My ClassPass Experience

ClassPass is a unique fitness membership offering for anyone looking to mix up their workouts. Under one membership, members have the opportunity to visit numerous studios types that have partnered with ClassPass. It is a company founded in New York and went national in January, launching in almost 30 cities so far. ClassPass arrived in Texas in December and is available in Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin, and Houston. For $79 a month, you can try your pick of yoga, Pilates, barre, bootcamp, spin, TRX, dance classes, and more. You can read more on how it works and the fine print here. 

These past two months, I took more than 20 different fitness classes and it was really great learning about all the different offerings in Dallas and Fort Worth. ClassPass is partnered with over 100+ studios and they continue to add more to the list. The studios have a greater concentration in downtown and central Dallas, but there are also quite a few studio offerings in Fort Worth and North Dallas.

Love the pilates inspired interval training at Beyond500

I love the the idea of a multi-studio membership. The fitness lifestyle can definitely rack up a bill. Normally, I workout in a gym and sometimes with a trainer. Costs for my gym membership plus a trainer isn’t cheap. Add on the occasional fun runs and races …there isn’t much left for random drop-in classes or even a whole other membership. Many boutique or specialty studios costs upward of $100-$200 a month and I was tired of feeling like I had to sacrifice variety.

So with ClassPass and getting access to tons of studios is really exciting and definitely more financially viable. Within the month, I was able to incorporate a variety of workouts and get a feel for different places before finding my favorites (as well as studios I didn’t like).

Burn Cardio in North Dallas is great. Variety of workouts in one studio. Find TRX, yoga, spin, barre, pilates, and mommy classes here!

How It Works: Once you’ve activated your membership, you’ll log in and can begin to peruse through the many studio offerings. Depending on what you’re looking for, you can use filters to find studios based on workout-type or area (i.e. Uptown, Carrollton, Frisco, etc). Once you’ve selected a studio, the studio schedule will populate and you can reserve your spot. You’ll also get confirmation emails and reminder emails. Keep in mind, there is a 12 hour cancellation window. If you cancel less than 12 hours before a class, you’ll get penalized with a $15 late cancel fee. If you don’t show up at all, that’s a $20 no-show fee. With this in mind, I never missed a class!

Why walk when you can fly? My guy friends loved the competitive aspect of this spin studio.

Some of my favorite studios in Dallas were Beyond500, Burn Cardio Studio, WeYogis, Flywheel Highland Park, YogaUp, and CorePower Yoga. On average, I was able to attend 10 classes a month and repeatedly visited Flywheel, WeYogis and Beyond500. Scheduling wise, you are limited to 3 classes per studio. I never saw this restriction as a “limitation” per se. If anything, once I burned through my 3 visits, I was more inclined to explore other options. Also, not all studios open up their entire schedules. I’m not much of a morning person and only workout in the evenings or weekends, however I never really had an issue finding a late class to attend.

Loved: I loved the variety. Scheduling classes became addictive. I really enjoyed how easy it was to reserve and or cancel a class. For every studio I arrived to, checking in was super easy. I was rarely required to fill out additional forms (except for a waiver here and there). As a blogger, it was a great learning about the many offerings in Dallas. I enjoyed incorporating more yoga classes into my workout routine. As a result, I can now touch my toes!!! It’s about the little wins, damnit.

One of my favorite yoga studio finds on ClassPass. That Athlete’s Deep Stretch class is a must!

By broadening my horizons, I became more aware of my strengths and weaknesses and was able to adjust my workouts to compensate. There’s also a great community that comes with ClassPass. With the few friends that had ClassPass, it was fun discussing which studios we liked and recommended and which studios we didn’t.

Hated: Hated not being able to go to more classes. Ha. There were a few experience issues I ran into. The website was glitchy most of the time. The filters would freeze or not populate when searching for a specific studio and I had to constantly refresh. I was so happy when the app finally launched, because it was much easier to use the app to book classes. What I am really impressed with is how quickly changes are implemented. Before this review, I wasn’t a fan of the previous 24 hr cancellation window. Things come up ya know?! Meetings, traffic, illnesses, etc. I do wish there was at least one get out of jail free card if there is a last minute cancellation. Also, before this review, one of my gripes was the absence of an app. How was I supposed to workout on the go? And then as though my house was bugged, poof! There was an app! Definitely like the app a lot more. It’s less glitchy than the site. Other gripes I had with the website was not being able to see the studio list. It’s there now (just scroll mid-page and use the map to see proximity of studios by city)!

Aerial yoga yall at YogaUp. One day I’ll be able to do the splits.

I also wish there was a little more meat in the class description area to help me make sure I am attending the appropriate level class. Not sure how that is controlled, if it’s by the studio or solely by ClassPass, but there was one class I attended I should not have. That 1.5 hr class of “all level” yoga was torture. With ClassPass, you are also able to review and rate the class. OH did they hear my feedback! Another suggestion I’d like to offer is being able to see the number of spots already reserved for class.

The one challenge I did face was trying to use ClassPass in addition to a gym routine. When you think about how much a drop-in class typically costs (average $20), you want to use your ClassPass as much as possible. Realistically, I workout 4-5 times a week. With designated days for legs, arms, shoulders, back, abs, it was definitely hard to keep that up and track progress.

Get acquainted with TRX at Fitness With Insight. Low impact and great for beginners to start.

Who is it for? Everyone. Of all fitness levels. From fitness newbs to fitness junkies, there’s something for everyone. Men included. Right now, the ratio of women to men using ClassPass is 9 to 1. I hope more men begin to find the benefits of ClassPass and more male-centric gyms/studios are added to the studio list. I challenge guys to try a class at Beyond500 or Flywheel. It’s no cake walk, fellas!

The Takeaway: I think ClassPass is a great option and debuted in Dallas at the right time. Dallas is changing so much and with the fitness lifestyle becoming more prominent with Dallasites, it’s the way go. Multi-studio memberships like ClassPass offer fitness newbies a way to find the right studios for them and fitness junkies a way to expand their horizon and do it at a reasonable cost.

Don’t underestimate barre. Kiersten’s class at The Barre Code literally had my butt on fire.

Fugitive Fitness and Parkour is the only parkour gym in Dallas. It’s a new add to the studio list!

In order to write about the ClassPass experience, Deep Fried Fit received two complimentary months of the membership. As a result, she was able to write numerous fitness blogs through her experience as well.