The exciting world of Fitness and how Beyond the Basics Fitness began...
I have been in the fitness industry since 2003 where I began my career as a personal trainer. It was a fun and busy start into the industry and I was fortunate to meet some amazing people from business owners, to teachers to engineers to doctors. I always enjoyed the different perspectives and stories we would share from their fitness goals, life goals to their personal stories of how they got where they were. It also showed me I wanted to add more to this industry but I wasn’t sure what that was. I worked at an extremely busy recreation facility in Calgary , where we had to rush around grabbing equipment that was “available” some training sessions or become extremely creative making exercises similar to the ones we had in our program with fit balls, toners , medicine balls and whatever else we could find that day.
I became an expert in making something as simple as a leg press into a glute press, rowing machine, calf press and many other creative uses of a machine that was intended as a leg press only. It truly always fascinated me where and how the machines were designed, put together and how they ran, or in some cases didn’t.
As a trainer and a bodybuilder at the time, I was always frustrated if a machine wasn’t running smooth whether it was me using it or my clients. If equipment was completely broken down, it would drive me crazy as we were already rushing around looking for equipment during peak times at the gym. This frustration for equipment not running properly piqued my interest in learning what made the machines "tick". So after a few attempts of getting a service technician in, I decided to try a shot at it myself. I was definitely no expert and had to learn some of the simplest things the hard way. But that took my love and interest of the fitness industry into a whole new realm of something I never thought I would be interested or good at. At that time, we had a ton of treadmills, upright bikes, spin bikes, selectorized strength and plate load strength. The Elliptical trainers were just getting a start in the industry, so it was exciting to pull the first couple ellipticals or cross-trainers apart for the first time and see the inside of them.
I started repairing the equipment at the local fitness center I was working at and eventually took over the role of the Fitness Equipment Manager. This allowed me to do some personal training still but I was the person in charge of maintaining all the equipment, ordering all the parts and also purchasing all the new equipment when budget allowed. I slowly started taking technician training with all the major manufacturers all over north America and learned from the experts of their specific brands. I became a certified technician with most major brands and training was different and interesting each and every time I took courses.
We were always told how great our equipment ran at the center I was taking care of and eventually I received a few calls from other facilities inquiring on "who we used" for service and I was excited to tell them it was myself. I was asked to help them get their training centers up and running like ours was and it took off from there. I started off just doing general repairs, assisting gyms with new layout ideas and recommending products that would be great addition to their rooms. I was asked if I could do regular maintenance at many of the facilities so we started a preventive maintenance program that literally tore the equipment right down and rebuilt it so the equipment would run back like it did when it was brand new.
When Beyond the Basics first started, I didn’t do any advertising or any marketing at all, it was truly word of mouth and my little service business grew and eventually got too much for just myself. I had to hire a part time service technician who I trained personally which allowed me to take on more accounts and slowly start taking on some much larger accounts. We were then approached by a couple dealers and manufacturers to start doing their delivery and installations of new equipment as well. It seemed like it was a big jump, but we took the leap and bought our first delivery vehicle. This was the start to an amazing growth and opportunity; we were swamped within our first year! We had to add some more staff at this time and let the growth happen. By this time we had moved into a warehouse and built an office space.
Eventually some manufacturers reached out and asked if we would be interested in becoming their sales reps as well in our territory , I was no expert in sales, as a matter of fact I was a horrible sales person as I felt I was too honest and would tell my clients not to buy something if I didn’t think it would hold up and I would explain to them which product ( even if it wasn’t my brand ) to buy , just so they got the best of the best in their facilities . We built incredible credibility at this time and had to build up our sales and admin team and move into a new space with a warehouse, offices and a showroom.
We are excited to be known as a service - first company and more than proud of the amazing team we have and how our in-house experts all are factory trained in their field and I truly believe the best in the business. We have grown to be the experts in design and layout of facilities, condo fitness centers, recreation facilities, multi-housing, corporate gyms, schools, universities, high end home gyms and many other commercial applications. We have also branched out to be able to supply rubber flooring, cleaning solutions and all fitness supplies like your bands, tubing, fit balls, battleropes, dumbbells, barbells and such.
We are a proud company that truly focuses on first class service for all of our amazing clients. Everyone on our team is a true specialist in their given roles. We always appreciate each and every client we have the opportunity to work with.
Owner / General Manager
Arron Young
