AMERICAN GLADIATORS FITNESS™ is searching for experienced and qualified fitness professionals to own their own Official American Gladiators FitClub™ (AGF). If this sounds like you—read on!
Our name says it all.
American Gladiators Fitness™
SPORTS
FITNESS
TRAINING
COMPETITION
We are the arenas.
We are the trainers.
We are the champions.Our clients aspire.
Our clients are health-minded.
Our clients are energetic about life.
Our clients are competitors within themselves. . .
and there is no finish line.
We are American Gladiators Fitness™…fitness and training for the 21st Century.
With public awareness from over 90 countries and the widely acclaimed competitive sports television program—the American Gladiators® brand has immediate, visceral and widespread appeal. Over 100 million people were exposed to the TV program in the United States alone. The name continues to bring to mind the superior strength, mental fortitude and the competitive spirit that exists not only in the U.S. but around the world.
AGF is determined to become the number one chain of licensed fitness centers worldwide serving consumers with competitive mind-sets, will, and determination to always be their best in fitness, health, sports and in their careers.
AGF will grant licenses to only experienced and qualified trainers and instructors.
Each individual in the American Gladiators Fitness™ organization and all of the company’s staff has been actively involved in the formation of this vision. We are committed to insuring that all of our licensees, our employees, and every one of our customers is treated with the utmost personal and professional attention. We will always strive to stay abreast of the changing needs and thru our vendors you will be on top of the latest programs and curricula designed to help your members achieve their fitness and health goals.
American Gladiators Fitness™ has analyzed the needs of the ever-evolving American consumer and believes that owning an American Gladiators Fitness™ FitClub will ideally position you to capture your share of this $94 billion dollar industry.
How AGF Views The Future.
The fitness and training industry has under gone a dramatic shift from the bodybuilding era of selectorized machines to a stronger focus on so called “core fitness” and utilizing open space for kettlebells, bodyweight training, primal movements, agility drills, sandbags, ropes and more. This dramatic shift also reduces out of pocket costs significantly. Nonetheless. . .the cost of owning certain, well-known franchised fitness facilities still runs into the hundreds of thousands if not millions of dollars. Potential franchisees need to qualify by having a huge net worth, become personally responsible for huge overhead and—to top it off—you’re told how to run your business their way.
What’s wrong with that picture?
AGF offers a much simpler license program: You have the advantage of tapping into one of the most prolific brands ever created—and you run your business your way.
We keep it simple and cover the basics. Through our relationships with only the best vendors in the fitness industry, AGF is able to offer you an introductory package from our approved vendors that will get you on your way to owning and operating your own officially licensed American Gladiators Fitness™ FitClub.
American Gladiators Fitness wants to give experienced, qualified trainers the ability to own their own business with minimal costs with brand name awareness that you will be proud to be part of and protected territories.
AGF FitClub (AGF) is based on experienced undeniable trend toward functional training and away from the use of expensive cardio and typical, boring, strength training equipment. Our licensees benefit by being ahead of the curve when it comes to what sports and fitness enthusiasts are seeking. Members today are going “back to the future” with record numbers doing “retro” type workouts through core training i.e. kettlebells, ropes, bands, medicine balls and suspension training.
AGF welcomes and embraces this undeniable shift in the industry. The great news there is that this keeps costs much lower for our licensees. We are committed to making a dynamic entertainment and fitness oriented brand available at a very affordable price.
The AGF FitClub is optimized for offering personal training, coaching, and small group personal training. It is a versatile and extremely cost effective way to own a fitness business while also allowing you to keep rent, utilities, payroll and other operating costs down while giving you the ability to offer overlapping workouts during your prime hours and not waste space during those typical slower times.
Simple exercises with no-tech equipment (call them paleo or playground exercises, depending on how much fun they are) have long found disciples at niche gyms and in movements such as CrossFit. But in the last year and a half, major health-club chains have begun making hefting sandbags and shaking 25-pound ropes the standard, ditching the fancy weight machines that have dominated gym floors for more than 30 years.
