If you’re traveling to one of the many hotels or resorts near Playa del Carmen, you don’t have to take a vacation from fitness.

Tiffany Rothe’s Center 8 Studio has a full schedule of challenging classes in a setting that’s totally unique. While vacationers are warmly welcomed, Center 8 is a community fitness center where expats and locals come to bask in Tiffany’s talent and glow. She’s truly inspiring and it’s not just because of how she looks. Her personality and spirit come through the second you meet her. Her classes are difficult, but do-able and her teachers work with the same level of enthusiasm.

I took Tiffany’s New Yoga Mat Workout, a series of exercises she developed so her clients could exercise wherever they are. A rolled up mat with a strap was supplied and the exercises unfolded, using the mat in a whole lot of innovative ways. The music was awesome and the moves were challenging. There’s also TOGA (Tiffany’s take on yoga), Pilates, 8drenalin and more.

Tiffany was a successful trainer in Los Angeles before moving to Playa after meeting her now husband. She believes people should accept their bodies and not try to be something they aren’t. She preaches fitness, not thinness and her clients not only love her classes, they love her spirit.

Unlike a generic hotel gym, Center 8 Studio is in a real neighborhood and the studio is as special as what goes on inside. Housed in a handmade home built decades ago by true craftsmen, it’s been given new life as an exercise studio. There’s a childcare room near the entrance, a pathway through lush tropical gardens and a huge tree inside the studio.