Last weekend I, once again, had the opportunity to speak candidly with the talented Eric Martsolf from Days of Our Lives.  He graciously shared the news about the new boutique fitness studio he and his wife, Lisa just opened and answered any and all questions about this fabulous new fitness facility.  Please read on to learn all about the BodyWerk Studio.

Carolyn Topol Talk:  I understand that you and your wife have opened an exercise location called BodyWerk Studio?

Eric Martsolf:  Yes,

CTT:  And it’s located in Las Vegas; tell me about this and why?

EM:  This is a little bit of a transformation from our original studio — and the only thing we know in this world that we can count on is change, right?

CTT:  Absolutely.

EM:  Well, basically, we went with this franchise called Cardio Barre and what we found was, because of the limited amount of classes that we were allowed to teach through Cardio Barre, which is essentially just the Cardio Barre class, that in Las Vegas people wanted a little more of a variety of things.

CTT:  I see. [nods]

EM:  Which is pretty indicative of the town.  It’s a town where you can find everything.

CTT:  It’s a smorgasbord town.

EM:  It is — a total smorgasbord town!  So in that history of Las Vegas, we thought to ourselves, well let’s give the folks what they want.  We need to give them more options.  And being in that particular franchise, we weren’t allowed to bring anything else in.  We made the crazy decision to just de-brand, even after six months, so we could bring in our own classes.  With my wife being a choreographer, in her own right, she is perfectly capable of creating her own classes as well.

CTT:  Your wife is Lisa?

EM:  My wife is Lisa (pictured left).  We’ve been together a long time and this is the transformation for her outside of her dance career, because they say dancers die two deaths — you have your mortal death and you have your dance death…

CTT:  Oh wow.

EM:  In the sense that, when your body says, “No, I can’t do the things that you need me to do anymore to dance,” you need to find something else to do.  Fitness is something that she has been passionate about and she’s a terrific instructor.

CTT:  So she does some of the instruction?

EM:  Oh yeah!  This is very different from other fitness studios.  A lot of times people just give their wives some money and say “go open up a studio; go do something; go have a business, sweetheart,” or vice versa, sometimes women will give money to their man and tell him he needs to get something to do.

This is a labor of love.  This is not something that Lisa doesn’t know anything about.  This is what she does; it’s her passion.  And she’s very good at it!

CTT:  I noticed online you offer, basically, four styles of classes at BodyWerk.

EM:  Mhmm [nods]

CTT:  Can you tell me a little bit about those [types of classes] so people can get a sense of what you offer there?

EM:  Our goal is to offer everything under the sun because there’s lots of ways to get in shape. We’ve found that when you shock your muscles into doing things they’ve never done before, that’s when change really happens.  We’re incorporating TRX and Battle Ropes and Pilates, Yoga, and Barre classes as well.

The best thing about this transformation is that we’re not taking away any barre classes, we’re just adding on.  This is an evolution.

CTT:  And if someone is a novice at this type of exercise — maybe they’ve only done some machines in traditional kinds of gyms, or let’s say they’ve only been jogging or power-walking, can they still fit in here?

EM:  Yes!  Whether you’re a novice, or an intermediate or advanced — whatever you are, there’s a place for you!

The beauty of having a boutique fitness center, with fitness classes, is that you have that personal instruction.  I’ve been a member of every giant, corporate monster gym on the planet, and the reason why I wanted to invest in this is because I didn’t like going to the gym.  I found myself putting it off.  I found myself driving past the exit at the end of my workday, and when I knew I wanted to workout in the morning, I didn’t want to go into that giant, corporate gym and be treated like a number… And I found myself getting bored.  I felt like just one of the cattle in the giant farmland of fitness.

What we’ve done is brought an intimacy to fitness, because it takes motivation.  Especially when you reach a certain age, you want someone to kick your butt.  Not everyone can afford personal trainers, but a boutique fitness location is the answer to that.

CTT:  [nods]

EM:  It’s not much more than your basic gym membership, but you get personal attention to help you with the questions that you have.  It’s NOT just go in there and pull some straps and lift some weights, and hopefully you don’t hurt yourself.

CTT:  How did you select the instructors?  I saw, which is lovely, that you have your instructors listed on your website, by first name, which already adds to the intimacy.