“I wouldn’t say obsolete, but there is a huge downtick in traditional strength-training equipment,” said David Harris, the national director of personal training for the Equinox chain. The company, based in New York, has thinned its ranks of chest press, leg press and leg extension machines to clear floor space so members can move freely. (Treadmills and other cardio machines aren’t going anywhere.)
Or as Monkey Bar Gym, which has its headquarters in Madison, Wis., states on a T-shirt: “Rage Against the Machines.”
In the race to make space for so-called functional fitness training — which encourages people to push, pull, squat and generally move their bodies as they might naturally — the first machines out the door are usually the ones that lock the body in place, working a single muscle.
Adam Campbell, fitness director for the Men’s Health brand, wrote in an e-mail that machines like the leg press strengthen muscles, but asked: “What’s the real logic in sitting or laying down to train your legs?” Functional fitness is “far more bang for your buck” because it works multiple muscles simultaneously, he said, providing better overall strength and mobility, and a higher calorie burn.
That makes it a faster route to today’s most-wanted bodies, like those of the actors Bradley Cooper, Kellan Lutz of “Twilight” and Ryan Kwanten and Joe Manganiello of “True Blood.”
“Lean, athletic as opposed to highly muscular,” Mr. Campbell wrote of that group, a description that could apply to some of the most-wanted bodies for women, too.
Josh Bowen, until recently the quality control director for the seven-state Urban Active chain, referred to the sweeping revisions the company made last year as swapping “Arnold machines” (as in Schwarzenegger) “for AstroTurf.”
Mr. Bowen, who left Urban Active when it was acquired by LA Fitness, said, “Gyms are way out of the times if all they have is machines.”
People spend all day sitting with machines, he said. “When they come into a gym, they don’t want to be sat down at another one doing three sets of 12.”
At Life Time Fitness, the Minnesota company that has clubs in 23 states, roughly half of them have removed some machines and banished the rest to the corners to make way for what a spokeswoman referred to as “jungle gyms,” essentially seven-rung ladders the width of a small room from which people can push, pull and otherwise suspend themselves. This month, the chain’s 106th club opened in Alabama with a two-story steel structure big enough for some 40 members to run up stairs, climb rope walls and hoist themselves up poles.
“It looks like a prison guard tower,” Jason Stella, Life Time’s national training developer, said with pride. (Mr. Stella isn’t sure how many clubs will get a replica. “We won’t get planning permission everywhere,” he said.)
The 160-branch Town Sports International, which includes New York Sports Clubs, has removed up to eight machines a club — biceps, triceps, leg extensions and leg curls are the first to go — and replaced them with 800 square feet of artificial turf. Some potential members may still judge gyms on the number of machines, said Ed Trainor, vice president for fitness services at Town Sports International, yet many locations have been rearranged so visitors are greeted not with the sight of treadmills and TVs, but with green space the size of a the racquetball court.
“It’s the money shot,” Mr. Trainor said.
The functional fitness zones also are a moneymaker for gyms, costing $5 to $6 a square foot, compared with some $50 a square foot when filled by machines, estimated Bruce Mack, the founder and chief executive of the Boston-based MBSC Thrive, who has built a business bringing functional training programs to hundreds of gyms nationwide. (His business partner is Mike Boyle, a strength consultant for the Boston Red Sox.) When determining what equipment has to leave the building, “We’re pretty ruthless,” Mr. Mack said. “If it’s machine-based or has a pin, it’s a thing of the past.” (He was referring to the adjustable stacks of weights held in place by a pin.)
He added gleefully, “Adapt or die!”
Don’t consign the hulking machines to the Smithsonian just yet, though. They still appeal to two small but distinct constituencies.
One consists of traditional bodybuilders, who Mr. Harris said make it tough for Equinox to remove much of the equipment from their preferred habitats, like the Highland Park neighborhood of Dallas; West Hollywood, Calif., and the West Village in Manhattan. The other group: people with set ideas about what constitutes a workout and who like to hide at the gym.
