By GREG RUSSELL, Register Staff Writer
Gainesville Daily Register
Gainesville —
Bosco’s Gym provides an incentive for customers of all ages.
This is because unlike some businesses, it’s selling a product everyone needs.
Trainer Stacy Green said the fitness center boasts regulars in their eighties, keeping themselves in shape for reasons that matter. And even for the teenagers who enter the doors, Green explained he considers their fitness a “must-do” in life to maintain.
“It’s use it or lose it,” Green said. “The older we get, the muscles just atrophy. And people are going to wind up in a wheelchair or a recliner when they’re 60 years old if they don’t do something.”
But when they do, he said, the result is ultimately a better lifestyle.
“I like to tell people, ‘I’m not training you so you can do better in the gym next week. I’m training you so you can do better in your everyday life, whether you’re unloading groceries or on the golf course,’” he said. “That’s what we’re trying to help you with.”
Bosco’s opened in 1996 at the Gainesville Shopping Center and became a standalone gym on Highway 82 in 1998. The name, Green explained, came from an English bulldog that provided a fitting image.
“We figured that would make a good logo, a muscled-up English bulldog that went on the T-shirts,” he said.
More than a decade later, logo still in place, Bosco’s relocated to 517 E. Broadway St. in a fairly expanded form. Today it provides an array of resistance and cardiovascular gear, including free weights, self-spotting machines and a line of “Exerbotics” equipment.
The latter is a computer-driven weight program available at an extra monthly price that stores data and offers customized workouts and information for its users. It keeps very detailed records of every workout — and can provide a user with back-dated information about his or her progress.
Green said Bosco’s is the first fitness center in Texas to obtain the “revolutionary” equipment, which is currently popular among professional athletes.
“The computer records every millimeter of every repetition that you do,” he said. “I can get on there and see what I did a year ago. And I can pull up my client’s records and show them the computer. ‘Look: here’s what you could do last year and here’s what you can do now.’”
Bosco’s Gym is open seven days a week and offers basic and advanced membership packages. It provides an accessible atmosphere for anyone looking for to improve or reinvent themselves through the personal evolution of fitness.
And Green said he knows many potential customers may be nervous to begin that process for themselves.
But they shouldn’t be.
“Some people are probably intimidated or afraid to come in because they have preconceived notions about it,” he said. “Most people who have brought their friends or family members in, they say, ‘Oh, this is nothing like I thought it would be.’ We’re very friendly to everyone. All the members are very friendly to each other and we’re not really concerned with what you look like or what you’re wearing.
“We have all people, no matter what they come in for, and I think that’s one reason it’s been so successful.”
For more information, call (940) 668-0700.
