|News & Know How| News
Anytime Fitness Scores at Home and Abroad Opens U.K. Headquarters, Signs Celebrity Spokesperson
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nytime Fitness, the Hastings, Minnesota–based fitness franchise that now has some 1,600 facilities worldwide, has been making news on both sides of the Atlantic. Recently, the company announced that, to expedite its European expansion efforts, it was opening a new headquarters in the U.K., in Hemel Hempstead, Hert- fordshire … While, back in the States, it revealed that it had signed Tara Costa, a finalist on The Biggest Loser, as its official spokesperson. The British location, which includes a premier 4,700-square-foot fitness facility, will serve as the company’s center of European opera- tions. “The opening of the U.K. headquarters and flagship gym provides us with a site that we can show to potential franchisees, enabling the brand to continue to grow within the U.K.,” notes Andy Thompson, managing director at Anytime Fitness U.K.
The club showcases the new Anytime Fitness design package: an impressive entrance lobby with a fresh, natural color scheme; and fitness areas divided into cardio, strength, free-weight, and functional- training zones. The exercise equipment, much of it provided by Precor, includes the company’s new Experience line of cardio and strength machines and touch-screen P80 consoles.
Costa, who appeared on season seven of NBC’s hit reality weight-loss series, won a record-setting eight challenges—the most of any contestant in the show’s history—and lost 155 pounds over an 18-week period. She’s now a mentor and motivational speaker and serves on the media committee for Exercise Is Medicine, a national fitness initiative created by the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM). “I’m very excited to join the Anytime Fitness family,” says Costa. “Their corporate culture is consistent with my goal of helping people find the inspiration to become more active.” —|
> P Short Takes | Is There an Exercise Gene?
Researchers at McMaster University, in Ontario, Canada, may have discovered a gene that pro- motes the desire to exercise. When the team removed two genes from a group of mice—genes that control the AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), an enzyme released during exercise—it found that those without the genes were significantly less active than those with. —|
Former Bally Chief ‘Sproings’ Forward Paul Toback returns to the industry with a unique product offering
aul Toback, the former president, CEO, and chairman of Bally Total Fitness, the Chicago-based chain, hopes to maximize his future impact in the fitness industry by minimizing physical impact on the body. Working with Steve Lenz, the former vice president of engineering for Life Fitness, Toback has produced Sproing,
a soft-surface trainer that facilitates cardiovascular, strength, and power movements.
After years of running on sand at the beach, Toback decided to try to replicate that sort of workout, but in a gentler way than that offered by standard cardio equipment. “I had my epiphany while running on the beach
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of Lake Michigan,” he wrote on INC.WELL, an NBC Chicago blog. “Using that inspiration, I developed a low-impact, but challenging product that simulates the benefits of exercising on the beach.”
By making it possible for users to run and do exercises on a soft cushion, Sproing’s patent-pending design
> NOVEMBER 2011 | Club Business Internat ional 19
Biggest Loser finalist Tara Costa
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