Remember the theme song to the 80 sitcom "Cheers"..." Where everybody knows your name...  It's a sweet earworm. You can't forget that. Does the same idea apply at your gym or fitness studio? Particularly if you're working with people who are over 50, 60, 70 years old?

How important should it be to build a warm, supportive community there and even outside your four walls? Well, that's the question we're going to answer today on Optimal Aging with one special guest serving as an example of the kind of powerful outreach and practices that many of the best fitness businesses provide.

Hi, I'm Jay Croft, host of Optimal Aging and owner of Prime Fit Content, both of which are here to help gyms and studios engage more people over 50 and grow their businesses. 

Now, before we dive in, I wanna note that as I record this, it's the week of Thanksgiving here in the United States. So I wanna say thank you to everyone for listening and everyone who's been on the show. And a special thank you to our supporters, like Noli, communications, tech Life, priority Supplements, and the Functional Aging Institute.

All of them are offering special discounts to you as an optimal aging listener, and I'll include those links in the show notes. It's also appropriate that I am sharing this particular interview during Thanksgiving week because a lot of these topics about community and culture are based in gratitude and relationships.

Gyms and studios that serve people over 50 and have the deepest, richest roots in their communities thrive even during the tough times, and they hold as core values. Those that make everybody feel welcome. And nurtured and they make working out fun for their clients. My guest today is a great example of all of this.

Summer Montebone is the owner of Summer's Fitness Studio in North Canton, Ohio, where she recently celebrated her 15th anniversary in business, serving primarily the over 50 demographic. Summer has 30 years of fitness experience and is a former champion bodybuilder who shifted gears after a startling bout with postpartum depression.

Summer's been a subscriber to Prime Fit Content for a while now, and I love how she uses the material to engage her audience of clients, prospects, and the broader community. I asked her under the show to talk about how she builds her culture and community and the interaction that she has with her town at large.

I really enjoy seeing her Facebook feed every day because it shows the positive energy and environment that she's created. . She's obviously doing something right after 15 years, and so I thought you would enjoy hearing Summer talk about her journey, success and Yes, community. I start by asking her how she fostered this feeling and here we go. So that's where my teaching background really comes into play.  kind of fun little fact is as a new teacher,  I ran the afterschool detention and the discipline committee and I helped write the school handbook. And so I say that goes into my business because for my, for my team and staff and everyone, right?

Like expectations always need to be clear. Well, one of those is about the client, right? And the community and the environment that we want to have. And so one of those things I wanna share with you first and foremost, cause I just had, um, a client at our 15 year anniversary party even come up to me and say this, like, I love how your team, your.

Knows everybody's name and we're we're always addressed constantly by our name. And while that might seem like such a small thing, it is a big thing. And like you said, especially in the over 50 population, that you are addressing each person by their name. So that's one of the things that I teach just in our general,  coaching, is that each client should be addressed by name a minimum of three times.

So that would kind of be the first little culture building that I give, and I attribute that back to when I was a teacher. My goal day one of teaching was that I knew every student, all 25 kids that I would have in my class. So I know that sounds simple. But knowing someone's name and addressing them and calling by their name, like from day one and throughout training is so key.  You know, it makes sense to me because it's one of the things that I value most about the gym I go to here in Atlanta.

I don't own a gym or a studio,  but I've been going to the same one now for more than 15 years. And I could change, I could go to any number of other places, but I, one of the things I really like about that place is that every person behind the counter knows my name 

And it means a lot.  Now, you also have a lot of fun there. I see you have, theme nights and I see your folks dress in costumes and you're all wearing pink in October. And tell me about these theme nights or theme days that you have. So each month we pick a theme week.

