For Fitness Club Owners, Work is a Labor of Love
By SETH SAWYERS

The Capital
December 02, 2001, Sunday
SECTION: Business TAB; Pg. 3
Copyright 2001 Capital-Gazette Communications, Inc.
The Capital (Annapolis, MD)

Cancer got Ron Miller into working out.

Hodgkin's disease struck twice _ once in undergraduate school and again when he was in law school.

The 33-year-old, now the owner of Club One Fitness in Glen Burnie, fought back from it both times, but treatment left him drained and weak, whittling his solid frame from 200 to 130 pounds. Eight years ago, he turned to lifting weights after his last treatments. He's a lawyer now, deep into litigating a string of wrongful death cases against the big pharmaceutical companies that make antidepressant drugs. (His firm, Miller & Zois, handles products liability, and personal injury cases.)

"Much of my life is dealing with wrongful deaths," he said. "It's difficult, because you're dealing with human stuff at its zenith. It's a little bit of sanctuary. I love this environment here."

For owners of the county's dozens of gyms and other physical fitness businesses, entrepreneurship is mixed with sweat.

The startup costs are tremendous, they say, more so than in a lot of other businesses. Whether starting a new club or taking over an old one, owners usually buy as much new equipment as they can, knowing their clients prize the sparkling new machines. Some machines cost as much as $ 15,000 each.

Though the county is home to its share of big chain gyms, most are small operations, employing just a handful of staff and a host of part-timers who teach aerobics classes.

Some gym owners are in it for the additional cash. But many get into the business because they just like working out.

"They train others for four hours, then they spend four hours training themselves," said Kyle Merker, a New York based fitness expert and author of "Where to Work Out While You're on the Road."

"When you're the owner and you have it running well, you have a lot of flexibility. This allows them to work out when they need to."

At his gym, Mr. Miller does cardiovascular work three to four times a week and strength training two or three days a week.

"I go back and forth, but I stay on track," Mr. Miller said.

The environment he's created in the Sun Valley Shopping Center features sparkling new weight machines, cardiovascular cycling machines called ellipticals, universal machines and a room dedicated to the madhouse cycling class called spinning.

He got into the business first with a downtown Baltimore club and then in Glen Burnie as a way to make some extra money, sure, but also to have some fun.

"What else can we do with our time that's more rewarding?" Mr. Miller asked.