Fitness From Every Angle

The fitness center, which has two additional facilities (one for personal training and one for sports training) provides something it calls "edutainment" to its clients. Huff explains that this "is providing a little education [to clients] ... and also making it fun at the same time."

Huff says that personalized service is what sets his facility apart: "We know every client by name, and try and make this feel like a second home for them. We call clients who haven't been in the facility for a while, and invite them back with a personal training session." Another unique aspect of the fitness center is that clients don't have to have a membership to use any of the facility's services.

Equipment selection is an important part of NutriFormance's mission: "We try to match our fitness equipment to our training style," says Huff, "which leads us to choose equipment that allows for a variety of exercises, and allows the user to define the range of motion, movement speed and path of movement. We still have a lot of the basics per member requests, but prefer to help our clients choose multi-joint movements that promote core stabilization." Going along with this idea of multi-joint movements are small group classes called Tower Hour, which is group conditioning using FreeMotion Towers. These small classes "make clients feel like they hired a personal trainer," says Huff.

NutriFormance also offers several packaged services for a more holistic approach to fitness. For example, its Custom Suite program features 12 training sessions, one nutrition consultation and two massages, which "allows our clients to touch more areas of our facility, and hopefully helps them find a solution to their fitness needs," Huff says.

Helping clients "find solutions" is the reason that the facility offers nutrition services. Explains Huff, "We introduce our dietitians to as many members as possible through food intake surveys, presentations and a nutrition board. We feel strongly that if we can improve someone's food intake, then we will help them see results in the facility very quickly. Our nutrition program focuses on behavioral changes, not restrictive diets."

In addition to group classes and nutrition services, the fitness centers offers personal training, which is its largest profit center. NutriFormance employs 18 full-time trainers, and bills 1,800 to 2,200 hours per month across its three locations. Its sports conditioning program (licensed through Frappier Acceleration Sports Training) is its second largest profit center, and targets a completely different market than the facility's other programs: "The average age of this participant is about 10 years old," Huff says. Massage therapy is the facility's third-largest profit center, billing about 150 to 200 sessions per month.

Offering all of these services are four registered dietitians, 14 NSCA-certified Strength and Conditioning Specialists, one Certified Athletic Trainer and four licensed massage therapists. Independent contractors teach group fitness classes. "Almost all of our staff members have a degree in exercise science or a health-related field," says Huff.