Ya there’s not alot to post right now, till I sign a lease, and or sign for the equipment. when I get news, I’ll post it here, let you guysa watch this whole thing come togeather, hopefully with beore, during and after pics.
I just started another thread, about a video clip I just watched at Jim Wendlers site, kid with cerebral palsy, that works out, no excuses, awesome.
Great thread. I have never read anything in the GAL section I thought should be stickied until now.
Best of luck Jake and I will continue to read/follow.
That appears to be a basement am I correct? Those are a lot of support columns, I am guessing you cant knock them down/replace them with steel I beams. That would probably be more work and money then you were looking to do and spend.
This is actually the upstairs, I would end up with three levels, basement, main floor, and second floor(pic) all three floors have columns, can’t remove I’ll have to work around them, thats the down side. The up side is tons of room for cheap rent. Floor space is the main problem when looking to open a gym, and price per sqft. I signed a tenative lease today for this place. I plan to play up the rustic feel, with the main floor being cardio and selectorized equipment, upstairs will be classes, balls, weighted bars, and such. The basement will be free weights and heavy equipment.
This will allow me to offer a different feel to each space, including music and what not. The price is ridiculously low, 6$ a ft for main floor, 3$ a ft for upstairs, and the basement is free. There’s no TMI, but I have to cover utilities, snow plow, and garbage removal. So I’m looking at about 10 000sqft for 4500$ a month roughly, this is unheard of, and awesome. We will tighten up the lease next week, and take possesion on Aug. 1st, more latter got to go.
I thought I’d throw somthing else up here while I’m waiting for quotes and such. I’m a welder by trade, and I have acumulated welders and torches and what not in my garage, I do odd jobs for people plus my own projects.(I’m currently trying to hardtail a late model litter bike that was in an accident).
Anyway I was approched by a cop who’s somesort of PLing champ. He wants me to partner up with him, and rent an industrial unit. We would combine our interests, put in a couple racks, lifting platforms, mabey some heavy bags, as well as my welding equipment. This way guys(members) would be able to work on thier cars(projects) and do some real lifting.
The whole idea seems kind of interesting to me. I mean as equipment from my other gyms got tired, we could chop it up, and make some cool lifting stuff, I guess. Everything always seems to happen at once, such is life. A big industrial unit is only around 1000$ a month, so we wouldn’t need alot of members to keep it afloat. It is hard on my membership somtimes allowing guys to do Oly an PLing as well punching bags and what not. So moving these members to another facility has merit. There’s only so much I can do at once though, so we’ll see. If anything comes of this, I’ll throw it up here.
I think providing an outlet for both styles of lifting would be great. You’d essentially be running a monopoly on town fitness (you didn’t say which one it was so I assumed it was the one with your gym as the sole one there)
Ya this woudn’t be a buisiness, it would just be a club with 10-20 guys spliting up the rent. Having a cop on board would keep it from getting raided all the time lol. To be honest, I do alot of my heavy training at home in my garage, and just play around and train clients at the gym. I got a pretty good set up in the garage though. My buddy comes over Sun morn. and we’ll spend 2hrs just doing deads, with chaulk and shit. I hear this is frowned apon in franchise gyms lol.
Anyway theres not much to post right now guys, when the quotes come in, I’ll scan and post them. when the work starts I’ll take progress pics. Funny thing is I’m Tech. illiterate, I don’t even own a cell phone, or Ipad or any of that shit, so I’ll have to get an old fashioned camera to take pics. latter
Got first quote back on Sat. 160 thousand, need to shave this down some, than start bargaining depending on second quote. Also I’m thinking about putting all the new equip. at my first club, and moving that equip. to new place. This way I can have a re-grand opening at my first club with new stuff, we’ll see how it goes.
Not much going on till Aug 1st, take possesion of building, I’ll take pics of the work. On another note, been on house arrest for the last 15mths, this all ends on July third, i have to go in and serve 2 1/2 weeks than it’s all over, and this whole mess is behind me, so the timeing is perfect. latter
good luck with all that
Jake, I can’t give you much input on equipment (mostly a free weights type guy), but I just wanted to say that your story is hugely inspirational to me, and is just the kind of attitude I can only hope to succeed in emulating. I would love to be in your position some day.
My main focus on opening a gym would be to please everyone to some extent, but focus most of your time on where your heart is. I think that Quad’s gym in Chicago is a good example of this. It is a world recognized gym for bodybuilding and powerlifting with names like Ed Coan coming out of there. However, even though this gym pleases anybody trying to be a powerlifter or bodybuilder, they have an entire room with cardio machines and tv’s that bring in all the local people who have no interest in powerlifting or bodybuilding, but just want a place to run on a treadmill.
And that demographic is not in the minority. I don’t think that Quads would be as successful as it is today without the everyday cardio person buying their memberships there because Chicago is not venice beach.
So you’ve got a gym that’s main demographic is soccer mom, family, and senior types. The stuff you are thinking about ordering is great, but by also getting some stuff through Elitefts.com or Rogue, you can order things that cater to a whole other group of people. By having things like a Glute ham raise machine and a couple platforms to do deadlifts or olympic lifts on, you just brought in a whole new demographic. I grew up in an area like the one you’re describing, and I can’t remember how many times I would tour a gym and I would see only 1 squat rack, or no squat rack, or no round plates to do deadlifts with, and those things were enough to make it not an option.
