This page contains a Flash digital edition of a book.
The walls of the gym are covered with messages to motivate 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


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aunched by founder Amen Iseghohi in 2008, Amenzone Fitness is based on a minimalist approach that uses tyres and members’ body strength and


movement to get fit. Classes include boxing, primal fitness, yoga and rebel workout, each using tyres in different ways. The fi rst Amenzone gym opened


in Scottsdale, Arizona, US in June 2008. Since then, Amenzone Fitness Corporate has opened two further gyms in Arizona, both in 2013. Amenzone launched its franchising 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, with a second California gym in Santa Monica that opened this summer.


How did you get the idea for Amenzone? I was born in Belgium but raised in London. When I was eight, my parents


October 2014 © Cybertrek 2014


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 somewhere we’d had so many privileges, waking up, eating cereal and watching cartoons, I suddenly found myself in a place with no TV, no electricity – it was very primal. My grandmother, 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 the high obesity rate. 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 a lack of fi tness or 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- esteem fi rst. We’re using fi tness as a vehicle for self-empowerment. I had corporate jobs when I fi rst


moved to the US – fi rst for Coca- Cola, then for fl ooring company Shaw Industries. But my vision for Amenzone had already started with one kid and one tyre in a park. I gave up my corporate job, where I was making more than US$100,000 a year, and took one of the biggest risks of my life to work on this new project.


Read Health Club Management online at healthclubmanagement.co.uk/digital 37


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