Today we’d like to introduce you to Jamie Alexander.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
My wife, Bronwen and I decided, after years of training and interest in fitness, to open our own facility. Both of us grew up as athletes, and when we found CrossFit in 2010, it changed our lives–it brought the element of sport to fitness; two things we loved. Since its inception, CrossFit has changed the landscape of fitness as a whole–and what we love about it is the flexibility and individual expression the discipline of CrossFit provides. Since we founded our facility in June of 2017, we’ve enjoyed making our community a direct representation of who we are and what we want to provide to our family of athletes. And, it’s different from other CrossFits. We work hard to provide an environment of hard work, but at a level where EVERY single human that walks through our doors will feel connected, cared about, and encouraged, not just the fitness elite.
Has it been a smooth road?
It’s a fascinating thing, looking back: we chased down a crazy-long-shot opportunity and acquired the gym–from the initial phone call to the paper-signing–in under two weeks. In a blaze, we were suddenly owners of a 3500sq ft facility in the heart of one of the hardest gym landscapes in the country. My wife always says that if it took any longer than that, we would’ve had time to let the weight of the decision settle, and we’d get horrified about what we were doing.
To give an idea, in the 2 miles of roadway we’re located on, we anchor the afterparty of an event called the Pico Fitness Crawl; essentially a pub crawl, but for fitness. 26 different studios within these two miles participate in an open-house smorgasbord of fitness. Pilates, Yoga, Weightlifting, CrossFit, HIIT Studios, Dance, Martial Arts, Boxing–all right at our doorstep. How can we even compete?! There are SO many options. Costco, as part of their business model, attempts to eliminate the paralysis of too many choices, which is exactly what happens here in Southern California. So, we grind and grind to build relationships and prove to the community around us that we’re the go-to for all their strength and conditioning.
The struggles are real: California, already, is no place for small business; we never really understood that until we saw it first-hand, but also, our fitness demographic tends to skew (naturally) younger. But it shouldn’t. We’re ambassadors of getting EVERYONE into a fitness program; it just tends to be the younger crowd that enjoys the sport even with us touting our program as preventative healthcare. In Iowa, you can charge 20 bucks a month to 60 members and lease an airplane hangar. And those people will probably stay there for their entire lives; here, 20 bucks goes to your coffee in the morning. And good luck finding 200 people to stay long enough to even learn their last names before another software company sweeps them away to Seattle.
Still, we love what we do, and understand that every business, everywhere, has its struggle. Otherwise, everyone would own a business.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Blue Republic CrossFit story. Tell us more about the business.
We’ve got the secret to fitness: Time and hard work.
Ewww. Not what anyone wants to hear. Anyone else toting any other novelty is in it for the wrong reasons. Like the brain, the body works through process. It can NOT experience true change without true process. We say it every week to our family of members;
Just show up. Do the work. Your body will take care of the rest.
We’re known for our community, relationships, and the enrichment of experience we create with our workouts. While we can say our programming, by its very nature, tends to be the upper-cusp of skills and conditioning regimens, we get everyone involved and comfortable. Which is an art form in itself.
Some people don’t feel comfortable hanging from monkey bars or standing on their heads. Instead, we find a way to get them confident and conditioned with a great modification. It’s the strength of every great General Physical Preparedness (GPP) program: to work with each element of fitness, and raise the average-mean athletic capacity of each individual. Take a self-assessment: when was the last time you held a wall-handstand for a minute? Sat at the bottom of a squat, holding a plate above your head with outstretched arms? Jumped up onto a box 30 times? All good examples of GPP: fully functional fitness, and all great examples of things that people need a coach’s instruction and programming to complete.
We’re most proud of our culture–perhaps a counter-culture–of the greater gym community. While we slam things around, laugh and sing at the tops of our lungs, we take pride in the fact that every human inside our doors feels a belonging. They find their people inside our space. We don’t clique, we don’t splinter, and we include. Which, shockingly, is a massive change for others coming from other gyms where they continually felt like an outsider and unaccepted.
How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
The industry will almost certainly, in the next 5-10 years, all but eliminate group training as a results-attaining form of fitness. It services no one effectively, including the coaches.
Group Classes are awesome in the same way that team sports are awesome… Nothing beats arriving for class and seeing your friends gearing up, ready to sweat it out with you on the battlefield. But our time working one-on-one with Personal Clients got us thinking: why is it we can command better results with one-on-one training? It’s no secret–results are directly correlated to a personalized system, specific in design to an individual athlete. So, we wondered: how can we get a similar, independent concept installed into our class system with such a variation of athletes? The answer: Independent Program Design.
It’s a model that creates personal fitness but without the expense of personal training.
If people are looking for results, this is their path. If people are looking for camaraderie and sport, group fitness is their path. Both programs have their strengths, and both programs have their place in our facility, depending on individual goal setting.
Pricing:
- Individual Program Design: 325/mo
- Unlimited Group CrossFit or BodyBURN Classes: 240/mo
Contact Info:
- Address: 3328 Pico Blvd.
Santa Monica, CA 90405 - Website: bluerepulic.blue
- Phone: 310. 399. 1546
- Email: [email protected]
- Instagram: @bluerepubliccrossfit
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bluerepublicCF/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/blue-republic-crossfit-santa-monica-3
Image Credit:
Timothy Fielding Photography
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