Fitness Firm Starts Small and Builds Itself Up : United Aerobics prospers by offering plain and simple personal training, mostly to the over-35 set.

United Aerobics has few frills: plain old free weights, no state-of-the-art Nautilus equipment and a simple storefront location in an Anaheim Hills strip center.

For Brenda Adams, who pinched pennies to open the shop three years ago, that is all the fitness studio needs. After all, Adams is bringing a service once exclusive to the moneyed class to everyday, out-of-shape folks.

Aiming at those 35 and older, Adams and her 11-person staff tailor workouts to each client, a service she says a Sports Connection or a Family Fitness Center can’t always provide. And she even makes house calls.

“People need that,” said Adams, 35. “They need more personal attention. I play cheerleader, nursemaid, psychiatrist or partner.”

Adams started her exercise studio with just $3,000 in cash, a few weights, benches and weight belts. The business now serves nearly 50 personal training clients and 75 aerobics customers, and takes in about $7,000 a month. The studio’s sessions run $25 an hour with a monthlong contract, which provides for 12 sessions.

Adams is one of several thousand entrepreneurs worldwide who have opened personal training shops, most with low overhead and charging an average of $25.50 per hour, according to the International Assn. for Fitness Professionals in San Diego.

“This really is a new profession,” said Jennifer Jo Wilson, an association spokeswoman. “One of the misconceptions is that it is only for the rich and famous. But it’s opening up fitness to a greater number of people. And it’s not necessary to go out and buy all this expensive equipment to start up a business.”

Yet businesses like Adams’ don’t profess to perform miracles. Rather, the secret of success is management expertise and an ability to soothe egos or quell fears of embarrassment. Indeed, Adams rattles off examples of clients who strive to look like super models or Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Most of them come in to United Aerobics frustrated or worried that a spouse will leave them or that they are starting to really show their age.

“Usually they want to look like a hard body, or they want to look younger. Or they are shy and intimidated. We try to give them their confidence back.”

Adams said it was her own determination that got her into fitness. As a kid, growing up in Lake Charles, La., Adams was a “string bean” and suffered from asthma.

“I was told in elementary school that I couldn’t run because of it,” she said. “But I was determined, and I ran anyway.”

Adams got an accounting degree from Grambling State University in Louisiana. She went on to work as a hospital and medical administration accountant in Virginia for about five years. In her off time, she would teach aerobics classes for the local YMCA. That got her hooked.

“It was great, because ever since I was a child, I wanted to do something like this,” Adams said. “I was determined.”

In 1988, when Adams came to California with her husband and son, she decided to drop her accounting career and went to work teaching large classes at Holiday Health Spa in Orange and later Huntington Beach. It was there that she got the idea to start a one-on-one, personal training business.

So in 1989, she began sharing space with a karate studio in Anaheim Hills, putting in 16-hour days. Through word of mouth, Adams also gained a list of about 15 clients whom she trains in their homes several times a week.

“These are very private people,” she said. “They would never walk right in to a health club and begin training.”

Bashfulness is a problem with her studio customers as well. Men especially, she said, come in and try to prove themselves by lifting a 45-pound weight.

“We’ve had them come in and get sick and throw up because they were trying to get to where they think they can be. They overdo it,” Adams said.

But it takes a good six months to get into shape, she said.

“For every person there is a different way of going about it,” she said. “We have a high emphasis on safety. You cannot shortcut weight loss or body shaping. They need to feel that achievement, that they can do it. It just takes time.”

Adams, while not a nutritionist, also keeps track of the latest research into healthy diets and gives advice to her clients.

This basic, cautious approach is reflected in her business acumen. Adams wants to weather the recession before considering expansion elsewhere. And her staff, which includes eight instructors and three trainers, works on commission.

“Business owners have to pace themselves,” she said. “You can’t just buy everything. You have to take baby steps. We’ll expand with the economy. We’ll see.”

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