Mirrors and tvs are banned and the walls of Amenzone gyms are covered with quotes and messages designed to inspire members
We don’t allow mirrors or tvs, and because people aren’t plugged into their headphones, they communicate with each other a lot more
L
aunched by founder Amen Iseghohi in 2008, Amenzone Fitness is based on a minimal- ist approach that uses nothing but tyres and members’ body strength and movement to get
fi t. Classes include boxing, ‘primal fi t- ness,’ yoga and ‘rebel workout’ – all using the tyres in different ways. The fi rst Amenzone gym opened in Scottsdale, Arizona in June 2008. Since then, Amenzone Fitness Corporate has opened two further gyms in Arizona, both in 2013. Amenzone launched its franchis- ing business in 2012 and there are now six franchise gyms open across the US, with a further 23 franchises sold. The fi rst Amenzone outside Arizona opened in Manhattan Beach, California in September 2013. A sec- ond California gym is due to open in Santa Monica later this summer.
ISSUE 3 2014 © cybertrek 2014
How did you get the idea for Amenzone? I was born in Belgium but raised in London. When I was eight, my parents decided they wanted me and my sister to have a deeper understanding of our heritage and a greater appreciation of what was really important in life, so they took us to live in West Africa. At fi rst I thought it was some kind of punishment – coming from some- where we’d had so many privileges, waking up and eating cereal and watching cartoons, I suddenly found myself in a place with no television, no electricity – it was very primal. My grandmother [who was a former athlete] wanted to keep us active. The compound we lived on was fi lled with tyres, so she used them as a way of keeping us fi t, but also as a tool to teach us about life. We’d race the tyres, and when we felt like giving up she’d
say, no, you can’t give up in life; you have to keep going. You need to move forward, just as a tyre turns and moves. When I moved to America in 2003, I immediately noticed that the obesity rate was so signifi cant. I realised it wasn’t a local or city problem, it was a global epidemic. I thought about it and thought, this issue isn’t so much about the lack of fi tness and good nutrition. It’s a disease rooted in a problem that everyone seems to be ignoring. If you don’t feel good about yourself, you don’t care what you do to yourself. My grandmother used fi tness as a tool to motivate us, but she was always focused on our self-esteem. I thought, that’s it – the reason I’m in shape is that I feel good about who I am. I decided to build my business, and the non profi t foundation that runs alongside it, on the same premise, which is that you should build self-
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