Candor is a nice place to live. A small, quiet agricultural village nestled in the Southern Tier of New York; it has a great school system and is an excellent place to raise a family. There was only one problem with Candor in 1986: it didn’t have a place to workout.
I found a entry level engineering job 45 miles away and I was then able to purchase my first home, a small, two family house with an old garage in the back. Barb, still my fiancé, lent me $1500 to convert the garage into our first gym, We still kid about me marrying her for the money.
By the middle of 1987, Barb and I were married and the gym was complete with some used equipment installed. The Muscle Shack was born! My stepfather suggested the name and I still think it was a commentary on my carpentry skills. It was a humble beginning. We heated the place with portable kerosene heaters in the winter. 50 degrees was considered warm.
The purpose of The Muscle Shack was primarily to give me a place to exercise. I thought I could offset the cost of the equipment with paid memberships. It was a nice, free place for me to workout.
It only took a few months to get 15 members (most of them young guys from 16 to 30 years old), and outgrow the garage. I could see there was good potential to grow this business, but the property was not designed for it. There was limited parking and the garage space was too small. In October of 1988, my wife, our 6-week-old son, and I moved to a better location for the club. We bought an old farmhouse with a big barn. The barn with attached buildings measured about 2000 square feet. We renovated the barn and offered aerobics classes, a weight room, and Tae Kwon Do.
The aerobics program developed quite the following in a short time, but it was barely covering the expenses of instructors and utilities. Our awesome head aerobics instructor moved back to her home town after a year and the program limped along for a a little while after that. The Tae Kwon Do program was successful for about 3 years. The original instructor quit after 5 months to join the Army, but I took over teaching the classes.
Starting Over
Even when the aerobics and Tae Kwon Do classes were booming, we didn’t make much money with them. The weight room carried the place. It had low overhead (no instructors) and was the easiest to manage (finding and keeping instructors). It was apparent that we needed to increase membership in the weight room and eliminate the programs that weren’t performing.
There were about 20 young men under the age of 30 that were members of the weight room part of the business. What we needed were more women! We found that even though we encouraged the women in our classes to strength train in the gym, they were reluctant to lift weights with guys. To remedy this, we set up an exclusive time for them to train with weights.
Thirty-three women signed up within a month, increasing membership by more than 100%.
It was clear that we not only needed to attract women to our gym, we needed to be a Women Only Facility. In 1992, we closed down “The Muscle Shack” and sold all the equipment. We reopened April 1, 1993 as “Fay’s Fitness Com¬pany” with a focus on women’s strength training. Barb was the sole proprietor of the business. She handled all instruction, training, and recruiting. I took care of the business stuff and maintenance work.
The business grew on an average of 20% per year for the next 10 years and reached a peak membership of 100+ clients in 2004. We incorporated the business in the same year.
In October 2000, we opened a “husband’s” weight room with a separate entrance to allow some men to workout. In 2014, we completely renovated the Main Exercise Room and closed the men’s weight room. Men are now allowed to workout in the main gym at certain scheduled times as we have co-ed hours.
But we are and always will be a “women’s gym”, where local women can workout at their own convenience.
We see our gym as part of our community’s fitness system. We have always promoted other people’s efforts to offer fitness options and refer regularly to others for specialized programs. We have offered “Give Me Strength” classes for the elderly and self-defense classes for women. In 2005, we played a large part in getting the SVE Community Fitness Center in Spencer off the ground.
In 2013, we partnered with a local personal trainer to offer small group strength training classes and individualized programs. In 2016, we started our own small group training class – Fat Blast. This program later evolved into our HIIT Class which is offered two days per week. With the help of my Physical Therapist daughter, we designed the class to incorporate all the important elements of fitness – strength, cardio, and mobility.
In 2019, Elise Phillips from Harmony Massage and Yoga joined us in teaching Yoga in the “Yoga Loft”. This is a valuable program to us as it complements the physical aspects of our program.
In March 2019, we kicked off our first 6-week session of the Stay Off The Scale Fitness Challenge”. The program’s results were impressive. Barb and I lost 25 pounds between us and kept it off. The program added a necessary nutrition aspect for our clients.
The business is manageable and fun. Barb, being a nurse, loves training people and learning about exercise. In 1996, she became certified through AFAA as a Personal Trainer/Fitness Counselor. Our “niche” members are women, typically married with children, who are “real” people just trying to get some exercise—just like my wife.
The gym is everything we want it to be. It provides us with many benefits of owning a business including a place to exercise, and a positive social environment. Both of our kids were raised in a gym environment. We attribute our daughter’s ambition to be a DPT directly to having the gym. Exercise was a part of both our kids’ lives growing up Now, our grandkids are being exposed to the same positive environment.
In April of 2020, we will celebrate our 27th anniversary as Fay’s Fitness.