T
ucked between shops and restaurants at Town & Country, senior Maeva Herbert-Paz swings open a glass door, carrying a yoga mat. She’s heading to CorePower Yoga with her friends. Like many students, Herbert-Paz takes workout classes — a rising form of exercise among students and teachers alike.
Herbert-Paz began taking CorePower classes in the winter when she didn’t have many club sports practices and said they give her the freedom to choose both the difficulty and time of her workouts.
Workout classes such as yoga, Pilates, boxing and dance are popular ways for community members to exercise. And
Story continues below advertisement
Palo Alto offers many studios, including CorePower Yoga, The Bar Method, Barry’s, SoulCycle and Zohar Dance Company.
“When you do CorePower, you have to go because it’s a prepaid membership,” Herbert-Paz said. “I’ve taken a lot of my friends on guest passes, and it’s a really good way to get in a workout and hang out with friends.”
Over the summer, Herbert-Paz also enrolled in a course to become a certified CorePower Instructor.
“I spent 60 hours this summer doing in-person certification, where I learned about yoga, philosophy, anatomy, weight and safety,” Herbert-Paz said. “I can’t teach yet, but when I’m 18, I can get a job there as an instructor.”
Junior Elena Salvatierra said she enjoys workout classes but now goes less frequently because of the high cost. According to the CorePower website, a single studio class costs $38, and an all-access monthly membership costs $299.
“I honestly, stopped going because of (the price), but every once and a while it’s worth it,” Salvatierra said. “I honestly got into swimming just because of the prices.”
Junior Jack January, who has been taking boxing classes since 2022, said boxing has helped him to gain strength and improve his performance for school wrestling.
“In boxing, you’re mostly working on yourself rather than working (with) the whole team,” January said. “Boxing is more focused on you, and you have the chance to actually train on what you feel you need more.”
January said he prefers boxing classes to team sports because they give him more flexibility to workout in accordance to his schedule and athletic needs, allowing him to focus on individual progress.
“It’s a really enjoyable sport, and it definitely showed me that sports (are) a lot more versatile than the sports I tried before,” January said. “I’ve loved boxing since the day I found it.”
English teacher Mimi Park began taking ballet a year ago as a form of physical therapy after an ACL tear, but it is now one of her favorite athletic activities.
“When you go to these classes, and you go often enough, you start to see the same people over and over again, and that’s great because then you have a sense of community,” Park said. “We go out afterwards, and we just end up becoming really good friends.”
Salvatierra said she began taking CorePower classes because her mom did, but stayed because of the flexibility within classes and endurance levels.
“I really like the heated (classes) — it makes you feel like you’re really working for something,” Savatierra said. “And it’s yoga, so I get to incorporate relaxation into it.”
Ultimately, Park said workout classes have made it easy to meet people and stay in shape.
“The beauty of a lot of it is that you literally just walk in,” Park said. “You don’t have to have anything other than comfortable clothing that you can move around in and some courage.”
