Halfway through spring semester, we find ourselves lost in club commitments, extracurriculars, midterms and all the responsibilities that come with being a college student. The pain doesn’t end with scholastic priorities — we are broke. With the bank reaching its lowest point of the whole school year, so too does our mental health. But don’t fret! With an increasingly empty wallet and a mind in desperate need of rejuvenation, here are four free wellness offerings near campus you can take to find yourself again, both physically and mentally.
CorePower Yoga
CorePower Yoga, located at 811 University Ave., offers a week of free yoga to first-timers! It offers unlimited classes and access to all studios, with a wide array of class types, giving you the opportunity to escape the doom of midterm season. CorePower’s most popular class is Yoga Sculpt, which is a heated workout with cardio, weights and yoga — something surely bound to get your mind off of that dreaded job application, at least for an hour or two! Additionally, as my trusted yoga virtuoso roommate informs me, yoga classes here are “pretty hype and will get the vibes going!” Thus, if you don’t take my word for it, trust hers and take advantage of a free week of yoga.
Mighty Pilates
Mighty Pilates, nestled in the heart of Elmwood at 2631 Ashby Ave., offers a “Refer a Friend” special in which you earn a free class for sending in a new friend! If it’s your first time here as well, the studio offers a “New Client Class Special” that includes five classes for $99. This is a smaller studio, with classes having about eight to 12 people in attendance. Mighty Pilates offers reformer pilates and excellent vibes with encouraging music that will no doubt eliminate the second-semester blues from your bones. Simply take the 51B or 36 buses to Elmwood, and trust that after a couple of hours, you’ll have a good reason to nap your stress away!
Orangetheory Fitness
Orangetheory Fitness, situated at 2475 Shattuck Ave., offers a free first class. With times ranging from bright in the morning to early evening, you can find the perfect class to squeeze into your already jam-packed spring semester schedule. Certified coaches guide the exercises and unique technology monitors your body, ensuring that you are working out at the correct intensity for your fitness level. With a wide range of equipment, technology and support, Orangetheory Fitness is the perfect place for you to enter your fitness era — at least for a day!
UC Berkeley Recreation & Wellbeing classes
Last but not least, our very own UC Berkeley Recreation & Wellbeing! If you’re looking for exercise, but don’t yearn for an extensive voyage, take a stroll right down to the RecWell Fitness Studio, located at 2295 Shattuck Ave. — formerly a CorePower Yoga studio — which is just one block from the Recreational Sports Facility. Here, UC Berkeley students can take group fitness classes and instructional pilates. While the pilates classes do cost money, the group fitness classes are free and open to all UC Berkeley students and Recreation & Wellbeing members. With classes ranging from cycling to high-intensity interval training to Zumba, the world — and more specifically, spring semester on campus — truly is your oyster. Forget about classes, assignments and deadlines, you can force yourself to take a Total Athletic Conditioning class at 9 a.m. For free! Don’t forget to take advantage of your student benefits.
With these free trials and classes floating in front of you like a carrot on a stick, give your mind a break and your body a kickstart. Not only will these classes get your endorphins going, they’ll also give you a chance to develop a gym crush! Perhaps you’ll even leave these trials with a newfound pilates addiction. Fair warning, though, these trials only last so long, and it’s quite likely you will drop more bands on fitness in the near future than you thought humanly possible. But hey, priorities.