Fitness studio strives for personal best.

Chris Cooper freely admits he wasn't the most gifted athlete growing up.

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Then the skinny redhead from St. Joseph's Island, near Sault Ste. Marie, says his body image probably contributed to some self-esteem issues.

It was only when he began working out in high school did he get an inkling of what his full potential was.

Now the still slender, but barrel-chested, owner of Catalyst Fitness surprises many when he dead-lifts 500 pounds at powerlifting competitions.

Since establishing the business in 2005, Cooper's downtown personal fitness studio has blossomed into one of the largest personal training studios in Northern Ontario with a client base of 230 members.

If you want a gym body, Cooper can deliver, but he finds it "rather formulaic."

He'd rather train professional athletes to achieve their maximum fitness potential, or devise a workout program for a grandmother to run a triathlon, or help someone shed a few pounds to fit into a skirt.

Catalyst offers a blizzard of programs ranging from beginner and advanced running and cycling groups, to yoga, women's soccer, dodgeball, pilates, a "Crunch Camp," a spring football conditioning camp, and a popular weight loss 'Flat Out Group.'

It forced Cooper to move last fall from some cramped space in a Queen Street loft to a larger studio nearby.

Walk into his naturally-lit studio, it's void of exercise equipment.

Those are tucked away in some private rooms for one-on-one training. Cooper confesses he's not a big fan of machines.

"If you have someone who wants to lose 10 pounds, the best way is to keep them moving and breathing hard," says the Lake Superior State University recreational management graduate. "We value hard work above everything else."

What's important is having room for clients to jump, run, carry and pull heavy stuff such as a weighted sled with a tug of war rope.

"We do things that most gyms don't do anymore such as strong man stuff."

And Cooper and his associates aren't fearful of breaking out a sweat themselves with their clients or to take a conditioning group outside to a local park.

"Our philosophy is a bit different. We don't get into the gimmicks that gyms will do to dredge up funds.

"We have a much higher tech approach but we stick to a lot of basic movements and we've developed exercises specifically for different people. It's way beyond the normal cookie cutter approach."

Catalyst Fitness is popular with many National Hockey League players returning home for summer off-ice conditioning and for teen-aged athletes vying for U.S. college scholarships.

But Cooper says Catalyst isn't just for hard core athletes and they're careful to keep their doors open to everyone. At $45 an hour for personal training, it's among the cheapest in town.

"We want to expose the average Joe to as many different things as we can."

Cooper is the only full-time employee, but he's assembled a team of high-qualified contractors to lead his training groups.

"I think the best way to go about this is find the best people at everything and try and bring them together under the same umbrella."

They have some pretty hefty credentials too. One associate has a doctorate and their massage therapist is qualified to work on Olympic athletes.

Both Cooper and his running coach Mike Watson have CSCS (Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist) certification, considered the gold standard in personal training. It qualifies them to work with high level athletes and people with different medical prognosis.

Catalyst also takes a scientific edge. Research plays an integral part of the business.

Cooper has heard all the hard sales pitches about the miracle benefits of goji juice or the latest supplements, he will pass.

Catalyst does its own independent research review on any new supplements coming on the market.

Every Thursday morning, he hosts a research study group inviting chiropractors, physiotherapists, and naturopaths to meet with his team.

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Sometimes, he'll bring in guest speakers to talk about mountain climbing in Paraguay, running the Ironman Triathlon or to hear about a local cycling team that qualified for the toughest stage of the Tour de France, the famous Alpe d'Huez climb.

"All of us have degrees in kinesiology and we all came out of university saying we're going to write the perfect program," says Cooper. "But harder than writing the perfect program is getting people to do something, every day."

With his Flat-Out group, it means indulging in some pop psychology to find people's motivation to keep exercising regularly.

That's why Cooper is excited about his new Morning Catalyst program launched last fall.

Serving as an online personal trainer, the program provides clients with an e-mail prompt every morning outlining that day's workout, be it strength or cardio, with a pop-up demonstration video.

Members must reply back with results that day. "The feedback is the guts of the program." Then trainers can sense when a person is faltering or improving and can suggest changes.

His research shows when an injured worker is given home exercises by a physiotherapist, more than 50 per cent of people fail to stick to the plan. If they're getting weekly and daily instruction, the adherence rate is 83 per cent.

"One way we differentiate ourselves is we're the guys that give homework. But it's not enough, we gotta be on people every day and one way is through the Internet."

Come June, his updated website will track clients anywhere in Canada. The data collection is enormous but it's ultimately valuable to the consumer, Cooper says.

"If we can finally learn what it takes to get people exercising and be healthy, the long term benefits to our health care system are enormous."

www.catalystfitness.ca

By IAN ROSS

Northern Ontario Business