I get asked pretty well on a weekly basis why I don’t open my own facility, and while the idea is pretty cool, I have to admit I get treated pretty well with my current club. I’m fortunate enough to have senior management take my opinions and let me make some decisions that affect the operations of the club on a large level, and also to utilize the company’s marketing dollars and facilities to run some of the programs I want to put together. On top of that, teaching continuing education for the company gets me some easy speaking and teaching experience that helps for pretty much any venue, which wouldn’t be as readily available if I was on my own. Top it off with the fact that opening a gym means investing a lot of money into a space and getting equipment, plus managing staff and operations, all stuff I don’t want to do. I won’t rule it out, but for now it’s simply a dream.

I did get a really cool question from a reader the other day, asking me what I would do if I had unlimited funds to build the facility of my dreams. Well, to be honest I could train someone in a broom closet with the lights off, and using only the broom. I know this because I did it already when our club moved from a 30,00 square foot location into a 5000 square foot temporary location while the new club was being built. We called it the “Executive walk-in closet.”

I’m pretty minimalist in my training, so I would only need the basics. First off there would have to be a Victorias Secret models play area in the middle of the gym with glass walls, topped off with a Starbucks location in the northwest corner, the parking spot for my Aston Martin, and direct access out to Central Park.

Okay, maybe that wouldn’t be possible, but a guy can dream, can’t he?

Fine fine fine.  Before I start though, Anthony Renna has traveled to pretty much every big name fitness facility and gone through a video tour with the owners, so check out his Strength Coach TV YouTube site HERE to see what the best of the best do. If I was to open my dream facility, there are a few things I would want that aren’t equipment-related.These are things like parking, lots of windows, floors on a solid foundation in a stand-alone building. No direct neighbors to complain about dropping weights, and the ability to get some natural-source vitamin D would be fantastic and an absolute necessity. Cool. Now on to the stuff.

Before I start I should say that I’m not a fan of one-use equipment like a bicep curl bench or a leg press, since they take up a lot of room and give you little variety in what you can do. Therefore, I favor stuff that let’s you rock the workout in a thousand different ways, which means I lean more towards free weights and cables for resistance, and pretty much no specific cardio machines.

#1: 30 meter Sand pit

I’m going to put this right out there and say that turf is over-rated and a piss-poor choice for surface in a training facility. There, the genie is out of the bottle, and he’s not getting back in. The main reasons for this are the harder the surface, the faster the individual can move, which makes it great for event simulation and game-day performance. The downside is that the harder the surface the higher the incidence of lower leg injuries like shin splints, ankle injuries, turf toe, all sorts of things.

For anyone who has ever tried to run in sand, you know how incredibly hard and taxing it can be. From a training perspective, reducing the ground reaction force and stretch-shortening potential of the surface can increase the loading of the muscles and the demand on the metabolic systems being trained without the rapid eccentric loading and shear force development in the knee and lower leg and incidence of injury like turf. Plus, workouts like this look way more intense with sand kicking around and stuff.

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#2: Power Racks and Platforms and Cable systems, far as the eye can see

I did a lot of olympic lifting in my day. The downside is that unless you go to a specific facility with good bumper plates (and I mean actually GOOD bumper plates), you’re stuck using the regular metal and painted plates that you’re not allowed to drop. It sucks trying to eccentric a 100 kilo clean without ripping your bicep in half. The versatility of a power rack combined with a platform means you could train an entire collegiate athletic division without having to switch machines or locations.

Cable systems can take up almost no square footage, as in the FreeMotion Dual Cross over, and can do almost anything you could imagine from a variety of different angles. Plus, I’ve seen old pictures of “medical health facility” from the 1800’s in a couple of different books and they’re pretty much lifting platforms and cable systems everywhere, which is pretty cool.

#3: Metabolic Cart

This is a device that let’s you measure the amount of oxygen being breathed in and the amount of carbon dioxide being breathed out, and would kick so much ass to have one on-site for cardio testing and seeing improvements in the level of fitness of individuals, way better than indirect or submaximal testing.

#4: Video Analysis Suite

I’m a bit of a geek when it comes to measuring what I’m actually trying to measure, which means that if I had a video analysis suite with a Dartfish program to check out run strides, lift mechanics, and other really cool stuff, I could geek out like crazy and show clients what they’re doing and explain why I want them to do it differently and how they should do it differently.

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#5: Med balls, kettlebells, and all the cool toys

Because the guy who dies with the most toys dies with the biggest smile.

#6: Resale area

Every now and then I get clients coming in who need to buy something related to fitness, like a foam roller, heart rate monitor, gloves, whatever. On top of that supplements and an actual healthy restaurant would be fantastic to get clients some good quality food and help them with their nutrition from the ground up.

#7: PurMotion FTS

These just look fantastic. The entire system would be epic in a facility.

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#8: Environment

This is something that no fancy piece of equipment can give you, and it means the world to what kind of training facility you have and who wants to train there. Music is key, as is lighting and feel and cleanliness but most importantly, people have to actually give a damn about their clients and their results. I’m not talking about showing up and counting reps, but actually raising your voice once in a while, pushing for a PR on every set, and making sure everyone understands what they’re doing and why they’re doing it and actually getting buy-in for the program. Smart training involves assessment, explanation, motivation, dedication, and a little perspiration to show the people you’re working with that their results matter as much to you as it does to them, and helps to keep them fired up to get after it in the gym.

I’ve worked with a lot of really good trainers who could pull a raging inferno out of a meek and timid little nerd, and some really smart trainers who had all the personality of a wet fart. Guess who made it in the end?

So while this is in no way an exhaustive list of what I would want in my facility, it’s the main bulletpoints of stuff I would want in there. Who knows, maybe someday in the future.