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Local opens latest gym in Owings
Friday, Jan. 4, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff Photos by Stephen Demedis
John Parker works out on a Fitness Trainer while World Gym employee Barbara Finke looks on.
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The flattering, amiable catchphrase comes to mind when names escape him, and just like Parker’s training programs build the bodies of his clients, his one-size-fits-all nickname lifts their confidence.
But as the 6-foot-2, 270-pound Parker paces the floor of his newest facility, a 20,000-square-foot World Gym in Owings, and as he scrutinizes every construction detail, and belabors each decision, it is clear that Parker is in every way the ‘‘Big Dog” of his gyms.
Parker exudes style. He goes for flash. He covers the distances separating his four Southern Maryland clubs in a Hummer H2, which replaced a BMW convertible. Parker owns 390 pairs of shoes, including 19 pairs of Air Jordans, and wears outfits that coordinate with the footwear.
His newest gym, which opened on Wednesday, reflects the owner’s taste. Plasma televisions hang from the ceiling and the industry’s latest machines line the floor. It is Parker’s world.
‘‘I want everything to be just the way I like it. I am big on bam,” Parker said.
But how Parker got to where he is now isn’t about bam. It is about hard work, a commitment to customer service and the support of a community that reached out to help one of its own.
The runner
Before Parker was a trainer, he was a runner. As a student-athlete at Calvert High in the early 1980s, Parker was a monster on the track.
In his senior year, Parker became the first male athlete in Maryland to win four individual state titles in one year. The Prince Frederick native won the 100 meters, 200, long jump, and triple jump at the Maryland Superstate track meet in 1982.
As a sprinter at Calvert, Parker was coached Wilson Ennis, who became a father figure to him.
‘‘It was a special relationship for the both of them,” said Santiato Ennis, Wilson’s son. ‘‘My father was someone who John looked to for strength and guidance. And my father took John in and made sure that he succeeded in life.”
In the summer after graduation, Parker qualified for the 1982 Junior Pan American Games in Barquisimeto, Venezuela, after winning the USA Junior Outdoor Track and Field Championship in the 100 and 200.
In Venezuela, Parker won a gold medal in the 400-relay and silver in the 100 and 200.
‘‘There is no greater satisfaction than to have a USA uniform on,” Parker said. ‘‘You can win state titles and set state records, but when you put on that USA uniform, there is just nothing like it. When I made the team for the 100 and the 200, there was no greater feeling, no greater accomplishment.”
Parker finished his track career on the collegiate level, competing for two years at George Mason University, where he was an all-American.
The trainer
Parker’s career as a personal trainer began in the mid-90s, when he became the director of personal training at a Gold’s Gym in Waldorf.
In 1998, he returned to Calvert County and started his own personal training company, Results Inc., which he operated out of Tri-Fitness in the Calvert Village shopping center.
In four years, Parker’s staff of 12 personal trainers worked with 300 to 400 clients, one of whom was John Erly, a lawyer in Prince Frederick.
‘‘I played college soccer. I thought I knew what it meant to get in shape,” Erly said. ‘‘And, maybe because I was 40 when I started training with [Parker], he understood more about training for just general fitness than I did. And I think what impressed me most was how he understood the relationship between aerobic and anaerobic training in combination with diet and rest. And those are really the four elements that matter.
‘‘I remember once I worked out with Parker, and it is something I wouldn’t recommend. It makes you feel like a total fool. You know the dumbbells that you see in every gym, the ones collecting dust? He’ll pick two of them up, no problem. He picks things up that would hurt most people.”
Parker’s stay at Tri-Fitness came to a close in 1998, when a rift between Parker and the gym’s owner, Mark Cinque, ended with Parker leaving the gym to start his own. But to do so, Parker would need help. He turned to his clients.
The team
Parker assembled a team of clients who were willing to help their trainer realize his dream of owning a gym.
At first the team consisted of Erly, who assisted in legal matters, Martha Rymer, a Prince Frederick accountant who helped Parker with his financial projections, and Beth Peterson, Parker’s current operations manager.
These late-night meetings in Erly’s and Rymer’s conference rooms later included Bonnie and Gary Gateau, Parker’s original business partners at the Prince Frederick gym, and Bernie Fowler, who renovated a barn south of Prince Frederick to meet Parker’s specs and then rented the building with a five-year lease.
According to Erly, the team gave Parker what he lacked: Organization and business savvy.
‘‘The thing about Parker that people do not know is that he got a master’s degree in salesmanship, because he worked for Circuit City forever,” Erly said. ‘‘And in terms of business acumen, he got most of it from working there. He knows how to sell the sizzle. But the reason that the people who backed him backed him was because he knew his stuff.”
The team also knew that Parker had a stellar work ethic. According to Erly, the trainer would arrive at the gym at five in the morning and leave late at night. And that was his schedule seven days a week.
Still, the transition was tough for Parker and his staff as the building’s renovation from a barn with a dirt floor to a fitness club met constant setbacks and delays.
‘‘Parker literally starved,” Erly said. ‘‘He had no income and was hanging on by his fingernails between when he left Tri-Fitness and when the doors finally opened at the World Gym.”
To get by, Parker continued to train clients throughout the Southern Maryland area, while committing most of his time to opening the gym.
‘‘I was training clients one on one at the high school, and I just had to use any area, any facility that I could, because I had no gym,” Parker said. ‘‘Financially, it was a difficult time for me, but it taught me a lot about myself, about other people and about business.”
Parker, who is now the sole owner of the Prince Frederick club, credits his success to the team, saying that he would have never accomplished what he has without its help. But Erly praises Parker’s vision.
‘‘We helped him chase a dream that he wouldn’t have been able to pull off without help,” Erly said. ‘‘But ultimately he is the one who took the risk. He could have gone and gotten a job at another gym and continued his lifestyle and taken the easy way. But he elected to take a chance.”
The gym
In his newest facility, Parker has created a club that can cater to a variety of populations, from the de-conditioned to the advanced athlete.
The Owings gym is state of the art and classic Parker. It boasts the largest spinning classroom in the area and a vast array of Freemotion and Hammer Strength equipment.
Parker has also installed a 525-square-foot artificial turf surface, as well as a 40-yard dash area, where athletes can improve their speed and agility.
‘‘The key to this gym is that it can service everyone in your household,” Parker said. ‘‘I can now take a football player and break him down. I can find out how to improve his speed and conditioning and his agility, while the mother takes a yoga class, the dad works out on the strength equipment, and the infant or toddler is in my childcare playing with a Wii.”
But at the heart of Parker’s operation are the personal trainers.
James Sutton, who has trained for Parker for two years and received his credentials in sports medicine and rehab while in the Navy, focuses on the body’s structural integrity and functional movement patterns.
Using a New Leaf metabolic testing device, Sutton has helped his clients find their optimal heart rate for losing weight. According to Sutton, these approaches to training are revolutionary, but will become standard in the next 10 years.
While Parker has designed his gyms to mirror the flash of their owner and equipped them with the industry’s latest technology and gadgets, he readily admits that the flash doesn’t make the business successful.
‘‘It is more about the personnel,” Parker said. ‘‘When you have four clubs, it can’t be about one person. It has to be about the nucleus of people you have working for you.”
E-mail Stephen Demedis at sdemedis@somdnews.com.
