If you haven't exercised regularly in a while, Curves can help you get back into it. They recommend 3 times a week, but as others noted, if all you do is go to Curves 3 times a week, you will not really see much difference. It only takes 30 minutes to do the circuit and when you're not on a machine, you're on a recovery station where you should try to keep your heart rate up if you can.
The pros of Curves are that if you go and really work your hardest on each rep on each machine, you will see results so long as you're eating right and doing cardio on your non-Curves days (or better yet, on your Curves days, too -- walk, jog or run in addition to doing Curves). The people are friendly overall, and they are all women, so there are no men there watching you work out. There are a variety of women -- the Curves I went to had women from their teens up into their 80's, although the average did tend to be the middle-aged women.
The cons are that if you develop friendships, sometimes women will want to chat while you're doing the circuit, which means you're not concentrating on working your hardest. Also, as someone said, it is the same circuit every time you go, so it can get boring or monotonous, although they do have music. Of course, sometimes I found the music selection to be a con. LOL!
I went for a full year and they measure you every month. I weighed 130 when I started, weighed 118 at the end of the year, and lost inches everywhere. I went from a size 10 to a size 6. I didn't do the Curves diet plan, but that is another thing they offer. I went to Curves four days a week. I also walked every day of the week at least two miles, and over the summer, I swam on two days of the week that I didn't go to Curves (swam a mile). So, my progress wasn't all due to Curves, but I do think Curves can help a person kick-start an exercise routine and that it can work if you work your hardest when you're on the circuit.
After the year, I left Curves because my DH had gotten a family membership at a different fitness place and I didn't see the sense in paying for two memberships. I miss the friends I had at Curves and am glad that I went there, but I do believe I was ready to move on to a more traditional gym. I now use regular weight machines, not the resistance ones Curves uses, and I like that because now I can know how much I'm lifting. That's one thing I do wish Curves had done -- given me an idea of how much my strength improved over time. For example, you start out doing reps with 30 pounds, and then after a few months, you find you can do 35 pounds. With Curves, they have levels -- beginner, intermediate, etc, but if you have an "off" day, it just drops you back to beginner without really telling you how far "off" you were. Hope that made sense, but if not, you'll see when you do Curves. LOL!
-Dorothy (LadyZolt)
