Tim Yuhas, CSCS
 

I didn't necessarily start out wanting to own my own performance training business. I actually wanted to be a high school strength and conditioning coach, but seeing as that is unheard of in southeastern Connecticut I had to turn to the private sector. Although I am first and foremost a coach, I've always had a love for facility design and creating floor plans. I remember back when I was a student at UCONN in the early 90ʼs sitting in my biomechanics class drawing up my version of what I thought should be the new strength and conditioning facility for the Huskies. You see, back in 1991 there really were no facilities at the campus with the exception of the old football-only weight room and the new super-secret basketball facility hidden somewhere deep inside the new Gampel Pavilion. The rest of the athletes and commoners had to use “the cage” - a dark, dungy, stinky student weight room which maybe had one rack, some free weights and a bunch of Nautilus machines. After graduating and getting a job coaching and tutoring at my high school, I was back at it, drawing up plans for a state-of-the-art strength and conditioning facility for the school along with a field house, pool, etc, etc. I still have some of those drawings and am pretty proud of them even though half the strength facility was a circuit of selectorized Paramount machines including an abduction/adduction machine; I think I had a smith machine in there as well! Please forgive me, I was young!

That was around 1993. Fast forward 10 or 12 years. I'm older and wiser (yikes!) and have been to dozens of college, pro and private facilities around the country including my two favorite - Coach Boyleʼs facility at BU and Athletes Performance in Arizona. When I broke out on my own in 2000, I started training in my 800 square foot garage. My quest for my training mecca lead me to a 1300 square foot room in the back of an ice rink. That was a great spot and I had a sweet deal but it still wasn't what I really wanted. So I loaded up the truck and moved to... my current facility in Old Lyme, Connecticut which is pretty close to my “dream facility”. Coach Boyle has been with me for a good portion of my journey and has asked me to share some of the processes I went through.

Hopefully this article will provide some valuable insight for those of you who may be interested in opening a performance training facility. Although there are many aspects to opening a facility, I would like to focus on three of the more important ones: facility design/layout, choosing the right equipment, and choosing the right building/location.

1. Facility Design/Layout

I actually think this is the first step when you are planning on opening your own facility (I'm going to assume you have secured your financial backing or bank loan). I don't think you should find a building and design your facility around it, I feel it should be the other way around. Have your facility layout set and then try to find the right building to put it in. Patience is the key here and I had to have a lot of it in the search for my facility. Of course, remember, I had a great thing going at the rink so I could take my time; if nothing came up I was okay with staying at the rink. The facility layout should reflect the training philosophy of the coach and how he or she trains their athletes. For example, my training sessions include several components: the warm-up, movement skills training, plyo and med ball drills, strength work, and finally conditioning. Once you know how you are going to run things, you can start putting your floor plan together. This is a very important step as this will dictate THE FLOW! I am very adamant about this, flow is critical. I like Mark Versteganʼs term, “seamless integration”; I need this in my facility in order to avoid the dreaded “log jam”.

My facility is designed to train multiple groups of athletes, one every 45 minutes. When I sat down to design my facility I had to envision a typical day of training. In my days at the rink I trained groups of 6 by myself one after another and flow wasn't all that important. Now, I would have to have multiple groups training at one time in order to bring in more dough to pay for my new found overhead! To do this I would need to start staggering my groups so the first group would start at a designated time and the next group would start 45 minutes later. The 45 minute number came from 1) planning out how the sessions would go and 2) the amount of help from other trainers I had. It had to be carefully planned out so that one group would not be running into the other.

Basically my facility is split into two large areas, a turf area and the weight room/ conditioning area. The turf is used for the first 45 minutes (warm-up, movement training, plyos and med ball activities), and sometimes the last 15 minutes for conditioning. The weight room/conditioning area is used the remainder of the time for well, lifting (and non-turf conditioning e.g. bikes, slideboard, treadmills). With this set-up, each group can move seamlessly from one component of the session to the next.

