Today marks twelve years since I opened the doors of CrossFit MetroEast in the early hours of the morning on October 22nd, 2012. Two clients showed up to my 5:30 am class. I was the coach and the two who showed up to work out were the same two friends who were probably there all weekend helping me get the gym ready to open.
We had started our affiliate two years prior while I was working for a fitness and therapy company. That company was so gracious to allow me the opportunity to pursue my passion for CrossFit and funded our initial costs of affiliation and some โCrossFitโ equipment we could use for our workouts. After a couple years of doing workouts with a handful of clients in the back corner of a commercial gym, I began to believe this CrossFit thing could really stand on its own.
I had always had desires of opening my own gym from the time I was a teenager, and now after 6 years in the industry, I felt like CrossFit could be the vehicle to get me there.
I loved the CrossFit methodology and the results it was getting for my clients. I enjoyed the group class model it popularized, and from an investment standpoint, it was a fairly cheap option for starting a gym. I felt somewhat stagnant in my current job and I was ready to be in control of my future as a fitness professional.
We found a 2000 square foot space not too far from our current location that needed very little prep to get our gym going. Fortunately, I had a couple of trusting individuals who were willing to fund this new endeavor and CFME 2.0 was off to the races!
Itโs funny to look back now on how things were then. Iโm reminded by a client of ours who was there that first week we opened about how she thought when she walked in, โwhereโs all the equipment??โ. We didnโt have much, and most of it was used or homemade. But we made it work.
There are a handful of original clients who still work with us who remember how things started. One or two of them were on that original back corner of carpet 14 years ago trying to share the five or six kettlebells and one rower we had among a group of classmates.
Now our gym spans over 5000 square feet of space with thousands of dollars of equipment that has helped us provide training to well over a thousand people in the Metro-East and beyond. We provide both in-person and online personal training, nutrition coaching, and group fitness coaching for all ages and abilities.
Twelve years ago we had a handful of volunteer coaches who just coached because they enjoyed fitness. Now weโre one of the few private coaching gyms in our area who are able to provide full time careers for coaches to pursue their passions for helping people and fitness.
Itโs been a roller coaster of highs, lows, and everything in between these past twelve years. Iโve learned a lot about fitness, business, and helping people. But Iโve also learned a lot about myself.
I learned that it didnโt matter how great of a coach I was if I didnโt possess the skills to be a great leader and business owner. I learned that the best people I could hire were people who had a passion for helping people and possessed skills different from mine. I learned that the way to keep helping people for 30 years is to build a business that can be around to do it. That means making adjustments, investing in yourself and others, and doing the boring things really well.
Itโs been almost 25 years since I first knew I wanted to own a gym. There was never any back up plan. I told my college advisor exactly what I was going to do with my degree (even though I donโt think she believed me). I started training people when I was 19 years old. That boss who helped me start our affiliate knew that I would leave someday to start my own thing. I didnโt โfindโ fitness in my 20s or leave a corporate job to pursue my passion later on in life. This is it, it always has been. This is why weโve been able to stick around. Not because weโve done everything right or because things have been easy. But because even when things have been hard and gone wrong, we had to figure it out because the mission was still our passion. Our mission is to help people in the Metro-East live better lives through better health. We do that by helping first.
If you need help, letโs talk. You can book a time with us here: https://msgsndr.com/widget/appointment/crossfitmetroeast/free-intro