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Even before the onslaught of COVID-19, the fitness industry was going through a fairly dramatic transformation. Traditional gyms full of bulky equipment and machines were losing their appeal as people began to embrace smaller, niche fitness studios, personal trainers and even virtual experiences.
While the shift may mean trouble for large brands, it is great news for independent fitness instructors who are now not only finding more freedom to work directly with clients, but also to build their own thriving, profitable businesses without the overhead of a corporation.
After his own experience with a personal trainer, Eddie Zhang saw this firsthand. He also noticed that the options for instructors to find a good location to train clients outside of a large gym were lacking. So, in 2009, he decided to leave his role as a tax consultant at the IRS and set out to create spaces for instructors to meet and train their clients. And come 2014, Traing Grounds Gym was born.
The model he created operates like a salon for trainers. He currently has a set of training pods that trainers rent to use