About Town: Iron Works Gym Shows a Focus on Fitness Can Also Be Fun

The reader board on the Iron Works Gym truck gives me many a chuckle as I drive by on Northup Way.

“Workout Now or Bypass Later.”

owner Tim Ennis is the genius behind the clever quips. Ennis, who grew up in Bellevue, gets a kick out of creating the messages. He often ties them to the holidays.

In January, for instance, the sign read, “Happy New Year. Come In and Get a New Rear.”

The light-hearted approach works for Ennis and the nearly 40-year-old business. He and Iron Works are icons in the fitness world in the Northwest. Ennis grew up in working out at the gym. He learned early on through personal experience – long before other fitness experts climbed onto the free weight bandwagon – that it takes a combination of lifting free weights and cardio to keep fit.

Ennis recognizes the exercise message sometimes needs to be sugar-coated for those of us who keep saying, “I’ll start tomorrow.”

During December the friendly nudge read, “And What to My Wondering Eyes Should Appear But A Nice Pair of Legs and a Great Rear.”

Ennis loves helping people reach their goals and get in shape. He started helping friends do it when he was a teenager so it was natural that he eventually became a personal trainer. Although he visited other gyms, it was his workouts at Iron Works that put the steel into his own muscles. About two decades ago, he put his heart and his wallet into the business, purchasing the gym.

The longevity of Iron Works speaks for itself, he said.

“We’re still here, the same as usual,” Ennis said. “I’ve watched other gyms and fitness fads come and go. Places that seemed so ‘hot’ have gone out of business. With some of them, that’s a good thing.”

Over the years Ennis has seen too many people injured by overzealous workouts, some patterned after reality television shows. Anyone who tries the extreme workouts, particularly if they’re starting from zero fitness, can end up sidelined. Workouts shouldn’t knock you out, particularly if you’re on the plus side of 50 or on the plus size.

“That’s one reason Iron Works is still here,” he said. “We do the fundamentals.”

Things have changed in the fitness business he added. Because of the steroid scandals in the athletic world, people are going for a healthy look instead of the ripped and massive muscle build up like weightlifters.

“Big is done,” Ennis said. “It’s not where it used to be. You used to see big bodies on the covers of men’s magazines as the ideal. Now it is the healthy man with a toned body and a bike helmet under his arm.”

Wellness, he added, should be the long term goal of anyone working out today. You get that by a combination of weights and cardio work – on a regular basis.

And those few extra pounds you may have gained over the holidays? Ennis has several methods for helping people drop them.

His personal favorite – that he uses himself because he enjoys good food, too, - are natural complex carbs such as sweet potatoes and brown rice plus lots of good protein from things like fish and black beans.

“I just had that for lunch,” he said. “I had tuna and a half can of black beans with mango salsa. Yum.”

Ennis puts up signs in the gym to help inspire people, too. Such as “The hardest press is pushing yourself away from the dinner table.” And his quips keep his clients laughing while they’re working out.

He calls them “Timisms.”

“We all have choices,” he said. “If you want to eat a cookie, I tell my clients to go for it. All you have to do is take off your clothes and eat that cookie in front of your mirror. Go ahead. See if you still want it.”

Or as his latest truck sign says, “To Be or Not to Be? Fat is the Question.”

...............................

Ironworks Gym

5 a.m. to 11 p.m Monday through Thursday

5 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday

7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday

10 a.m. to 5 p.m . Sunday

www.iron-works.com