 Thanksgiving, you know, we have Turkey themed  workouts,  Christmas, you know, 12 Days of Christmas. We've heard that. But like for May, for example, in May we do,  movie month.

 each week, We pick some sort of movie genre, so maybe it's eighties movies, and every workout that week is a movie's theme workout. And so we kind of design our programming around with it.  other times of the year might be a football theme, right? Like wear your favorite. You know, well here, it's hard to say whether the Cleveland Browns are a favorite or not, but you're a local team, or like you said, breast cancer. So we  wear pink. So in October we had wear a pink shirt day and we did that all through, Halloween.

And so one day was like wear all black and then one day was wear your costume. Where all our clients, like, they love these, they love these because  we serve a large population of, honestly, 65 and over So 

This is their social club. They love this. they love when the coaches then are dressed up too, and they never know how they're gonna show up. then the workout reflects it.  instead of like, a row or whatever, wide grip row, it might be a Turkey wing wide grip row is what we name it.

We just make it fun. And that everything kind of coordinates with that. So the programming and then the whole  performance out on the floor, right? It's entertainment, it goes together. You're being trained, you're being entertained, and they love it. Intertrain. I like that. That's a new one. I haven't heard that before.

Tell us why you got  interested in training people in  that age group.

So, you know, my background,  I'm a retired pro fitness athlete, so I achieved very high level in, in the fitness world, but  I had a very hard battle with postpartum depression.

And it was through that battle that I recognized.  messages that my mom had left me and my mom died at the age of 55, and I just recognized how my mom had put herself on the back burner. She really didn't have hobbies.  she was taking care of everybody else, and I just recognized there were so many women in particular, suffering and silence, quite honestly.

And so for me, I was like,  I don't wanna use my talents anymore to help women win trophies. I wanna help them become their own personal champion. And so I actually phased out. Like physique athletes, competitive athletes. Even though I was really good at it and even had a three time world record holder champion, because I just knew deep down I wanted to serve women like my mom who are coming in, performing.

They're pretending they're happy. , but they're carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders and it's showing up on their waist and, and same with men. Like I said, I never had a chance to serve my my mom, but like my dad, who's now 78, never worked out in his life, was not an athlete. Yes, he was always active working outside, but when he retired at the age of 72, he was a pharmacist for 50 years at the same place, which.

Never even heard of this became he needed this socially, he needed this for his physical health, his mental health, right? Like connections. And so I love being able to have a place where people come and they know they're getting safe workouts that are appropriate for them and where they are in the aging process.

But they're not sitting down in a chair being told to slow down either.  They're feeling good. And so it's a mental and physical and social.

It's so much more than that.  for some people it's like they don't really start their life until after 50 55 when they're an empty nester maybe, or maybe they've even lost someone, is when they truly start doing something for themselves.

Yeah, I think you're right about that, particularly with this generation of women. I, I, I hope it's a little different for generations coming up, but there are a lot of women who defer their own self care or their own interests until the kids are grown or until they can retire or what have you, and then suddenly, Here they are.

They're 60, 65 years old, and maybe they're out of shape. They're deconditioned. They want to learn how to enjoy life and stay fit and stay strong. So that's really wonderful. And  I was drawn to the idea of all that you do to build this community in your  studio, but  also, this reflects really, your values.

So tell me, how you formed those to deliberately build this sense of community in your facility, and then how you take that into your community there in Ohio. So I'd say more, it more follows under the umbrella of our, of our tag line, even achieve your personal best and recognizing that each person is an individual and that their personal best is gonna look different.

 that's really where our values come along, and that, you know, we want to get to know the person. Like I said, knowing, you know their name, who they are, knows something about. And that we recognize that each person is so unique and probably has experienced some sort of level of pain.

And so this is part of a mental and physical healing process, right? It's more about finding strength in themselves. the clients we serve are often caretakers, right? And have cared other people well. It's time for them to let somebody else feed into them.  we wanna educate people, we wanna empower people, You were, you were telling me previously about some of the involvement that you all do there with networking and with some of the non-profits.