EM:  They’re people.  The instructors have history.  They all have stories.  To us, it’s not so much whether an instructor is built a certain way, or looks a certain way — it’s about their story.  It’s about how they went from A to Z in their fitness lifetime.  The stories behind our fitness instructors — they’re passionate — and that’s what makes them interesting.

CTT:  Did they seek you out or did you seek them out?

EM:  We all ‘seeked’ each other. [laughs]  There was a mutual finding, in a sense.  My wife and I have lots of friends in the industry.  My wife and I performed together for years and years and years, and many performers find fitness as their second lifetime. So through word of mouth, and through our friendship “roledex”, so to speak, we found our people.  We selected them very, very carefully.  Not everyone becomes a BodyWerk instructor. You really have to know your craft and what you’re doing, but more important — the reason behind it — can you motivate people to keep coming back!  Are you pleasant?  Do you have a disposition that people want to seek out?

We don’t have trainers that scream at you.  We don’t yell at you; we don’t bark at you.  We laugh.  We sweat.  But it’s a fun process.  You can make it a fun experience.  It doesn’t have to be a painful thing.  We just think fitness and fun should go together.

CTT:  How can people find you?  How can they contact you?

EM:  We are in Las Vegas.  If you live in Henderson, Summerlin, or anywhere near The Strip, you can find us.

BodyWerk Studio: 4555 S Fort Apache Rd #100, Las Vegas, NV 89147

Phone: (702) 364-2258

People should come and see us.  You’ll feel the difference when you walk in!

CTT:  Do you also offer temporary or short term memberships for people who are in town visiting and want to find a place to do some exercising?

EM:  Oh yeah!  You can drop in.  If you want to destroy yourself, and destroy your body, on The Strip [laughs], and you feel real guilty about it, come into our studio, and sweat it all out.

CTT:  People can do one-shot or one week visits?

EM:  Absolutely!  We have drop-in rates.  You can buy memberships.  We offer all different packages.  So, yes!  If you’re interested in sweating and changing something about yourself, we’re a great place to be.

CTT:  At any level?

EM:  Yes.  And I, personally, drop in all the time.  I’m there all the time.  I’ll be more than happy to sweat with you.  And if you happen to watch the show [Days of Our Lives], I’ll sign an autograph, and we’ll have a good time!

CTT:  That sounds terrific!  When you decided to separate from Cardio Barre, had you already been looking for something else and then BodyWerk was what took shape?

EM:  We knew we wanted to offer much more.  It was essentially that we were a grocery store that only sold strawberries…

CTT:  Great analogy.  [laughs]

EM:  We wanted to sell blueberries, and a whole line of produce.  We wanted to expand, and be bigger and better, and have more variety.

That’s when my wife and I sat down with a big ole bottle of red wine and came up with the name “BodyWerk”.  It’s about your body and it’s about working and she threw in her “w-e-r-k” [sings it out].  It’s her little thing.

CTT:  This is not attached to any other corporation or company—this is all yours—truly boutique?

EM:  This is our baby!  No help, no franchise, no one telling us what to do.  It’s our own little baby.  I figured, we raised twins, we can raise a fitness studio. [laughs]

CTT:  I’d guess the twins were probably a lot harder.

EM:  Oh, and we’re offering dance classes, as well — for kids too.  We have a boys hip hop class, cause a lot of boys don’t like to take dance with girls.  But boys love to move too.  They love to dance in front of the television.  They get intimidated in traditional dance classes because the girls are usually so majestic and lovely.  Since the boys get intimidated, we designed a boys hip hop class, where the dudes can come in and just roll around on the floor and even do a little break-dancing moves.  It’s adorable.

CTT:  Do they have a guy leading the class?

EM:  We have a guy and a girl.  We don’t discriminate—girls and guys can teach dance.  Doesn’t matter who you are, you can work in our place!

CTT:  Sounds great!

*****

This exciting new venture sounds so terrific, it makes me wish Eric and Lisa would open one in my region of the country.  I would love to have the opportunity to sweat it out with experienced and enthusiastic instructors, in such a wide variety of classes.  Please join me in wishing them all the best, and even more important… If you live with driving distance of The Strip in Las Vegas, make sure to get there and get healthy in the best possible environment!!!