I can see a criticism of this idea being that maybe the seniors or the soccer moms don’t want those “types” coming into the gym, but by setting up some rules and procedures you should be able to weed out the bad members. From the sounds of it it looks like you are already pretty successful so congrats for that! This is all just stuff I would do if I opened a gym.
It’s almost impssible to please everyone, I have all my cardio, and selectorized stuff up front, than in the back I have a couple racks, half racks, and plate loaded stuff. I’m on staff with two different hockey teams as strength trainer, as well as my own athletes. I also have just as maney average overweight clients, most are on a 531 type plan. Every Aug. I move a rack out to the parking lot, and have a mock PLing meet as well as the week between Christmass, and New Years, my guys set their maxes.
I’m also the only gym for a three hour ratius that allows Oly lifting, and some of them travel up to an hour to train at my place. My girl has been running my place for the past year, while I deal with my legal problems, she came home the other day, and said she wanted to ban chaulk because it makes to big of a mess, I said absolutly not. When I moved into current location from the purple place above, I painted the cement floor with polyurithane garage paint, I put rubber down under free weights. This is what I hate about people, every fat out of shape member, bitched nonstop to me and to the franchise about the floor, how it didn’t look very nice.
Every year after taxes, I have around 20 grand to put back in the gym, last year I bought a bunch new equipment, but people bitched so much that this year I wasted money to put in a new floor. This has nothing to do with getting in shape, but people just have to bitch about somthing. I’ve had people Email the franchise because they saw dust bunnies in the corner behind the treadmill.
The good part is that all the fit members, even the skinny crossfit guys love my place, they tell me all the time how great it is, it not just a bunch of random equipment, I have hand picked every piece to work with other pieces. I don’t have a cruch ab machine, but I have a Natulis pullover machine. Fat people bitch about this, fit people get it. I’ll get an up to date pic of my place, the purple one dosn’t do us justice
I would assume you only have chalk in certain places within the gym. Just limit its use to those areas and provide towels and spray to facilitate getting it cleaned up as well as a sign telling members to do so. If they don’t you can specifically address those people.
As for the floor- seriously? Unless there are holes that trip people or something or it’s not flat, who gives a shit? haha
mwiersma. thanks for the input, I actually do have quite a bit of stuff fromm Elite fts, I have a prowler, trap bar, SSbar, and bands with a set up in one of my racks far the bands. I was in the purple gym only for a year, I than moved across the street where we gained 2500sqft. I’ve asked my girl to get pics today. The legal problems I’m dealing with right now stem from me breaking the lease in original location. It’s a hard line to walk, I don’t want to own the kind of gym I’ve made fun of my whole life, but I have a morgage, and a family to feed.
This is what I’m trying to get across to you guys, owning a gym is way different than what people picture. I have 600 members, less than a 100 actually use my place. The rest walk in join up, work out for a week than I never see them again, but I take 40$ a month out of their account. Once a year they come back, and work out for a week, IT’S GUILT that makes people think they should have a gym membership. I have to keep the gym looking pretty for these people. Fit people know that they don’t need a pretty gym.
people use chaulk for everthing including tricept pushdowns lol
I have come to realize that for the overwhelming majority of humans, complaining is second nature and fun. So many people are glass half empty folk, never mind your members have a facility that encompasses the gamut of members from fat ass to athlete, they have to find a fucking dust bunny to complain about and chalk. I wish I could train at your gym.
Thanks Matty, my big strong members are awesome, they come in, they’re quiet, they do they’re training and they leave. I wish I had I more like this. The two types that bother me are forty somthing out of shape yuppies, that expect perfection, and complain about everything. They’re looking for an excuse why they don’t get results, the gyms not clean enough, we don’t have the right equipment, not the right floor, don’t have Zumba.
If only I had these things, they’d look like super models. So they write the franchise, and complain. The other group that bother me, are the same ones that bug me here, 20 somthings. That think they know it all. They come in with they’re 200$ lifting belts, chaulk, knee wraps, and lifting shoes. They make a huge mess mixing up they’re Pre and Post workout drinks, that have to be timed just right in order to stimulate the proper molicules.
They shout and swear, drag equipment around, to invent crazy exercises, overload the equipment for 1/4 reps, that they help each other lift. They never unload anything, use chaulk on every single lift, and when I try to talk to them they look at me like I’m crazy.
I’m 240lb, run a sub 20 min 3 mile, with a 1500lb total, have been lifting for 25yrs, but, I don’t have a 6pack or 20inch arms, so they don’t want to here anything I have to say, rather get they’re routines from a variety of magazines, lol, anyway as I’ve stated, I spend every day with a big shit eating grin on my face, because I love what I do. The complainers - complain, the weak stay weak, and the strong get stronger, such is life
I really like the concept of stuff every day soccer mom types would want up front and more convenient for themand a section or basement(even better) where the “serious” stuff can be placed and used. Cater to both groups if people. And I love the idea of a iron dungeon type of place. I went in to a golds gym, one of the bigger ones in central Florida looking for a membership. They had decent equipment like platform for deads and oly lifting, but in the very center was a HUGE tv entertainment center. There was jist way to much going on in that gym for my taste. Give me a dark musty basement where there aren’t any distractions, just me and the iron any day over that place.
