Personalized fitness is a new model of fitness that engages the client through multiple areas of support - fitness, nutrition, and behaviors. This is not personal training and it’s not group classes. Clients work one-on-one with a coach who develops a long-term fitness, nutrition, and lifestyle program based on their individual goals and a comprehensive assessment. The client is then responsible for completing their training and sharing results with their coach.

For our clients in Austin, we offer onsite coaching hours. From 6:00am - 9:00am and 4:30pm - 7:30pm Monday - Friday and 8:00am - 12:00pm on Saturdays, one of our professional coaches is on the floor to answer questions, provide feedback, and ensure a safe, fun environment for clients.

We do not.

No matter how hard a coach tries to personalize a workout within a group setting, it simply cannot be done. Most attempts are scaling and modifying workouts to make what works well for one suitable for the next. This is a lower-order approach relative to creating an intelligent training plan that is based upon an individual's needs. Additionally, personal training can become very expensive and still doesn’t provide opportunities to address the nutritional and behavioral aspects of a client’s life that impact their goals and progress.

We generally find that people with some experience working out, whether it’s group classes or running or anything else, are more successful with this model and have an easier time adapting to it. However, if you’re committed to the process and are comfortable working out independently, you’ll do great!

All of our coaches have completed the OPEX CCP. OPEX CCP develops both knowledge and practical implementation, teaching coaches a comprehensive system including physical assessment, functional exercise program design, and lifestyle coaching. Additionally, our coaches have a variety of strength and conditioning and nutrition certifications including CSCS and Precision Nutrition. Additionally, all of our coaches have 5+ years of coaching experience.

You can read about each of our coaches here.

Anything can be dangerous if done incorrectly. However, Central Athlete puts a huge emphasis on quality over intensity - this means that we ensure all clients move properly before adding external loading. Additionally, our professional coaches design your program with the mindset of “do no harm,” meaning we are never going to prescribe an exercise or load that puts you in danger. The initial assessment plays a big part in this - your coach analyzes exactly where you’re at in your fitness in terms of movement, strength, and work capacity. They then design your program around your current abilities and goals with respect to exercise selection, intensity, and volume to ensure that not only you are performing the correct, most safe exercise for you, but the exercises specifically that you need to be working on. We also offer on-site coaching hours where there is a coach on the floor watching every client and ensuring a safe and positive environment for our community.

Great question! One client says, “Walking into the gym on any given day, you find a super supportive community full of people of a wide range of abilities, all cheering each other on.” Another has compared it to Cheers, the place where everybody knows your name.

The facility is more than a space for training and recovery. It is the opportunity to connect with a community of others who in some way, shape or form, strive for progress in their lives. Whether that means keeping up with their two-year-old, PRing their back squat or losing some unwanted fat mass, we’re in this together. The energy of constant improvement is what connects each of us and you can feel it when you walk into the gym.

There are showers in Building 1. Just ask a coach how to get there!