A Renegade Fitness Center in Metro-Manila  

FAQs:

Why did you start Eclipse 24/7 Fitness Center ?

What kind of equipment do you feature?

What kind of trainers and coaches work at Eclipse?

Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?

Why do you consider Eclipse to be a renegade fitness center?

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Why did you start Eclipse 24/7 Fitness Center ?

We started Eclipse because many of my friends, acquaintances, and fellow trainees were very dissatisfied with the direction of the fitness industry. The new large franchise foreign gyms popping up like mushrooms all over the Metro promised state-of-the-art facilities yet largely failed to address the requirements of both the average trainee and professional athlete who were looking for real results.  

Most large franchise fitness centers today are run purely like a business where the bottom line income is much more important than member satisfaction or physical progress. In other words, once most people join a gym and pay an expensive monthly membership and joining fee, they realize that getting additional or on-going assistance will cost many times more than the dues.  

Our feedback from experienced members of those clubs has stated that the individuals who are available for assistance are largely incapable of producing significant results that might justify their large personal fee. It can get ugly when these trainers offer supplements, stimulants, and even steroids when a plateau is reached in 3-4 weeks. This was also my experience when I competed in a past fitness contest.  

In my case I experienced many dealers/trainers who seemingly materialized out of the air to sell me drugs for that ‘extra edge' I didn't need after they found out I had to improve significantly to win. This is the dirty little secret that most people in the modeling and fitness industry do not want to acknowledge, i.e. that many personal trainers are often just glorified drug dealers who have no practical training knowledge.  

While this might be viewed as an extreme example by the casual reader, the other example is that many people we observed would hire a trainer at one of these gyms and continue to pay for months without visual progress. Others who could not afford a personal trainer had nobody to turn to for advice. As a member of most large mainstream gyms this was often the case as the new trainees who couldn't afford a trainer/advisor would come to me for help. If it was discovered that a member such as me assisted another member, even out of kindness, the aforementioned giver of advice is issued a warning from the gym.  

It is common practice that gyms prohibit members from helping other members and their warning is in writing for all to see and heed. The bottom line is that the average person would get discouraged from lack of progress and abandon their quest for a healthy lifestyle. Even for someone as advanced as I am, I quickly become bored with training if I do not have a well-designed program that I am following that will produce noticeable changes in my body. Furthermore, my training requires specific equipment, both simple and complex, that is not abundant in even the so-called well equipped franchise fitness clubs. So we designed Eclipse to be equipped to take care of both beginners and the most advanced trainees.

Someone asked me once, "Why build a facility such as this in the Philippines?  If you are such a great coach, why not do it in the USA or another country that is more successful in sports?"

The answer is simple:  We have something to prove.  We are striving to prove that a great coach is not measured by how he or she can taking an already great team to a title, or take athletes who only have to worry about training and not worry about if their siblings have food to eat.  A great coach can take a losing/mediocre program on average, such as Philippines athletics as a whole, and make the athletes "World Class", meaning that they can regularly compete for gold medals, NBA jobs, etc.  We already know that we are talented coaches.  But we have a vision to be respected throughout the WORLD by the results we produce and the champions we create, when our detractors said that it isn't possible in the Philippines.  On the contrary, I know that it is LIKELY that this tiny country can be a sporting superpower in the sports in which this nation excels.  To make it happen depends on methods and equipment, and we intend to make the best of both available while continuing to research to improve on our own methods.

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What kind of equipment do you feature?

We outfitted Eclipse with practicality in mind. In other words, while we have the most state-of-the-art equipment in Manila , we avoided the "one of each" mentality that is so common with most fitness centers.  

Basically we got more of the equipment that is conducive to producing results and less of the equipment that looks cool, but has no practical value. We have all of the big name equipment such as the flagship products by Cybex and SportsArt, as well as customized free weights and specialty machines that are one-of-a-kind.  

