When I first opened Fit House, I sought to purchase some mirrors to blanket the studio. Fate connected me to a Vietnamese woman who, as a baby, and under a hail of gunfire, was literally smuggled out of Vietnam during a revolution. She drove a manual Mercedes Benz with a shift assembly that was encrusted in diamonds (the diamonds were fake—I think!). The 411 was that she ran a small training studio, but the headline shouted that She and Sugar Daddy Husband Called it Splitsville, and she was racing the sun to take off on a moonlight flight, hightailing it out of Lewiston and leaving a trail of dust and confetti-colored bedazzle in her wake. Translation: a very nice fitness studio owner was getting divorced from her rich husband who funded her lifestyle; because she didn’t pay for anything herself, it held no value to her, and she gave me a succulent deal on everything in her race to get out of Dodge as fast as possible. The mirrors were paid for in cash, and the bikes were thrown in because she liked my smile.
Truth is, I almost Charlie Sheened the bikes (left them behind, in Vietnam, figuratively—bonus points if you get the reference) because they were just going to clutter up coveted space in Fit House, but my father suggested that they would look nice in the storefront windows. Over the next few years, the bikes were utilized to a) give clients something to do for five minutes before their session started, and b) act as magnets for dust and debris. They succeeded on both accounts. Oh, they truly looked really nice in the windows!
Since moving to Fit House’s current location, the bikes have been relegated to the storage room, where they remained until this day, until ***cue global pandemic***. I should have sold them three months ago because I could have demanded a pretty penny during the apex of Armageddon!
AD for craigslist: Incinerate body fat with these results-guaranteed cycling bikes! Pedal your little heart out and watch your body shed copious amounts of body fat in as little as 15 minutes a day! You made some poor nutrition choices today? No worries; just hop on the bike and cycle off the appropriate amount of calories—it’s that easy! Gym equipment? Calisthenics? You can keep them! In addition to fat loss, you will shape and tone the muscles in your legs, butt, arms, and stomach. Look how tight and toned the models in the Peloton commercials are! Pull the bike up to your television, pop in a DVD, and you’ve got a Peloton for 1/8 the price! Think of how smart and lucky you are! While innumerable morons waste their time weight training, you can get the exact same results in your living room because you are the chosen one, and the physiology of your body works completely differently than the rest of humankind—simply outstanding.
I didn’t really write that ad because I’m not an asshole and I have more than a shred of integrity. I did sell one of the bikes, and I was fair on the price vs gouging someone. (Karmic foresight; try it out sometime. You may be surprised.) I’m going to hold onto the other bike because there are two clients I train whom it would be perfect for; they are limited due to injury in quite a few ways, and there is a special technique I know to incorporate it into their strength training (yes, I love my clientele and would literally hold onto something for two people). And yeah, if you’re doing everything else right, there’s definitely some ways to incorporate a bike into your training. Maybe I don’t get out enough, but I don’t know anyone who’s doing everything else right such that his or her time would be more wisely invested in da bike vs. something else. The majority of people caught up in cycling either train cycling for sport or they’re rubes who would fall for the above advertisement and truly think cycling is the optimal path toward primo body composition (I didn’t say e-v-e-r-y-b-o-d-y; I said m-a-j-o-r-i-t-y).
So what exactly is the optimal path toward primo body composition? What *should* you be doing to lose fat, look toned, and feel better? We've got answers for you here and here, and check out our mission, too, so you see just how and why we do things our way at Fit House.
I have a couple personal goals since reopening Fit House. Firstly, as I hope you’ve experienced over the past couple weeks, I’m striving to create a way more relaxed and productive training environment. Secondly, wouldn’t it be awesome if instead of pussy-footing around the truth, you could just be brutally honest about everything with everyone?
About the author
Chris Rombola
Chris is the owner of Fit House. He's run the training departments at several commercial gyms, and after years of seeing how awful those environments were for his clients, he opened his own studio. He is devoted to getting people strong, lean, and healthy.
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