Pure Austin Fitness
Pure Austin Fitness
Written by Tiffany Young Thursday, 07 February 2008
Pure Austin’s north Austin gym sits just in front of a retired quarry.
Pure Austin Fitness is not your typical gym. For one, specials are not offered to bring in new members. Even in January, everyone pays the same.
“Our philosophy is, instead of always recruiting new people, we should keep our people happy, so they’ll come back,” owner Beto Boggiano said.
Another thing Pure Austin Fitness does differently than its competition is sticking to what it is good at. For instance, it does not provide daycare onsite.
“I don’t know how to run a daycare,” Boggiano said. “It’s about fitness, not about sales.”
It is also locally owned, something Boggiano is proud of. Boggiano has thought of opening new locations, but he said he wouldn’t think of starting a new location unless the city was very innovative, like Austin. “But then it wouldn’t be local,” he said.
Boggiano opened Pure Austin Fitness downtown in April 1999 and moved to the 14-acre Quarry Lake location in August 2004.
“This location is a dream because it gave us more room to have classes – it allows us to be more versatile,” Boggiano said. “We have a boat dock down by the lake, so you can have yoga classes overlooking the lake.”
Before opening a fitness center, Boggiano worked as a geneticist for eight years, but throughout college he taught fitness classes at gyms.
“It was always sort of a dream,” Boggiano said of opening a fitness center. He knew it had to be in Austin, embody the local flavor and not be intimidating.
Inside Pure Austin Fitness, the atmosphere is much what you might expect from a fitness center, only hip and modern with stained concrete floors, visible silver air ducts and autumn-colored walls.
Around the corner from the front desk is the Pure Fuel Bar, offering smoothies, such as January’s smoothie of the month: the Resolution Smoothie. Sports equipment and clothing is on sale nearby, including yoga mats, watches, goggles, kickboards and more. The juice bar also boasts free wireless Internet making the fitness spot more than a place to work out. Most notable however, is a bike with a blender attached to the front that customers can pedal to mix their own smoothies without using electricity. The new addition is part of Pure Austin’s plan to save energy. The gym will likely have a reward attached to those who choose to blend their own smoothies, such as mix 10 smoothies, get one free.
A rock-climbing wall in the center of the gym reaches toward the ceiling, and plenty of windows give visitors a view of the outdoors. Downstairs is a number of weight machines and free weights, while upstairs contains treadmills, stationary bikes and other fitness machines.
Outside Pure Austin Fitness is a heated pool, an outside track and a lake for open water swimming set up for triathlon training and kayaking.
Boggiano said his fitness complexes pull in people who are into the outdoors.
“When people say ‘I’m not a gym person,’ we say ‘I’m not either’,” Boggiano said.
Three things Boggiano says to look for in a gym:
- Join a gym. “Sign up for a gym, so there are no excuses [for not working out]. It doesn’t have to be Pure Austin, just sign up for a gym,” Boggiano said.
- Start slow. “You’ll see more results with your body if you start slow.”
- Try before you buy. Pure Austin Fitness allows a free two-week trial period to try out classes and facilities. “Don’t sign anything longer than a year membership and try classes and things you like,” Boggiano said.
Hours: Mon – Thurs 5:30 a.m. – 10 p.m.
Fri 5:30 a.m. – 8 p.m.
Sat 8 a.m. – 7 p.m. • Sun 9 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Pure Austin Fitness, 4210 W. Braker Lane, 342-2200 • www.pureaustin.com, infoQL@pureaustin.com
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