Curves celebrates new location with ribbon cutting

Greater Greencastle Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Tammy Amor holds the ribbon while Curves owner Rhonda Louderback cuts it during the fitness center's grand opening recently. Helping to celebrate the event were Joyce Norris with Curves, Sally Gray with the Putnam County Museum, Jinsie Bingham of Greencastle City Council, Evelyn Brown of Hickory Creek at Sunset, John York of the Banner Graphic, Greencastle Mayor Sue Murray, City Attorney Laurie Hardwick, Judy Bland of Curves and Bonnie Hanlon with the Greencastle Chamber.

Plenty of parking and adding two new exercise machines helps make Curves' new location at Putnam Plaza a great experience.

Curves is a fitness center designed for women that offers 30-minute fitness and common sense weight loss with the support of a community of women and a circuit coach.

The first Curves franchise was opened in 1992 in Harlingen, Texas by Gary and Diane Heavin. In 2001 Curves opened in Greencastle and in 2004 Rhonda Louderback took over the center.

The Heavins built Curves into the largest fitness franchise in the world with more than 10,000 locations in over 60 countries.

The Greencastle center is one of more than 10,000 worldwide. There are about 1.5 Curves for every two McDonald's in the United States and there are over 4 million members.

"We added two new machines when we moved into this building," said Louderback. "There is also a lot more parking, making it even more convenient for our customers."

Louderback believes Curves works because it provides a complete cardio and strength-training workout in just 30 minutes, where up to 500 calories can be burned with resistance machines that work every major muscle group, two muscles at a time.

Strength training has long been a missing component in women's fitness, but it's a crucial to a healthy body. Pound for pound, muscle burns more calories than fat -- and it also looks a lot better.

"Dieting without strength training leads to muscle loss, which makes it harder to lose weight. Strength training is also good for building strong bones. Sustained cardio activity -- keeping your heart in its target training zone for at least 30 minutes -- is great for burning calories and building lung capacity and aerobic fitness," said Louderback.

In addition, club promotions and events encourage women to support charitable causes, learn about health-related issues and forge lasting friendships as part of the global Curves community.

Enhancing the Curves workout is a personalized coaching system that individualizes and customizes each workout by monitoring heart rate, workout intensity, range of motion and repetitions and then providing a progress report including number of calories burned.

Curves also provides a nutritional component that is an online subscription program offering personalized meal plans, recipes and expert advice to members and non-members alike.

Curves' new location is at 49 Putnam Plaza in Greencastle. Hours vary but they are open Monday through Saturday and until 7 p.m. several nights a week. Call 653-6065 for hours and information.