Fit for training success

RAISING THE BAR: Fitness instructor Niki Harrington, left, helps Alisha Souza keep her form during a weight-training session at Boutique Fitness in New Bedford. / PBN PHOTO
RAISING THE BAR: Fitness instructor Niki Harrington, left, helps Alisha Souza keep her form during a weight-training session at Boutique Fitness in New Bedford. / PBN PHOTO

The common denominator among clients of New Bedford-based Boutique Fitness Inc. is that they don’t typically enjoy the atmosphere of a traditional gym.

“Most people don’t like to go to the gym or don’t like that environment, and it’s hard to convince them that [we’re] different,” owner Lara Harrington said.

The best way for people to learn, she said, is to come check out the space and then formulate questions because “it’s not set up like a gym at all.”

Boutique Fitness focuses on one-on-one and small-group physical training.

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The facility includes a full kitchen, a back room for private training and another one for small-group training, but absent is much of the typical workout equipment seen in traditional gyms.

Training sessions are 30 minutes and begin every half hour, starting at 5 a.m. and ending at 7:30 p.m. The philosophy, Harrington says, is to be time efficient for the clients, to allow people to fit exercising conveniently into their days.

Harrington says it’s typically the busiest before work, during lunch and in the evening, which fits a typical workday, but other professionals, such as nurses and teachers, who work nontraditional hours, also can find times that work for them.

“There’s a lot of comradery,” Harrington said. “I’ve been training for 10 years and I’ve never seen it like we see it here.”

Harrington, who co-owns Boutique Fitness with Angela Corrieri-Johnson, opened the business in 2012. Prior to that she was living in New Bedford and for nearly six years commuted to work at a fitness company in Barrington. But the commute eventually wore on Harrington and she decided to look for something closer to home. That’s when the idea of opening Fitness Boutique came to fruition.

“I quit my job, which was pretty scary,” Harrington said.

Harrington approached Corrieri-Johnson to ask whether she’d be interested in being her fitness manager, but Corrieri-Johnson came back and proposed a partnership.

Harrington already had some customers she’d been training in New Bedford, which helped the duo establish a client base. Interest grew through word-of-mouth and via volunteering at various community and fitness events in the New Bedford area.

The business last week expanded into a second facility in Mattapoisett, Mass. Harrington says the new location will not alter the Boutique Fitness philosophy.

“Anything is possible,” she said of the company’s message to clients. “I know it sounds [corny], but it’s the environment that we put out there. We focus on each person and what they can accomplish, rather than how many reps they can do.” •

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