A touch of sexy to stay fit

Poles and mats and mirrors! Oh, my! When it comes to meeting your sexy side, Aradia Fitness, a women’s fitness studio, offering pole and lap dance, sexy exercise and striptease classes, is ready to make a steamy introduction. The company will even throw in a chair. That’s because Chair Fit, an Aradia class that incorporates the use of a chair to target abs, glutes and thighs, is increasing in popularity.

“Advanced polester” and Aradia enthusiast Ronna Laine-Flowers says Chair Fit takes classic exercises and adds a touch of sexy. For example, according to Laine-Flowers, the “sensual stuff” is incorporated with routines such as the Sexy Cricket, which involves leaning back in the chair and extending each leg alternately while it is in the air or the Bicycle, during which you lean back with your legs in the air and pretend to pedal a bike. Other exercises include bicep curls, planks and even leg-raises to get the desired, sculpted effects.

Of course, any fitness routine requires long-term commitment to produce results and Chair Fit is no different. “I have to emphasize that I wouldn’t be where I’m at today, when it comes to the pole and chair stuff, if it weren’t for all the drop-in classes,” says Laine-Flowers, who makes Aradia part of her fitness regime about five days a week, with a one-year membership that allows her to sign up for any desired number of drop-in classes.

Chair Fit and pole dancing classes are both excellent for burning lots of calories, building upper-body strength, improving flexibility and boosting sexual confidence. Just don’t be fooled by that chair. “It’s the one class that I know gives me a good workout ’cause I’ll have the good ol’ burn after. There’s always somebody new who’s never taken Chair Fit, and they walk out going, ‘Oh, my God!’” Laine-Flowers says.

Six years ago, Christine Boyer and Tracy Gray, two Vancouver-based women looking to use pole dancing as an exciting way to get fit, founded Aradia Fitness. They bought a pole, watched the pros and used their fitness backgrounds to develop a program that incorporates sensual movement to build strength, confidence and flexibility. Since then, Aradia has grown to include a variety of classes in studios across the U.S. and Canada. It has also given more than 20,000 people their sexy back.