For Endeavour Fitness owner Brandon Bloom, the sense of community his cross-fit classes share is what keeps people coming back time after time again.
“It has its own sense of community,” Bloom said. “It doesn’t matter how good an athlete you are, you could’ve been a university or professional athlete, and guaranteed you’re going to get your butt kicked your first workout.”
Having recently moved to a new location in Invermere’s Industrial Park (in the old Te Papa Nui Antiques and Collectibles building), Endeavour Fitness is flourishing in its new space as the owners are able to offer even more classes and accommodate more clients.
Run and operated by Bloom and wife Jolaine, the fitness centre offers a number of group-focused cross-fit classes, and as Bloom explains, it’s the group atmosphere that can really help encourage people.
“Everybody starts at the same place and everybody struggles with the same thing,” Bloom said. “There are no egos, everyone there is supportive of each other and it makes the classes easier to attend.”
What Endeavour Fitness specializes in is cross-fit, which isn’t your normal everyday workout. Instead, cross-fit actively encourages working on every muscle group in the body with a variety of high intensity exercises. Specific exercises can change almost daily, and Bloom advocates a balanced program that encompasses a wide range of disciplines. Classes usually run about 45 minutes to an hour, but Bloom says it isn’t really about how much time you spend in the gym.
“We’re not looking to fill up an hour, we’re looking to accomplish something, however long that might take,” Bloom explained. “It’s training for life… were not looking to create a specialist, so this is why this program works well for everybody, there’s something for everybody to pull from it. Anytime a person specializes in any one aspect of fitness, they’re going to sacrifice the opposing end.”
Bloom said he has always had a love of fitness, even from an early age, and after meeting his wife he said it was a natural progression from being a professional trainer to owning his own facility. He admits it was a bit of a gamble opening the gym in 2009, but since then word of mouth has spread and he sees new people coming in each week.
“We don’t do a lot of advertising, in a small community we believe word of mouth is a lot more believable for people than having to convince somebody to come join,” Bloom said. “The type of clientele we’re looking for are the kind that are more self-motivated, and those are the ones who are more likely to succeed. We don’t want to have to twist somebody’s arm to come in.”
Membership runs on a per-month basis, and introductory classes are held at the beginning of each month. For more information, including schedules and pricing, visit their website at www.crossfitinvermere.com, or phone them at 250-342-5856.
“Every day you get to see people come in, and they’re accomplishing something,” Bloom said. “It may not be right away, but as long as they are consistent and they keep working at it, eventually you get to see that person just ecstatic one day… they’re jumping up in joy because they’re finally accomplishing something they’ve been working at for so long.”