Exercising owner acumen

Alicia Robinson

The well-lighted vanity mirror and bottles of skin lotion in the

locker room are a dead giveaway.

If it wasn’t obvious from the name, you can tell once you enter

the Athletic Club for Women whose needs the management has in mind.

Zeena Dhalla, the gym’s new owner, has been sprucing up the

25-year old fitness facility since taking it over last fall, and she

held an open house on Saturday to showcase the changes.

One step was getting rid of a squat machine that took up a lot of

space and wasn’t being used by many of the club’s patrons, who are

all women. Dhalla donated the equipment to charity.

“One of the things I’ve been trying to focus on here is adding

more balance training and core training, which is really important

for women as we get older,” Dhalla said.

Spinning bikes were the next thing to go. The club is next door to

a studio that offers spinning classes, and most of the women who take

spinning are younger than 30, while the club caters to women of

various ages, Dhalla said.

A refurbished Pilates studio took the place of the old spinning

room, and Dhalla added modern fitness equipment such as exercise

balls and something called a Cadillac, which resembles a jungle gym

with straps that the exerciser can hang from while working out.

Dhalla had the gym painted, cleaned up the shower and sauna area

and added amenities to the locker room and lounge area such as coffee

and tea service.

To give the gym a personal touch, she decorated with photos taken

by a client that show women’s body parts engaged in exercise.

Gym members have responded positively to the changes, said trainer

and instructor Jennifer Reigle, who has worked at the gym for six

years.

“I think Zeena really cares about the training and the motivation

of the clientele,” she said.

The new workouts emphasizing balance and flexibility have been

popular even with clients who have been with the gym for some time,

Reigle said.

“I think it’s just kind of built up the excitement about working

out again,” she said.

It was Dhalla’s passion for fitness that led her to take over

ownership of the gym, which was a bit of a career change from her

previous work in the entertainment industry.

“I was incredibly unhappy with my job, and in 1999, I ran a

marathon, and it changed my life,” Dhalla said. “I decided to pass it

on to other people.”

She began working as a personal trainer and was planning to build

a gym almost identical to the Athletic Club for Women when she heard

it was available.

Operating a women-only facility is a little different than a coed

gym because women want a place that’s social and supportive rather

than competitive, Dhalla said.

The gym has retained many of its clients and added a few new ones,

but Dhalla said she won’t expand the membership indefinitely because

she wants to keep providing personal attention to her clients and

keep the gym from getting too crowded.

“We always want to make sure if you come in between 5 and 7 p.m.,

you’re going to be able to get on the machine you want to get on,”

she said.