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By Christine Graf
After being closed for four months during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Capital District Sport & Fitness (CDSF) has expanded their facility at 21 Wood Road in Round Lake.
Owners Mike Sirani and Dan Jones are Capital Region natives who met while on the baseball team at Springfield College. Both men have degrees in exercise science as well as extensive experience working with professional, collegiate, and high school athletes.
Opened in June 2018, CDSF specializes in small group, semi-private training and offers customized workout programs that are developed based upon a client’s movement assessment, goals, health history, and injury history. With their 1,500-square-foot expansion, they are able to offer additional gym space as well as a baseball pitching cage that runs the length of the gym.
A CDSF membership is not required to book the pitching cage coaching sessions that are available to athletes in middle school through college.
“Dan’s background is in strength training but also as a pitching coach for numerous high schools and travel teams, and he also worked as a grad assistant in college doing that,” said Sirani. “We have so many baseball players here (at CDSF) that the market was there for us to be able to blend the pitching coaching with the strength training.”
According to Sirani, the partners didn’t expect the pitching cage to be heavily utilized until October when summer and fall baseball winds down, but that has not been the case.
“We’ve actually gotten a good response right away. We’ve had a lot of sessions set up both from people who are already members of the gym but also from people who aren’t members. That will be another feeder for us for the gym,” he said.
The expansion of CDSF’s workout space has proved to be valuable because it will allow the facility to accommodate more members in a socially distanced setting. Unlike many conventional gyms, CDSF is not heavily packed with equipment
“We have minimal equipment,” said Sirani. “It’s a lot of learning how to move your body well and gradually adding things like dumbbells, kettlebells, and barbells.”
Sirani and Jones began planning and saving for the expansion not long after opening in 2018. The pandemic not only put their expansion plan in jeopardy, it put their entire business at risk.
“We were saving money for our expansion and headed in that direction when COVID hit,” said Sirani. “For us, it was immediately about figuring out how we were going to stay afloat financially and pay our bills.”
With monthly memberships paused, they implemented a pay-as-you-go model. In addition to designing customized home workout plans, Jones filmed online workouts that could be accessed both live and on-demand.
“Our members were amazing and supported us with all of those offerings,” said Sirani. “We also stayed very active on social media with those offerings and it helped keep everyone in the gym connected.”
While the gym was closed, Sirani also worked for his father’s painting company, Sirani and Sons. It was a very stressful time, and both he and Jones wondered if their business would survive. According to the National Health & Fitness Alliance, approximately 22 percent of U.S. fitness clubs and studios have closed permanently since the start of the pandemic.
After reopening in July, all workouts were held outside under a tent, and group size was reduced from 12 perople per hour to five. When allowed to move indoors in September, that number increased to eight. They do not expect to return to full capacity until next spring.
“We’re still at eight because we are being very cautious,“ said Sirani. “But our semi-private business model is set up to work very well in a COVID world because pre-COVID, we never had more than 12 people in our 3,000 square feet at once.”
As soon as they were allowed to reopen, Sirani said members flocked back. As a result, he and Jones were able to move ahead with their expansion plans.
“It was incredible. I think it has to do with us sticking to our plan when we were closed in terms of keeping everyone from the gym connected online, offering workouts, and being available just to talk. We have more of a personal connection with our members than a more generic gym, and we truly enjoy helping people.”
For more information, call (518) 289-5004 or visit www.capitaldistrictsportandfitness.com.