Summer bodies are born in the winter! Since spring has officially arrived and summer will quickly follow, you may want not want to wait on achieving your fitness goals. I’ve always pondered the idea of getting a personal trainer, mainly to show me if I’m doing the right moves in the gym (those machines can be intimidating) so when I had the opportunity to train with local trainer, Dwayne July, creator of Fit by July, I was pretty excited. Yes, his last name is really July.
A former athlete, July took a similar to training and keeping his clients motivated. Born in Jamaica, he moved to the U.S. as a pre-teen, had a love affair with twinkies and vowed to get in shape and never looked back, eventually opening Fit by July in 2013. The personal trainer opened up a location in Port Chester, NY after serving as a personal trainer for years at various chain gyms in Greenwhich, CT and New York City.
I took a personal training session as well as a small group class and both were intense, yet highly motivational. We discussed my physical abilities, and I specified that I wanted to work on abs (like most ladies), but got an extreme body workout of muscles I never knew existed until that day. I’ve never experienced any exercise where my abs were aching and I didn’t have to spend hours in the gym. July’s simple, yet effective approach goes far beyond working out; he emphasizes on a consistent positive energy and a balanced diet. He’ll push you to achieve results, but you have to be willing to REALLY do the work. After working out, I got a chance to sit with the man behind Fit by July to hear his story.
Tell me about your career path to personal training.
I came to America in 1994. I became a real chubby kid due to my love affair with twinkles. In 1998 my parents bought a house and I was going to go to a new school and I didn’t want to be the new fat kid. My mom bought a bench press machine and me and my brother started working out. I started playing high school football and was able to get recruited to college. Then I got signed to the Philadelphia Souls developmental team. A year into it the league told us they were going to fold and I decided to focus on something else. I always loved working out so, fitness was it.
How did open your new place, what lead you to that?
I made the decision that I wanted to work at the gym. I started at Bally’s Total Fitness in 2004, then I became a manager at a personal training firm called Platinum Fitness, we sold a monthly packages, their business practices weren’t the best so I left there and went to New York Sports Club in Greenwich, after a month there, I became one of the top trainers. I got my certifications and got a specialty in performance enhancement through National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) which allowed me to train athletes, then I got my kettle ball, X.T. training and that’s what I got a better understanding of just being on the machines. I grew tired of someone else making the decision on how I do my business and the changes in the pay scale, seeing the the revenue split made me think “what if there wasn’t a split.” So I closed my eyes and just tried.
Would you say your relationships with clients overtime is what allowed you were able to start this on your own?
I think a couple of my clients wanted this for me more than I wanted it for myself to be honest. When you have the opportunity to open on your own the fear factor comes in. There’s so much unknowns that you can experience. I was safe at NYSC and was content. My dad passing away is what put the battery in my back. My dad was an entrepreneur with his tax company with success of 18 years, so I knew that was something he wanted for me to do. So that, in combination with speaking with a few of my clients lead me to open.
How would you describe your motivational style?
I’ve always hated the “yeller” trainers. I personally never responded to that too kindly, so I never wanted to be that guy. I also never wanted to be the trainer that held my clients back. I see a lot of trainers would hold their clients back from success by not pushing them as hard as they could, because they want their client to be dependent on them. I figure if I can get my clients result fast, they’re going to want to keep seeing those fast results. I push my clients as hard as they can go. My training style is high intensity training.
Do you have clients over a long span of time.
I actually have a client that has been with me since 2005, he was here training today. You can view training two ways: the keep your client as dependent on you as possible or make them as efficient as possible to the point where the say this guy what he’s doing and I don’t want to leave him because their getting the results and they like the results their seeing. I didn’t want the be the trainer that wastes my clients’ money. I view is as if I were spending my money to train with someone. People spend really good money with me, so I push them as hard as I can and people stay with me because they like my personality and make them feel good about their training. We try to be the best part of our clients’ day so that they enjoy coming here.
With such a successful client base, whey open up to small and large classes?
Being able to offer different price points. You don’t want to turn someone away who wants to work with you just because they can’t afford it. So, I opened up price points on a low, medium and high end. The large group is something that i want to get more into and I’m trying to push that more. Just based on the comradery of the group. We (staff) consider ourselves coaches and the clients that come in are our athletes and we emulate teams. So we do a huddle to break when we leave class and when someone in the class is struggling the other team member will motivate them.
What are your goals for Fit by July?
Personally, I would love to see 10 or 15 Fit by July if not one in every state, but we’re focused on being the best in Port Chester first then from there. Hopefully we’ll create a name for ourselves that when we go to expand there won’t be anything holding me back.
What’s your approach to taking on new clients?
Any new member that wants to come, they have to be accepted into our program. You get a trial week and if you do everything that we ask you to do (sticking to your meal plan, drinking your water and showing up to classes) the biggest thing is being positive energy in class. We’re here to help and bring a positive energy to class.
Misconception based, hurdles how do you get new clients to understand your philosophy and approach to training?
Getting our women clients accept taking protein and to lift heavy weights. There’s a big misconception that lifting heavy weights will make women bulking. A lot of that comes from magazines, so we kind of have to dispel this myths. Everyone needs protein, it’s the essential building block to building muscle. The more protein you have the more ability you body has to produce muscle mass. It’s either going to be fat or muscle so you have to choose.
Tell me about the nutrition side?
Once we have our clients sign on, they receive our fat success system, it tells people what they should be eating. A sample nutrition list. Some people tell me they have a specific list from a nutritionist, and I tell them that’s cool, but if your nutritionist doesn’t work with what you like to eat then you’re going to cheat. So we try to put our people in a position to be successful. With the nutrition log, we say see are the things you should be eating and you sit down with us an tell us what you do and don’t like so we can adjust it. It finding out what’s negatively or positively is going to impact your goals. Our members know that it’s a partnership between us and them, we can tell them what to do, but unless they implement it their not going to be successful.
Learn more about Fit by July and Dwayne July. If you’re located in West Chester County, NY or Fairfield County, CT, be sure to check him out.
Mikelah
Mikelah is a Caribbean Culture expert, curating the bridge between the Caribbean and its diaspora. A CUNY Baruch College graduate with a BBA in Marketing. With previous experience with Caribbean lifestyle brands such as VP Records, Tempo TV and JAMROCK Magazine. Currently serving as a digital marketing maven by day, while continuing to collaborate with Caribbean brands.
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