EquiVita - Week 1

Client Stories
As EquiVita reached a major milestone in celebrating their 10th anniversary, they gathered some important moments from its ten year history that highlights what makes the clients so special. So sit back and enjoy reading through some of these cool stories.

About 3 years after moving into our new space we were again looking at expanding and as luck would have it, the suite next to us became available. This suite was the same size as our current one (the one that just a few years prior was 3x the size I was looking for) and would mean another big leap to doubling our square footage. Oh, but the possibilities.

10 Weeks to 10 Years: Week 7

Week 8

Week 6

Through many, many design iterations we were able to create a layout that flowed with our current space while partitioning off individual areas like a completely new massage area and yoga studio/classroom.

Separating the massage rooms to an entirely separate massage "wing" provided a far more relaxing atmosphere. The colors, softer lighting and music create an environment that has a distinctly different feel than the more public fitness area. It provides the Yin to complete the YinYang balance of EquiVita.

As a business we have always had a foundational focus on education, so ensuring that we had classroom space for seminars and workshops made sense, but we also had much interest from our clients for movement classes, especially yoga. So, to build the classroom for yoga, much less to provide yoga classes, I sought out the experts and created a relationship with Yoga on High. With their guidance we built the classroom and through them we began offering yoga classes at EquiVita.

New massage area, yoga studio and twice the fitness training space! We had grown in a completely different direction than my original business plan, but it all seemed so organic. People need a place where they feel comfortable. Period.

Those in the health industry encourage people to make lifestyle choices, while those in the fitness industry focus on short term goals. EquiVita is a place to support both of these, because an active lifestyle will involve varying levels of fitness focus. There will be times when you want to see how fast you can run or how small you can get your waist, and there are other times when you just hope to not lose all the muscle that you worked so hard to gain. These and every variant on the spectrum are a valuable part of a healthy life and we support all of them. There may be goals along the way, but there is not a destination. There is only the process.

Meet one of our clients: Sarah
As Sarah Hildreth put it, "most people go to EquiVita because they want some sort of pain to stop" or "for some sort of fitness reason." But the five-year EquiVita veteran started going simply to burn energy: "I was just wired. I was just wrapped a little tight."

Sarah had tried other fitness facilities and gyms and had even participated in an Ohio State University research study in diet and exercise. Such stress-relief outlets initially kept her attention, but she said she always eventually lost focus and the drive to maintain a consistent training regimen.

"I'm not an athletic person," Sarah said. "I'm not. I'm 51. I grew up when there were still girl push-ups. I started to run for a while and no one had told me how to run. My younger cousin looked at me like I was insane. Girls didn't do sports back then. I didn't know what I was doing."

A friend who had been going to EquiVita recommended Sarah to try it out. And kept recommending it. And recommending it. And..."I blew it off and she kept pushing me to go," Sarah said with a laugh.

EquiVita stuck thanks to the welcoming environment, Cheers-like camaraderie and a personal approach to fitness that Hildreth was unfamiliar with. "It was the first place where I'd almost had somebody talk me out of weight loss," she said. "It's a spandex-free, very comfortable place with people in all different shapes. It's not the 27-year-old body everywhere there, which is really nice. It's about having a functional body versus a bimbo body."

For the past five years Sarah has worked with EquiVita founder Adam Milligan twice a week. She said her fitness goals change all the time and Adam adapts workouts to meet her needs. In the past couple of years the goals of the self-described "recovering social worker" have ranged from preparing to climb to and walk across the Great Wall of China, to simply maintaining flexibility, strength, stamina and mental clarity while working full time as a contract manager and sending her kids off to college.

Sarah participates in cardio boxing sessions and has taken tai chi and yoga classes. In her private and work life she is a motivated, self-starting citizen, but when it comes to fitness she said, "There's a certain amount of working out with someone that makes me want to show up more. Adam's got an ability to see the body in a completely different way."

"But I think the reason (EquiVita) makes it better for me is that Adam works with how I approach life. He's just really in your head. It's hard to describe it to somebody else, but for me he just makes sense. He will see what you need to push in your mind as well as your body. Adam keeps challenging me. I'm never bored there and that's why I still go there."