Meet Joseph Herrera of NXTLVL Sport & Fitness

Today we’d like to introduce you to Joseph Herrera.

Joseph, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Growing up in a Filipino family I was never shy of eating food. But my parents didn’t really know about fitness or working out. I remember being the chubby kid asking my dad how to make my chest harder “man boobs”. He put his hand together by his chest and squeezing the palms together like the movement known as “I must…. I must…. I must increase my bust.”

So I was on my own trying to lose this weight that made me very cautious of my size and have low self-esteem. All though I was a very athletic and played a lot of sports growing up, I was always teased as the fat kid. Fast forward through high school sports (basketball & football) where I lost the weight. But during this process I got the appreciation of working out.

I graduated Cal State Fullerton with a B.S. in Health Science and then became a personal trainer at LA Fitness. Even though I learned how to work out people, I didn’t know the fitness business. Just because I knew how to work out for myself, I wasn’t a professional at working out other people. LA Fitness had the variety of clients that I needed to sharpen my skills as a trainer and also how to sell fitness.

So after leaving LA Fitness with enough knowledge and experience, I opened up my gym called Next Level Training in 2004. It was a small 700sq ft. facility that had the window looking out to a brick wall & a dumpster close by. It was nothing fancy or breath taking, but it was my gym. I had pulled out a small loan from my dad to buy the equipment. I wanted to go away from a traditional gym setting of huge gym equipment like the leg press machine that would have taken up half the space of my small gym.

I had to be very creative with my training since I had such small space but it actually helped me become better with what is called now Bootcamps or Group Workouts. I found this to be very beneficial financially for the customer and for myself. For example, training 1 hr. for 1 person was $50 per hour. But if I trained 2 people for $30 each for the hour got me $60. The amount of clients per hour grew to about 15 per class where I dropped the rate down to $25 per person and saw my total sales per class from $60 to $375 per hour!

After out growing my small space I moved into a bigger facility in Whittier and partnered up with my longtime friend Conway. There we kept growing what later on we called Bootcamp Classes until we had to move out of our 2,500-sq. ft. facility into our current facility now which is 8,500!

I couldn’t imagine 13 years ago being in a small 700sq ft. place looking out to a brick wall to now 12x bigger facility.

We since dropped the “E” in Next Level and now are known as NXTLVL Sport and Fitness. We have also started having CrossFit classes and now have over 15 independent trainers renting space in our gym.

I absolutely love what I do to make a living. It really doesn’t feel like I’m going to work somedays. We at NXTLVL and Superhuman CrossFit have a great community of awesome people that love to workout.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road to having my business wasn’t always smooth. I’ve had to deal with pains of learning how to run a business-like marketing, social media, and cost. Growing from a small gym to a massive gym, was also a hard transition because when I was smaller, I didn’t have that many people working out at 1 time. Now I have to deal with higher cost of operations, trainer drama, and knowing what business work and which ones don’t work. Just like in any business, you know to know when the peak times of people wanting to workout are and when it’s time to save your money.

In 2012, I also went through a divorce that was hard to focus on business. Since then I am re-married and have a total of 4 awesome/crazy children Logan 8, Jasimn 4, Ava 2, Troy 9 months. So, I am a pretty busy business owner, husband, & father. But I love the journey that I have been on and wouldn’t do it any other way.

NXTLVL Sport & Fitness – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
NXTLVL Sport & Fitness is best known in the area for our group workout classes. Our Bootcamps are known as the best in the business. We just have different programing and exercises that our clients love and get the best results with.

We also offer CrossFit in our Superhuman CrossFit classes. (*we couldn’t call our CrossFit affiliate NXTLVL because there is already a Next Level CrossFit in Laguna. So I had to call it another name.)

I am most proud of as a company as being known to have a great vibe & welcoming feeling when you walk into our doors. There is always a lot of energy here and there are no attitudes like some other “globo gyms”. Everyone is helpful and friendly at NXTLVL. We have done a lot of fundraisers to help out our community like our latest one to help the family of fallen office Keith Boyer from the Whittier Police Department, who was close to our community here. We raised $1,300 by fundraiser and special workouts in honor of Officer Boyer.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of my career is realizing that I love what I do for work and I am really good at it. It was proving the doubters that I wasn’t going to make a living by being a trainer. I remember a high school friend telling me one day, “When are you going to get a real job?”

Growing up in the Filipino culture, you were pushed to go into the medical profession. My mom was a pharmacist, my aunt is a nurse, and my uncle is a doctor. So being a trainer was a big scare to her. But now I have trained the doctors, nurses, pharmacists. My mom actually trains with one of my trainers in my gym! Now my mom tells me that she is proud of me and my success. (even though she still tries to tell me I should be a pharmacist!) lol

Any shoutouts?

I have a beautiful & amazing wife that supports me in everything I do, even me working the long hours while she deals with our 4 children at home. She encourages me when things are hard & stressful at work. She is always supportive when I need to find time to workout myself. She is my rock & I love her for always being there for me.

I also would like to add that I have an awesome staff of trainers that make our community awesome at NXTLVL.

My business partner Conway is also my best friend and is always there to help grown our business.I would also love to add that my amazing family is now so supportive of my business. From my brother that has worked for me to my cousins that love to show support by wearing NXTLVL shirts to my mom & mother in law who weekly come to workout with my trainers, husband & wife, Andy & Lindsey. It makes me happy to know they believe in what I’ve build & love to come workout at my gym.

Pricing:

• Unlimited Classes + Membership $125
• Personal Training $30 for 30min and $50 for 1hr
• Gym Only membership $75

Contact Info:

• Address: 811 E. Lambert Rd
  La Habra, CA 90631
• Website: www.nxtlvlsport.com
• Phone: 714-612-4162
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: nxtlvlsportandfitness & superhuman_crossfit
• Facebook: NXTLVL Sport and Fitness & Superhuman CrossFit
• Yelp: NXTLVL Sport and Fitness & Superhuman CrossFit