Without gyms, dumbbells would be forced to return to former, more miserable careers as curtain anchors for preschool plays and hull coverings for lead zeppelins. Utilize happily employed weights with today's Groupon: for $49, you get a one-month membership, one personal-training session, and a 50-minute wellness massage at Sports West Athletic Club (a $295 value).

Sports West Athletic Club houses a multitude of healthful amenities, including free weights, fitness classes, and an indoor pool. An expansive cardiovascular center features equipment such as stairmasters and elliptical trainers to pump tickers and awaken apathetic vessels day and night, seven days a week. Swim laps or re-create gravity-defying moments from the "moon landing" while eradicating calories in the pool, and then douse muscles in postworkout nirvana by submerging body branches into sedative jacuzzi waters. Designed to improve metabolism while boosting cardiovascular health, group fitness classes target fibers with energetic total-body workouts, including Zumba, yoga, and competitive grizzly riding.

During one personal-training session, a fitness expert will administer one-on-one attention and craft a regimen around individual needs and goals. Meanwhile, Sports West Athletic Club's 50-minute wellness massage revives sore nooks and helps improve circulation with medium-pressure kneading and choreographed finger dance-offs.