Tell me about, Absolutely. So I believe obviously as you empower,  people, right, and they feel better about themselves, it's gonna keep paying forward. And so we do typically two charities a year. And I'll tell you about the one that we're doing right now. So right now,  it's a gift to kit.

And so we have this list of items. A backpack that we fill with items for a child of a particular age, gender, and size. you know, there could be like a hundred dollars worth in these. our clients, our members are so amazing. we'll get 40 of those. And  we get those to different organizations like children entering into foster care or at risk children.

And actually I just loaded and had to offload like seven baskets of things already. Um, so our clients. Again, because they're empty nesters A lot of times  they find joy in this that they now can maybe buy for a child because their kids are grown.  The community loves it, like I said, in the community.  we have a, a great reputation. People thank us all the time for giving back to the community. We support local schools and things like that.

But I look at. My facility is a place, it's a platform. It's an opportunity to serve others, and so sometimes I then might do a specific event for a specific person. For example, a couple years ago we had a young girl. Dealing with LO leukemia. And so we did a fundraiser specifically for her at our place.

So again, I look at Summer's Fitness, I look at my location, my studio like again, it takes a village right to, to raise a child. Well, here's our community. How can we go out there as we're building up ourselves, how can we pay it forward and, and build up others?  why is that purpose so apparent in what you're doing and, and how, how can other gym or studio owners learn from it?

So for, for me personally, My pain is my superhero power, and that's even what I teach other clients cause I also do some personal development and life coaching is how to take their pain and their adversity. And turn it into a power. Right. Turn it into a passion. So for me, I'm like, I know there's a lot of people out there suffering, and I have an opportunity now though, to give them a hand up, right?

Not a handout, but a hand up. And so I look at like, you know, your, your pain is either your prison or your platform. And this is my platform.  I think I was put on this earth to improve lives, right? 

And so some of the people that come to us know that because I am vulnerable about my story, they feel comfortable because maybe before they felt judged because they were too overweight, or maybe they thought they were too old, right? And they couldn't go to this place. And so now we're bringing people together that truly want to better themselves.

So as far as like a different population, I mean,  we don't turn anyone away because of age, but yes, our culture is over 40. But like I said, we are definitely. 55 to 65. We are strong there. So younger people, and like I said, going back to my history when it was like, oh, you know, I want to lose fat. 

 And the term was like maybe fat loss. So we even marketed that way one day. I was just like, I am sick of this. I could care less.  if you're weighing your worth on the scale,  we just gotta get rid of this. It's about feeling good.  No one is really tied up on the numbers, right? It's more they, how they feel. They're happier with their numbers that the doctor, right? Like cholesterol, blood. They're more about longevity. They're more about, I wanna be active with my grandkids. They're more like, I had a client recently, she's 68.

She didn't start training with us until she was 65. She says all the time, I wish I would've started when I was much younger. When I was a busy,  corporate woman. She went on a trip and it was like hiking and mountains, and she's like, yeah, we had someone in the forties in our party who couldn't finish it.

it's those types of things, right? Like she was able to enjoy life to the fullest and the future. So I, again, you see her, Jay, I could go on and on about all the benefits of . No, that's great. I think that's why we work together so well and why you. You use my material so much just because that's what I'm always writing about is that kind of quality of life. summer, thank you again and congratulations again and  thanks for being with Prime Fit Content for so long. I really appreciate the support and the friendship and happy holidays. Well, thank you. You put out great stuff. I love your writing.

I love the content that you provide and so do our clientele and even the other, other supporters. So keep up the great work to you too. All right. Thanks. Have a great day. You too. Bye. Bye. Bye. 

Thank you for listening to Optimal Aging. I hope you enjoyed the show and I hope you'll subscribe, tell a friend and write a. All of that helps us grow our audience. You can learn more about me and my content business@primefitcontent.com. You can send me an email at J J A Y prime fit content.com, and I'm also on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram pretty much wherever people are these days to keep in touch.

Again, thank you for listening. Join us next time.