Bring-Your-Own-Trainer Opens New Doors
By Adina Genn

Friday, April 28, 2006

Attention gym rats: If you want to work out at Railroad Avenue Fitness, a 2,000-square-foot facility in East Hampton, bring your own certified personal trainer. Open since March, the gym is designed exclusively for trainers and their clients.

For a flat hourly rate of $20, a trainer can bring in a client for a workout designed around individual needs – for many, an attractive alternative to settling for a session based on whatever equipment is available at a typical gym, according to Railroad Avenue co-owner Chris Carney.

Carney, 36, opened the facility with fiancé and fellow personal trainer Elisa Lattanzio, 32. The gym’s appointment-only structure provides an environment that “feels exclusive and not crowded,” said Lattanzio, who has managed other gyms and currently works with eight clients at Railroad Avenue. Carney, who works now with six clients, said the gym currently welcomes five other trainers on a regular basis.

Lattanzio said she wasn’t concerned about day-to-day operations when they came up with the idea for Railroad Avenue, but she was concerned about financing. Luckily, she added, Carney had an established relationship with a local bank through a not-for-profit he founded, called Soldier Ride, wherein participants raise awareness and funds for wounded servicemen and women by bicycling across the country. In addition to the bank loan, the couple also received private financing, though Lattanzio would not detail these investments.

The facility occupies two stories. The main floor includes two treadmills (featuring personal entertainment systems and television screens), two stationary bicycles, an elliptical machine and weight training stations. The downstairs studio features free weights and apparatus for core stability and balance training.

While creating their business plan, the couple researched Manhattan gyms that follow this personal-trainer-only model. “Some have been in business for over 20 years,” Lattanzio said. “We found that encouraging.”

The couple hopes trainers find Railroad Fitness’ business model more economical than other area gyms. Other facilities require that both the trainer and client are gym members, and in such arrangements, a gym might take a percentage of the trainer’s fees. That system also means “outside trainers are limited to where they can go,” according to Lattanzio.

Both Lattanzio and Carney are accepting new clients, but say that having more trainers on board would make it easier to handle walk-in traffic. “We need to get the word out to trainers,” Lattanzio said, adding she and Carney “have kept a good relationship with other trainers” and many have already stopped by “to check out the space.”

The facility is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. By next year, the couple – slated to marry in November – hopes to work with “a trainer we really trust who can open and close” the gym, Lattanzio said, allowing the newlyweds to "come and go."