2. Choosing the right Flooring/Equipment

Although I feel each step in opening a facility is exciting (okay, maybe not the zoning issues and acquiring funding parts), choosing equipment, to me, is the really fun part. I like equipment, the best equipment, just ask Rob at Perform Better! You don't have to go all-out but you should get yourself quality stuff. This is where I shamelessly plug my friends at Perform Better. Everything they have is quality; if you're planning your facility I recommend you go with them.

Flooring

Okay, so the floor plan is set, why don't we start with choosing what type of surface we are going to put all that equipment on? I think your choice depends on two variables: 1) budget and 2) maintenance! When it comes to flooring, there are many choices ranging from carpet to rubber flooring. If your budget is small, carpet might be the way to go. If you're a germophobe like me it might not be, although there are some great anti-fungal carpets available now. If you do go with carpet you actually have an extra built-in piece of equipment, a slide board! You can do tons of exercises on carpet with simple furniture movers! Maintenance is pretty easy with carpet, there's a device out there called a vacuum; my wife tells me about it all the time, I hear it works good on carpet.

Occasional shampooing may be necessary but perhaps the anti-fungal agents will help with that; just shampoo, rinse and repeat. Also, carpet is probably easy to replace if you want to upgrade to rubber flooring later.

The next flooring choice is a middle-of-the-road type rubber flooring such as plyorobic runaway. I had this at my house and also at the rink facility. Good stuff; easy to install (no gluing necessary), cushioning, but a nightmare from a maintenance standpoint. Again, I am a neat freak so I may be overreacting, but to me it seemed like everything got caught in the pours of the flooring and made it tough to vacuum and mop.

If you have a little more to spend in this area you may want to go with Perform Betterʼs Multi Color Roll-Out Rubber Flooring. This is what I chose for my facility and it is great! I was originally looking at really high end stuff like Mondo flooring, but to me it is ridiculously overpriced! Perform Betterʼs Roll-Out Flooring meets my big 3: affordable, durable, and easily maintainable. Vacuum and mop and you're done! Also, it comes in rather large rolls which means fewer seams. I think if you are looking at going with rubber flooring, try and go with the fewest seams possible. Less chance of it pulling up and less chance of dirt and liquid getting in there. If you choose this route, make sure you like it because once it goes down, it's down to stay!

The other type of flooring you need to look at is turf. If you are going to open a sports performance training facility a turf area is a must. To get the most out of your turf, it should be a minimum of 100 feet long and 15 feet wide (more on this later in the choosing your location section). These dimensions will allow for sprint work, shuttle runs, sled pushing/pulling, plyometric drills and much more. I would stay away from the Field Turf unless you enjoy messes and raking up rubber pellets at the end of the day.  The old fashioned synthetic turf is fine for the above stated purposes and is also cheaper.

Equipment

You actually don't need a heck of a lot of stuff here, just the right stuff! Remember to keep as much open space as possible. I am going to provide a list of what I have and it will seem like a ton of stuff but there are only a few big ticket items. My strength area is divided into three sections or what I call “strength pods”. I assign 2 athletes to a pod and since I have 3 pods (I am hoping in the future to increase my group size to 9 so we will eventually have 3 athletes/station) I have 6 athletes in a group. Each pod has everything I need to train my athletes so there is no need for them to go roaming around and therefore get off track. Each station contains the following:

•Olympic Platform

•Power Rack

•Cable Pulley System (e.g. Keiser Functional Trainer)

•Dumbbells or PowerBlocks

•Assorted bars (45 lb x 2, 30 lb, 15 lb, Trap)

•Blast Straps (or Jungle Gym II or TRX whatever you want to call them)

•Mini slide board/furniture movers

•Pull-up bands

•Ab Wheels and stability balls (55cm & 65cm)

•Landmine (aka extreme core trainer)

•Weight Vests/or dip belt

When it comes to choosing a rack I really like two kinds, although there are many good ones out there. I prefer the Keiser Power Rack; this in my opinion is the Cadillac of all racks as it has the pneumatic component. You can use the air pressure for tons of stuff including explosive jump squats (great for athletes who can't perform the O-lifts), resisted chin-ups/pull-ups, resisted inverted rows, and my favorite, resisted push-ups. My second choice when it comes to racks would be the MB Super Rack by Pro Star. I love it because you can have multiple athletes performing multiple exercises at once which you can't with other racks (even the Keiser). The only draw back to this rack is the fact that you have to have weight trees which take up floor space.

