Pop-Up Fit Club: A Roving Gym

Here's our first in a series of profiles of workout options and personal fitness routines in the Healdsburg area.

TODAY: POP-UP FIT CLUB

WHAT: "Pop-Up Fit Club" is a series of social-media-organized guided group drop-in fitness classes and activities in the Healdsburg area. Leaders use texting, Facebook and email to keep people in touch about classes and fun activities on a daily basis.

People either check an online schedule or sign up for email or text notices on weekly schedules. Then they either RSVP by text or email or just show up.

WHO: Amber Keneally, a certified personal trainer and Healdsburg resident, started Pop-Up Fit Club earlier this year.

WHERE: Venues include , Vertex Climbing Center, , and others to be added.

WHEN: Classes and activities are seven days a week. Calendar varies weekly in times and locations.

COST: Walk in--$10; 10-class pass, $80. Fitness evaluation -- $30.

CONTACT:  Text RSVP: 707-494-5028; email: fitclub95448@gmail.com; Facebook: www.facebook.com/pages/Pop-Up-Fit-Club/107259896008765 

WHY:  "The concept here is, 'you get a little text the day before, and you decide, 'OK I want to do it,''" Keneally says."Or, we say, 'It's beautiful out here, let's go climb a mountain.'"

 "We all have last-minute inertia and this helps get through that," she says.

"This brings exercise into real life," Keneally adds. "When you belong to a health club, you know the times for the classes but it's easy to say, 'No, I'm too busy.'

"This is like a friend saying, 'Let's go,'" Keneally says.

REVIEW:  "I have young kids and I do go running," said Mary Beth Chandler of Geyserville, who has been doing Pop-Up Fit Club for several weeks. "But I was missing half my body's muscles in the arms and in the core.

"Amber's circuit training feels good and I get a full-body workout," she said.

"I got on Amber's email list and she sends out a schedule and I can RSVP by text or phone," Chandler said. "It's nice."