Most weight machines have diagrams that help users figure out what to do and how, with a fairly small margin of error (and embarrassment factor). Open space requires more instruction, supervision — and sometimes persuasion, said Anthony Wall, director of professional education for the nonprofit American Council on Exercise.
“You look like you’re in a circus,’ ” Mr. Wall said people say to his wife when she does functional training workouts on her own at her gym. “To older people in particular, it just doesn’t look like they think exercise should.” (Last November, the exercise council, which certifies personal trainers, began offering a specialization in functional training.)
Even after a year of workouts that included shaking 25-pound battle ropes or touching the floor while balancing on one leg, Bret McBeain, 33, a sales manager at a car dealership in suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul, said he can’t shake the idea that people are watching him and thinking: “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen.”
He understands, because for more than a decade he trained the way he had learned as a high school hockey player: one hour six days a week in the weight room, focusing on his upper body one day and his lower body the next. He switched to functional training last year because, he said, he was feeling “weak in places and in a rut.” Mr. McBeain, a member of Life Time, reduced his training to four times a week. “There’s no way I could do this kind of workout six days a week,” he said. “You don’t ever stop and rest.” He feels much stronger now, he added.
Now when he sees people working the same muscle repeatedly on machines, the way he used to, he said: “I’m looking over and going: ‘I can’t believe that’s what you’re doing. That is so dumb.’ ”
By COURTNEY RUBINPublished on New York Times
President / Founder
Johnny is proud to make available to experienced Trainers, Coaches and Fitness Entrepreneurs the American Gladiators® brand; one the most well recognized and respected brands around the globe today.
As Co-creator and the driving life force behind the American Gladiators® brand and the founder of American Gladiators Fitness™. Johnny, a strong-minded entrepreneur with a long list of notable business accomplishments from health clubs to entertainment. The American Gladiators® TV program was syndicated in approximately 215 U.S. markets, and aired in over 90 countries, aired for seven years in first run syndication with format shows in over 7 countries.
Here are just some of Johnny’s accomplishments:
President, HSE Agency
Master Licensor, American Gladiators FitClub
Here are just some of Andrew’s accomplishments:
Please contact Andrew if you have any questions on how to become an American Gladiators Fitness owner.
Master Licensing Consultant
David Lyons, has spent most of his life in the gym either training as a boxer/martial artist or bodybuilder. He owned fitness centers across the US in the late 80’s/early 90’s; consulted in sales/marketing/management for gyms such as Golds’ Gym, Powerhouse Gym, Anytime Fitness and others; created and manufactured his own line of supplements; trained athletes and celebrities; and, after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2006, founded The MS Bodybuilding Challenge and co-founded the MS Fitness Challenge non profit charity with wife, Kendra R.N. www.msfitnesschallenge.com.
As a fitness trainer David is the creator of fitness certifications for the National Federation of Professional Trainers (NFPT) and MedFit Network. He is the author of the #1 selling book Everyday Health and Fitness with MS and columnist for the largest online wellness magazine, EverydayHealth.com. David is also the Senior Fitness Director for MS Workouts, overseeing all trainer programs.
Licensing Consultant
Tom Terwilliger is former National Body Building Champion (Mr. America), IFBB Pro Athlete and Mr. Olympia competitor. Among Tom’s many prestigious awards is recipient of the American Athletic Union (AAU) World Body Building Legends Award. He is also a two-time #1 Bestselling Author and considered a leading authority on the science of achievement. But is most often recognized, some 20 years later as the dynamic host of the long running Fox Sports Net TV show Muscle Sport USA.
As a successful entrepreneur Tom has developed, owned and operated several athletic clubs and personal training studios in both New York and Denver. Today, Tom and his wife Dawn mentor and coach entrepreneurs and business owners in developing the inner and outer strategies for long term success.
Here are just some of Tom’s accomplishments:
Licensing Consultant
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