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Not every man wants to be a body builder

At Sircuits Fitness for Men, many members are there to stay fit so they can play with their grandkids - or catch up on gossip.

By MICHAEL KRUSE
Published June 28, 2006

SPRING HILL - Sircuits is a gym that's kind of like a Curves for men.

Curves is the fast-growing franchise that has nearly 10,000 small storefront gyms with their trademark 30-minute, station-to-station circuit workouts. Sircuits, which opened in May 2005 on State Road 50 out toward Weeki Wachee, is the first local piece of the male portion of the single-sex express fitness phenomenon.

All of it continues to change who goes to the gym in this country and what they do when they get there.

But places like Sircuits - Sircuits. Get it? - also fly in the face of the idea that the Curves philosophy works more for gossipy women while men like to go to the gym all tanned and tank-topped to do the bench press and biceps curls.

The newer-age stance on fitness: It's about how you feel more than how you look.

Most of the men who go to the gym these days aren't groaning, grunting weight lifters.

They do like to gossip - "guy" gossip, sure, but still gossip.

And they are self-conscious about their butts and their guts and their multiple chins.

"Unfortunately," Sircuits owner Ray Karns said at his gym one morning last week, "at a lot of these high-end gyms, it's not a comfortable environment for guys like these guys right here. A lot of these guys have kids and grandkids at home, and their goal is to be able to play with the grandkids or maybe go on a bike ride with their wife - and this is an environment that allows them to be themselves.

"The goal here is not to build huge muscles and to be buff and beautiful. Our goal is to get them fit without them being intimidated."

"I'm not losing any weight," said Tom Hansen, 56, a retired New York City bus driver who lives in Spring Hill. "But my heart can feel a difference. I have more energy."

"The average Joe," said Pamela Kufahl, the editor of Club Industry's Fitness Business Pro, a trade magazine for health club owners, "isn't any more comfortable with his body than a woman is with hers."

Once upon a time, going to the gym was for the young, the pretty and the fit - all to see and be seen in all of those mirrors on the walls. A cover story in Rolling Stone in 1983 called health clubs "the new singles' bars." The headline: "Looking for Mr. Goodbody."

Now, though, aging baby boomers need a more low-key place to get fit or stay fit.

And Curves changed everything.

The first Curves opened in Texas in 1992, and the first franchise came three years later. Now there are more than 4-million members at more than 9,500 locations worldwide - including five in Hernando County.

More than 41-million Americans belong to health clubs, according to the most recent statistics by the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association in Boston, and membership grew 8 percent in 2003 - Curves being a big part of that. A full 60 percent of people who go to gyms in this country are older than 35.

Single-sex facilities, meanwhile, make up 38 percent of all gyms, and men-only gyms are a small but growing market within that trend.

That market includes independents such as Sircuits and small chains like Cuts for Men, the Blitz and Nitro Fitness. Cuts is the biggest and has one location in Florida in Port Orange.

Many of the men-only gyms are near a Curves. Sircuits is between a dermatologist and an office for Royal Coachman Homes, and down a bit in the strip center from a Curves, too. Members range in age from 14 to 91, Karns said, and payment plans include monthly and yearly.

Sircuits has mainly a series of hydraulic machines and doesn't sell protein shakes or PowerBars. Just like Curves.

It doesn't have showers. Just like Curves.

And no mirrors. Just like Curves.

The men-only, in-and-out-style gyms work, said people who run them, people who use them and industry experts and trend spotters, for the same reasons that Curves works for women.

Time is the first thing. Everything is a little busier these days, or a lot busier, or at least it seems that way. More people are more serious about fitness, but they're also more taxed for time, and that goes for both men and women.

"Men have the same needs as women as far as having a very comfortable, very effective and very quick place to work out," said Steven Haase, a managing director at Cuts for Men headquarters in Clark, N.J. "And they don't want to have to impress the women and the muscle heads who are there at a traditional club."

"The stereotype is that women are going to be more gossipy and want to talk and socialize," Kufahl said. "But the fact is men want to talk and socialize just as much as women do."

"We find that we have tons of groups of men who come in and want to visit," said Larry Bedell, the co-founder of Nitro Fitness. "Their kids go to the same high school, and they talk about the high school game of the week or the college game down the road, or they go out for coffee or go on walks together."

"Why do you think plastic surgery for men is up?" said Barbara Avery of Spring Hill, who owns the Curves by Sircuits and another on U.S. 19. "They're really conscious about this, that or the other thing, and that's just the type of society we live in now."

Members at Sircuits offered up testimonials last week.

"It helps me with loosening up my joints," said Don Jensen, 80, a retired accountant who moved to Spring Hill from Chicago and had never gone to a gym before Sircuits came along.

"I recommend it to anyone who wants a workout that's not going to do you in," said Walter Deegan, 71, who is retired from the New York City Board of Education and lives in Glen Lakes north of Weeki Wachee. "A half an hour and you're done, and you feel good."

Karns is looking to franchise.

IF YOU GO 
Sircuits Fitness for Men, 10141 Cortez Blvd., near Weeki Wachee, is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Firday and from 8 a.m. to noon Saturday. Call (352) 596-5070 or visit the Web at www.sircuits.com.

[Last modified June 28, 2006, 07:54:53]