As far as cable pulley systems go, I highly recommend the Keiser Functional Trainer. I actually have the Triple Trainer version but will be breaking it up into individual stations so I can complete my “strength pod” set up.

There is also the plyometric area which includes three sets of adjustable plyo boxes, hurdles of various sizes and medicine balls. Currently I have one trainerʼs table in the warm-up area but would eventually like to have one at each pod. The warm-up area consists of foam rollers and other soft tissue “toys”, stretch bands and lots of mini bands. We also have two Drive Sleds and two Sled Dawgs which are used almost daily.  The conditioning area is equipped with two treadmills, a Woodway and a Nordictrac (Freemotion) Incline Trainer. I spent some extra money (a lot actually) on the Woodway so I would never have to buy a treadmill again; the thing is a tank! I really like the Incline Trainer for indoor hill sprints! We also have two slide boards and six Schwynn Airdynes; possibly the best conditioning tool out there.

3. Choosing the right building/location

Floor plan? Check. Equipment wish-list? Check. Now it's time to find a building. I am going to assume you are not independently wealthy or just inherited a gazillion dollars to buy a piece of land and build the next Athletes Performance in your back yard. I am thinking you are just like me and need to find an affordable existing building with hopefully the right specs. I say hopefully because it is actually tough to find just the right spot. When I first went looking for my “dream-already-built-but-need-to-renovate” facility, I had my floor plan all set which included that 100 foot by 15 foot turf area. Right off the bat I knew I needed a building that was at least 100 feet long and would have to be greater than 1500 square feet. I had always wanted a 5000 square foot facility but eventually settled on 4000. For the purpose of a sport performance training facility I would say you need a minimum of 3000 square feet. I also needed the following:

•Concrete block wall (for med ball throws)

•Concrete floor

•HVAC

•Bathrooms

My building is a simple Butler type building and was unfinished when I stumbled upon it, even the floor was dirt! I wheeled and dealed and got the owner to install my wall, the floor, the HVAC system and two bathrooms with a shower each; I got lucky! The ceilings are high so I get crushed when its hot, but heating is not too bad as I use propane and last winter; it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be!

Choosing the facility location is another story - as we always hear, “location, location, location”! I do not completely agree with this. I don't think you need to be in a strip mall or highly visible, if you can afford the enormous rent, go for it. However, I have found that if you are good at what you do they will come regardless of where you are located. My facility is off the beaten path, but the price was right (lowest rent around) and I was able to get my buddies who own a baseball training facility to move in to the adjacent space which lowered my rent even more and provided good visibility to their baseball clientele. When searching out my spot, I looked at many buildings that were close to the highway or located within high visibility shopping areas but the price was way too high not to mention not ideal within the building itself. If I found the perfect location then the building itself was too small or the ceiling height was too low, etc. My goal was to have the best state-of-the-art training facility in southeastern Connecticut and I would rather sacrifice location and be the best than shack up in an “okay” building just to have the location.

Well, after many years of planning and waiting for the right spot, I'm in my dream facility. Hopefully this article will help make it a bit easier for you if you are planning on opening your own facility. If you are starting the process, visit as many other facilities as you can and observe how things are done. Ask lots of questions and take lots of notes and then sit down and think about how you want to run your business and how you will train your athletes/clients. Plan out your facility carefully, make sure there's lots of open space and great flow! Keep a lot of wall space open as well for mobility and speed drills. Get the best equipment you can get based on your budget. Try to find a location that is easily accessible, if you can't and your good, don't sweat it, they'll find you. Look for cheap warehouse space with the least amount of required build out. Right now might be a great time as the real estate market is down and price per square foot may be down. Let me make this clear, however, it was not easy! Be prepared to have lots of fun with zoning officials and expect the unexpected. Whatever happens, have fun and good luck and if you have questions, you can email me at yuhaspt@aol.com. I will be more than happy to help.