Last update - 00:00 25/02/2008
Up close and personal
By Ariel Rubinsky
If you are looking for a fitness trainer who is going to hold the umbrella for you on the way from the fitness club to the car, you might find what you want at a boutique gym. It's priced accordingly - NIS 20,000 to NIS 40,000 a year - but in the top thousandth of the population there are those willing to pay this; three boutique clubs are already operating here and another two are scheduled to open within the next few months.
Boutique clubs are gyms that offer private training only. Every client receives a personalized training program, a personal trainer and massages of every sort. The private shower rooms come with a variety of soaps, shampoo, razors, deodorant and more. Beverages are included in the price and the club is attentive to every request
"Our clients belong to a very high socio-economic class and don't like to mix with people in a mass fitness room that offers 100 treadmills in a huge hall, 98 of them occupied," says Adam Aviel, the manager of the Core Club in Herzliya Pituah.
"Here you won't find 10 people running on treadmills, but rather 10 people working out, each with a personal trainer. There's a good energy at the club. It isn't crowded and it isn't chaotic."
He says the club also serves as a good starting point for business relations. "In many cases our members are people who never stop working," says Aviel. "It happens that clients have a cup of coffee together after a workout and a business project emerges from this."
The largest chain in the world in the field of personal training is Fitness Together, which has about 500 branches in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica and two gyms in Israel - one in Zahala, Tel Aviv and one in Savyon. Its gyms do not have one big fitness room, but rather an open space with three "fitness suites," private workout rooms with all the equipment necessary for a training session intended only for the client and his personal trainer.
"The intention is to achieve the maximum privacy and intimacy without the room being closed, so therefore the dividers do not reach the ceiling," says Sagi Halevy, who along with Amir Alroy, is the chain's franchisee in Israel.
At the boutique clubs there is no a monthly fee but rather a prepaid package of training sessions. A package of 100 personal training sessions at Core costs NIS 21,500; a package of 96 sessions at Fitness Together costs about NIS 47,000. By way of comparison, a membership for a couple at the Dekel Country Club in Tel Aviv, for example, costs NIS 8,800. Membership prices at gyms range from NS 250 to NIS 450 a month.
"Here the client pays for the service, the professionalism and the intimacy," says Aviel, adding that signing up for an ordinary fitness club does not include personal training, for which the client pays separately.
"It's very expensive, but the place is intimate and that is what is important to me," says Igal Shirmister, one of the owners of the Hashmira group, who works out at Core four times a week.
Yaakov Ginzburg, one of the owners of Shamir Salads, concurs: "The place is pleasant, there is no noise, there are no smells, it isn't a place for the masses, the fitness trainers are excellent - it's fun."
How are instructions given to people who in their daily lives are accustomed to giving instructions to others?
"A personal trainer is a kind of good cop," says Halevy. "It's exactly those people who like lowering their profile for an hour and doing what our professional trainers tell them."
"They don't like to be treated like Greek gods," says Aviel. "Most of them want us to relate to them like you'd relate to your best friend, they want you to be their friend, to listen to them, to talk to them, to give them their most enjoyable experience. "
Not just for the wealthy
"A personal fitness trainer is an expensive indulgence that is intended for people of means, but this definitely doesn't mean only the very wealthy," says Effi Rotblit, a personal fitness trainer who visits her clients at their homes, bringing weights, rubber stretch bands and mattresses for a one-hour personal training session.
The average price for a training session in the client's home ranges between NIS 160 and NIS 180. In order to achieve results, a minimum of two training session per week are needed. Less well-off clients schedule one personal training session a week and do the rest in accordance with a work plan set up with the trainer. At gyms the price of a personal training session is lower - NIS 100-120, but to this must be added the price of the monthly membership.
"People who work out with a fitness trainer know that without a personal trainer they just aren't going to keep fit," says Elad Shaharabani, the professional director at Elite Fitness, a company that employs personal instructors who visit the client's home.
"Many of them have tried gyms, have paid the annual membership fee and have discovered that they don't manage to persist. In training at home, everything is suited to their needs."