In an effort to revolutionize the fitness industry, Sacramento Eco Fitness is planting its roots in the heart of Midtown to promote a positive environment for everyone in the community. With its grand opening on Dec, 18, California’s first ever Eco gym is setting a new standard for all gym facilities, with its focus on renewable energy.
The concept is quite simple. While most of the gym consists of standard equipment, a group of SportsArt cycles are in place to generate watts of electricity based on the amount of kinetic energy produced by each individual cycle. Eventually, members will be able to generate enough watts of electricity to power an entire city block.
Sacramento State alumnus and Sacramento Eco Fitness founder, Jose Avina, hopes the forward-thinking mindset that helped create the facility is one that reciprocates among its members and helps break an on-going cycle of indifference towards an individual’s carbon footprint.
“For the longest time we were just okay with the way things were,” said Avina. “We have this problem where we say, ‘if it’s not broken, don’t fix it,’ but I’m not trying to fix it, I’m just trying to make it better.”
As an active member of the U.S. Marine Corps, Avina knows plenty about self-improvement, while encouraging others to improve, as well. Beyond the cycling classes, Sacramento Eco Fitness specializes in providing TRX training, core strength training, bootcamps and an on-going education on Eco-friendly practices. Furthermore, the gym is offering free and discounted memberships to those who generate the most watts per month on the cycles and members who sign up during the month of December will be receiving a free four-week bootcamp pass for a friend.
“We can’t force every member to jump on the cycles,” said Avina. “There are those that hate cardio, which is fine, but we want to create an environment and a team that is Eco-minded, meaning that we educate them on what they can be doing in their day-to-day lifestyles and teach them that some of things that they choose to do – the clothes you buy, where you decided to park your car and if you decide to carpool – can make an obvious impact on the environment.“
For all the work that Avina has dedicated to making the community a better place, many have already shown their gratitude in lending a helping hand, both literally and figuratively, prior to its grand opening.
“It’s been a really good mixture of Sac State and the local community helping out,” said Avina. “They believe in the idea, they believe in what I’m trying to do here and they understand that it is very possible. You just show people the numbers, what we can do and it’s hard to deny the facts.”
While Sunday’s grand opening will be the first milestone for Avina and his company, he has many more in sight to spread Eco Fitness throughout California and the United States. A few of those goals include purchasing many more cycles to produce more energy, building a personalized app to update members on their daily personal goals and ultimately purchasing a Tesla Powerwall battery to store and control the great amounts of energy produced to help reduce the offset of energy SMUD provides for the community.
For more information on the grand opening, memberships and/or to find out more about the equipment, visit SacramentoEcoFitness.com.
