Sportsbarn just spent $250,000 on new, high-tech exercise bikes for its three locations.
The investment is just one example of Sportsbarn's strategy to keep up-to-date and allow the locally-owned fitness center to adapt and thrive since it first opened in downtown Chattanooga in 1979 as a racquetball facility, according to Don Bowman, Sportsbarn's marketing director.
That's an anomaly, he said, since health and fitness clubs typically don't last that long.
"That's unheard of in this industry. Chains last a decade," Bowman said. "We stay on the cutting edge."
The new exercise bikes for spinning class are Spinner-brand Blade Ion bikes that offer real-time performance tracking via flat-screen TV. Riders can see how they're doing and compare their performance with others in the class.
"For Chattanooga, it's way ahead of its time," Bowman said. The high-tech spinning bikes are the type found in such big cities as Atlanta and New York City, he said.
The new exercise bikes have been installed in a spinning studio in the downtown Sportsbarn, and Bowman said they're due to be installed in the next week in the Hixson Sportsbarn, and then they'll go in at the Lee Highway Sportsbarn.
Other up-to-date fitness offerings at Sportsbarn include Crossfit training, hot yoga, and Barre One, a mirrored studio with a ballet barre, or railing, on the walls.
"It's a lot of isometric movements, small movements that strengthen all the core muscles," said Kelly Zuch, Barre One's manager, who's also an instructor.
The downtown Sportsbarn is divided up into different studios that look and feel like separate businesses - but are all part of Sportsbarn.
"We do it all under one roof," Bowman said.
Many of Sportsbarn's members have belonged for years - sometimes generations, he said.
During a recent tour of the downtown Sportsbarn, he introduced a yoga instructor who started going to Sportsbarn two decades ago when she was a college student, and has stayed all these years.
Sportsbarn's members include well-heeled business people who work downtown.
Higher-end fitness clubs succeed by creating a sense of community, said Emily Attwood, editor of the Madison, Wisc.-based Athletic Business magazine.
"It's creating more of a lifestyle," Attwood said. "You're building really more of a community, where low-budget gyms, you're competing on price. [They] don't get that brand loyalty."
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or twitter.com/meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.