“I really want people in Haliburton and small towns in general to have the opportunity to be ambitious with their fitness,” said Chelsea Adamson, standing in the middle of Sweat Social Health & Fitness, Haliburton’s newest gym and training facility.
Based out of the wellness hub, a multiuse building on Industrial Park Road, Sweat Social is geared towards anyone’s fitness goals, whether working out is a new experience or a longtime passion.
The facility opened for group classes in mid-October.
“If you’re coming in and just want to feel healthier to better run up the stairs without getting out of breath, it’s a great environment for that,” Adamson said. “But if someone’s getting more specific, like they want to do fitness competitions, powerlifting competitions, or they want to go to a CrossFit competition… they have somewhere that they can train ambitiously.”
Adamson and her partner lived in Alberta until mid-way through the pandemic. She worked in a gym and managed social media accounts for various athletes. The goal was always to move back to Haliburton, where her partner is from.
“Everything that I did over the course of our eight years in Alberta was to eventually open up a gym here.”
Classes at Sweat Social use multiple “functional fitness” movements to build strength, cardiovascular endurance and agility.
“Today, the girls did bench press and deadlift, and they’ve worked the entire upper body,” Adamson said, referring to a group class that had just ended. “I had girls and boys yesterday slamming ‘slam balls’ into the ground from overhead and then rowing too,” she said. The specific movements in each workout vary day to day, but everything from kettlebell weights to rowing distance can be scaled to fit anyone’s comfort level and experience.
There are also open gym sessions. Members will receive a key card and can access the facility all day.
Adamson is offering personalized nutrition coaching, where she will tailor advice and education depending on the goals, environment, experiences and preferences of the person seeking her input.
Adamson said she wants Sweat Social to be much more than a room of weights and machines. “It’s about making proper role models for the next generation,” she said. “It is about instilling healthy habits in [people] as young as possible and creating a community of like-minded individuals that enjoy being healthy, and being fit together.”
For more information, contact Sweat Social at sweatsocialfitness@gmail.com.
