Garage Gym vs. The Big Box Gym

THE BIG BOX GYM

The average gym member is accustomed to the huge cathedral like buildings of glass and steel erected to the fitness gods. These “big box” gyms are filled with the latest and greatest fitness apparatus known to man. These vast spaces offer amenities like spinning classes, swimming pools, aisles of tread mills, steppers, climbers, and other machines that are supposed to be the latest and the greatest but no one can figure out, not even the 25 year old “personal trainer” that’s assisting you to figure the contraption out while trying to sell you his services dawg.

The big box gym spends tons of cash equipping the place with everything and anything they think they can put in there that will turn a buck. Every square foot of a big box gym’s floor has to make money. Nothing is left to waste; wasted space is loss of money. Equipment manufactures have convinced gym owners that if they stocked enough machines, they could do without the one-on-one personal attention from trainers and increase profits. Ok, let’s see, build a giant building, fill it with lots of machines, hire less competent staff and make more money, sounds like a plan.

Still, with all the bells and whistles at their members disposal, the attrition rate for big box gym members hovers at 35 percent a year, according to the International Health, Racquet & Sports club Association (IHRSA), and the latest estimates show that almost half of the members give up going to the gym within a year. The problem as I see it is a combination of the gyms' desire to maximize profits, and our own desire to find workouts that don't involve work.

The big box gym with its huge overhead and in an effort to retain members has led to a modern gym environment that some critics believe sends mixed messages. "The problem with gyms is that they misrepresent the fact that you are fundamentally there to do work," says Jack Berryman, PhD, a professor of medical history at the University of Washington and a historian for the American College of Sports Medicine. "The modern gym is a techno holiday with gadgets and lights. They're trying to entertain people." And this can be detrimental to people who are trying to stick with their workouts. Perhaps the best evidence against traditional health clubs is that these days most elite athletes rarely step foot in one.


THE GARAGE GYM

When potential clients come to Garage Gym for the first time they look around and they tend to have the same puzzling look on their face. Where’s the stair master? And why are all those people sweating so much? Hey, there’s no a/c in this joint! At first impression Garage Gym is not much to look at. They say that first impressions are very important but we get our point across very clearly at whom we are and what we do. At Garage Gym we’re about functional training that delivers results.

When I came up with the idea for the gym it didn’t start as a business venture, it simply started off as my own personal gym so I could workout with a few friends. I designed the gym to be simple, only the most effective equipment was planned for. With a very limited budget to work with and only a 620sq feet area for the gym I couldn’t afford to clutter up the place with useless machines I need to get the biggest bang for my buck in terms of cash and functional equipment that delivered the best results. Some of the equipment in the gym is home made, some stuff I bought through a used gym equipment re-seller, and a few things were purchased new that I couldn’t find used

Garage Gym was born, small, practical, no frills. I didn’t place mirrors in the gym because to me they are distractions. I don’t play music in the gym because music to me is also a distraction. I don’t have a clock in the gym either, the workouts are timed and since they average 20 minutes it’s really a no brainer. When you’re in the gym your only focus should be the task at hand. Performance psychologist Jim Loehr, EdD, author of The Power of Story and chairman and CEO of the Human Performance Institute, in Orlando, Florida, advises busy corporate executives on how to become more successful at sustaining their commitment to fitness.

Loehr has found that a primary component for making exercise sustainable is to stop tuning out during workouts. "We don't want you disengaged while you are working out," he says. "We tell ourselves that exercise is so painful that the only thing you can do to get through it is to watch TV. Watching television and working out is a form of multitasking. To me, however, real value lies in paying attention. It is an engagement practice, it gets your mind off work, and it aligns what you're doing with what you're thinking."

The training and the workouts conducted at Garage Gym are intense and very effective. Instead of following the usual trend of isolation work done at most gyms, our approach to fitness stresses the training of movements over muscles, the irrelevance of strength without mobility, the neurological foundation to strength and athleticism, and the use of simple tools to gain complex results. The main purpose is to bridge the gap between the appearance of strength and functional strength, to achieve peak performance, and to prevent injuries.

I place a huge premium on personal attention. I make it my business to know my clients and since I conduct 95% of the training I know what they can and can’t do. By conducting small to medium size group classes I created an atmosphere where members encourage each other and work together as a team. According to Steve Myrland, manager of Myrland Sports Training and a former strength coach for the University of Wisconsin and the San Jose Sharks, “There are various studies that show that people who exercise in groups maintain greater motivation to train than those who work out alone.”

Garage Gym will probably never reach the membership numbers or dollar figures of the big box gym. We may never have a string of Garage Gyms across the country and I’m that’s just fine with that. I don’t consider the big box gym to be competition. We travel in two very different plains. They provide a service for those who wish to believe that because the go to the gym they are doing something and I provide a service to those who truly want to make a change.