The reason it is unique is that this particular equipment is customized for Asian sized trainees. Most people find that often they don't quite fit properly into equipment intended for Western sized individuals. No other fitness center in Metro-Manila has yet demonstrated to have gone to the extent we did in making sure our equipment fits our clients properly.  

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What kind of trainers and coaches work at Eclipse?

Basically it took me three years to find the coaching staff at Eclipse. Everyone who is a manager/coach is also a competitive athlete in a form of fitness, figure, bodybuilding, basketball, swimming, general conditioning, powerlifting, or modeling.  We continue to select, screen, and apprentice those who we feel that we can groom to be the future leaders of the Fitness Industry.

Many are national record holders like Coach Nilo Dela Cena, and even compete at an international level such as freelance Coach Richie Rosales who finished 3rd in the world for bench press last November in Miami, USA.  I found many of them from the leading gyms in the Metro due to their experience and reputation for member satisfaction.  

But believe me when I say that it is hard to find good trainers. Most good trainers have gone abroad years ago, and those who remain in most leading gyms have very little practical experience or knowledge.  

We avoid hiring physical therapists especially. This is in contrast to the policy of most fitness centers, and I find it very puzzling indeed. If I was opening a rehabilitation clinic I'd hire a physical therapist, but in a fitness center setting I see no relevance in their education or training.  

Most importantly, at this point we are permanently closed to hiring outside trainers as in-house staff. All future manager/coaches must begin as our members so that they can experience our unique training system. Freelance trainers, however, are welcome to bring in their clients where we do not take a facility fee from them as long as the client becomes our member.

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Where do you see yourselves in 5 years?

We are currently working on two centers in Malate, and now in Ortigas on Shaw Blvd.  Later, due to tremendous demand, we plan to expand into Salcedo Village in Makati. We will always prefer to set up our centers in high-rises where the rent is far lower than the shopping malls.  

We will pass the savings in the rent onto our clients in the form of very competitive membership rates and specials. When it is Christmas season, the malls can be incredibly crowded and frustrating to someone who must go there 3-4 times per week to get a workout.

Personally I workout to relieve stress, and going to the mall to train only made my stress worse. To be specific as to how many centers we are planning, our goal is about 3 in Metro-Manila.  Any Eclipse 24/7 Fitness Center beyond the original three will be owned mainly by members and staff that understand our ideals in the form of a joint-venture and sister/spin-off facility.  We will never franchise. 

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Why do you consider Eclipse to be a renegade fitness center?

Eclipse is a renegade fitness center because we do not acknowledge the mainstream fitness organizations. These organizations are often just a front for manufacturers to sell their over-priced and over-hyped machines. Their so-called research is based largely on pseudo-science and hearsay that is largely unchallenged due to political and monetary reasons.  We also do not recognize them because they allow someone with zero experience to be considered an "expert" basically after a weekend certification course and a couple of seminars.  What a joke.  After 17 years of experience in both training and coaching, a formal education in research sciences, I am still researching and conducting experiments to further my knowledge and that of my Junior Coaches.  

Due to our own experience as athletes, we know what works and what does not. There has been nothing in the last 30 years that has revolutionized the fitness industry. What worked best 30 years ago still works the best today, regardless of what the so-called ‘experts' want you to believe. Therefore we believe in no-nonsense training and we also believe that it is our job to simply this complex industry so that each and everyone who enters can see immediate results.  

I've found that many so-called experts tend to speak using big words and over-explain concepts to make them seem smarter than they really are. What results is that the trainee is often more confused than when they originally asked the question. This leads most people to believe that the only option is for them to hire this ‘expert' so that they can teach the seemingly complex training system.  

We do not require you to hire trainers and you can come to us whenever you have a question about nutrition or program design. On the other hand, if you want someone to always be with you and coach you from start to finish, you can hire our experts by the session. You will not find a group of more knowledgeable or helpful trainers anywhere in the country, or possibly the world.  

I've spent time in gyms around the world and our staff is truly world-class based on said experience. If you want to work for Eclipse as a trainer, you'll have to spend time learning from us so that you can truly understand what makes us unique.

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