The right fit Fitness for $10 expands space, offerings

Fitness for $10… A wall to wall mural of a highway going off into the distance is positioned behind the stationary bikes in the Cycle Studio at Fitness for $10 in Mankato.

It’s not until you climb on, start pedaling and look to the mirrored wall in front that you realize why it’s behind the bikes. The mural is positioned just right so that everyone on a bike looks like they’re riding on down that open road.

“It’s really cool,” said Chad Ziemke, general manager of Fitness for $10 in Mankato.

It’s also just one piece of the overhauled building that has been drawing in new members, Ziemke said, as well as prompting longtime members to spend more than twice (or even five times) as much on their memberships.

An expansion of the gym to the main level of the building at 1351 Madison Ave., where the Mankato Design Center used to be housed, took the square footage from about 16,000 feet to 24,000 feet. With the new space came various new offerings, new equipment, new classes and more, and much of it comes at a higher cost.

The basic $10 membership is still in place, which gets people access to the weight and cardio equipment. (If you want that membership with a no-commitment clause, it’ll cost you $14.99 per month.)

The VIP membership — which existed before the expansion but now has a few more perks — is $19.99 per month (a 99-cent increase). This membership includes access to weight and cardio equipment, tanning, red light therapy (red, low-light wavelengths said to help in the process of tissue recovery), hydro massage, a sectioned off “spa area” with combination lockers, and access to an XGT fitness room. VIPs can also bring a guest.

“The red light therapy is extremely popular. We’ve had people sign up just for that,” Ziemke said.

Membership changes

The biggest membership change is in the offering of the $49.99 Studio membership. Those members get everything above, plus access to all the classes and studio spaces, including the Cycle Studio in the lower level and the Fit Studio on the main level, where new instructors are teaching a variety of yoga, strength and cardio classes. For those who tan, Studio members also get access to new premium tanning beds.

“We are offering a ton of classes — over 40 classes,” Ziemke said.

When there isn’t a class, if a member wanted to go into the Cycle Studio alone or with a group of friends, there’s a projector screen and virtual classes that they can take whenever they want.

“And as that membership evolves, we’ll add more variety,” Ziemke said.

Around the building there are changes that everybody can appreciate, Ziemke said. Additional space was added for the free weights, eliminating bottlenecking issues, for example. There are open areas to stretch, some bright colored paint has added some energy to the spaces, new equipment has been added (non-motorized treadmills, for example), and a bunch of equipment is now on the main level for people who like to workout with windows and natural light.

“We’ve seen a lot of our members who have dropped come back (since the expansion),” Ziemke said.

Michael Gerrit Bosch has been a member for three years and said the renovation looks nice, and it’s good to have more space, he said.

“It’s nice having the cardio and weight equipment separate,” he said. “The only bad part is in order to use a lot of the expansion you need to be a Studio member, which is over twice the price.”

This is the second major renovation Fitness for $10 has undergone since it opened in the lower level of the building with 11,000 square feet in the summer of 2013. At the time they had basic cardio and weight equipment, said Ziemke, who has been the manager for all but the first three months of business.

At the time, he said, the $10 price point was a great deal because no one else was offering a gym membership at that cost in the area.

“People really liked that price point,” Ziemke said, which caused a growing membership. “We knew pretty quick we needed to expand.”

The first expansion into the former R. Henry Construction space added a few thousand square feet, but still kept the gym in the lower level in 2015. That’s when the $19 VIP tier membership was added with features like the hydromassage.

With the new expansion completed, Ziemke said the staff jokes that there’s nowhere else they can grow into from here.

“We kind of keep joking because the owner of the gym owns the whole building, but the building is full now,” he said. “There’s nowhere to expand to; we’re full.”