp workout the day before and told him about some of the workouts I had done recently with her.  He affirmed that she sounded very much like she knew what she was doing and making good calls on my fitness regimen.   
     Their facility although tucked in a back corner of Ram's Plaza off of Fordham Blvd. is a fairly big facility for one that is occupying space in a strip mall.  It is open 24 hours and except for me, the owner and a guy who was dropping off the kids at the daycare for Mommy to take home after her workout, there are NO MEN ALLOWED.  * Unless you have a punch card for the UNC Healthiest You Challenge and call ahead for an appointment.

     One last note as a follow-up to yesterday's post ... I AM feeling yesterday's workout.  As I told a co-worker:  There is a little strip of muscle in the middle of my back that isn't sore and it actually feels weird to me that it is the only bit of muscle I have that isn't sore.  There's only one way to fix this though.  Back to the gym tomorrow for interval training.