For Tim Ingram, personal training has always meant more than fitness. When he set out to open his own training facility, he wanted to influence his clients on a personal level beyond what happens inside the four walls of Heavy Metal Fitness. This, according to Ingram, is what makes a personal trainer worthy of a client’s time and money.
“You can have a PhD in exercise physiology and a CSCS with distinction, but if you can’t reach people on a personal level, then you’re no good.”
Ingram opened Heavy Metal Fitness to service clients of many backgrounds, and intentionally avoids being labeled a “super hardcore gym.” He works to be seen as more than a gym that specializes only in sports performance or powerlifting. “I don’t care if you’re a grandmother or a national champion rugby player,” Ingram said. “[Heavy Metal Fitness] is for anybody who has the will to be different—the will to really accomplish something.”
This will to be different has been part of Ingram’s entire life. At a young age, he realized that his love for training would be a vital part of his career.“To tell the honest to God truth, I kind of grew up a bad kid,” Ingram said. “I hated school. I didn’t play any sports because I never went to class, but the one thing I always loved to do, for whatever reason, was hit weights. I just had some sort of weird obsession with being the strongest person I could be.” This love of weightlifting carried Ingram through college, into personal training, and now to owning one of the most fully equipped training facilities in the San Antonio region. It has been the most important part of his life.
Heavy Metal Fitness is primarily client-driven but also offers open memberships. The wide range of programming Ingram offers is due to his personal enjoyment of training clients of all kinds. “I love training a like-minded person — that’s easy. I can’t believe you can get paid for that,” Ingram said. “But I also get enjoyment from the 45-year-old dude with a beer gut. I get him excited about training and all the sudden he’s walking around like he’s Phil Heath. I like to see [my client’s] self esteem just go through the roof.”
Ingram’s goal to build self-esteem in each of his clients begins the very moment they first walk through the doors of Heavy Metal Fitness. “Most people that weight train come in here and the first thing they think is ‘oh, shit, this is for the big boys,’ cause we’ve got the giant elitefts rack, everything’s black, and I have a 30-yard strip of turf down the middle,” Ingram said. “People are intimidated.” When these kinds of clients or potential members enter Heavy Metal Fitness, Ingram immediately goes to work to make them feel at home.
“Right off the bat I try to disarm them. I let them know, ‘Listen, you can do this. This is nothing. You just haven’t been taught how to do this correctly,’” Ingram said. “Once people start lifting with me, they change. They’re a lot more confident, and I get joy from that.”
Although the array of equipment may intimidate clients at first, Ingram claims it is vital to his ability to build individuals up to their best. “You just can’t find [this equipment] anywhere, and it amazes me that you can’t,” Ingram said. “Why isn’t there a Pit Shark in every gym in the country?” Ingram is open to bringing other trainers to work in his facility but for now, he’s doing it all on his own. “The truth of the fact is, I want [to bring other] trainers here. That’s more revenue. That’s more people getting the word out,” Ingram said. “But I have a standards. I would rather be in this by myself than have some shitty personal trainer in here just so I can make some extra money off them.” These standards are what drive the quality of Heavy Metal Fitness. Ingram doesn’t want just a weightlifter or someone with a degree; he wants someone whose life is dedicated to the craft.
“I want somebody educated, but more than anything I want somebody that has high character—not just some meathead,” Ingram said. “Someone that has dedicated their life to bodybuilding or powerlifting, or whatever the case may be — maybe he was a thrower in college. But I need somebody that eats, breathes, and sleeps it, just like I do.”
Some elitefts™ equipment in Heavy Metal Fitness includes:
- Collegiate Power Rack
- Old School Prowler 2
- Lat Pull Down
- 7' Olympic Fat Bar
- E-Series 45-Degree Back Raise
- 6" Farmer's Walk Handles
- Bent Over Row w/ Pad
- Deluxe Glute-Ham Raise
- Shoulder Saver Bar
- 8" Bench Log Press
- Cambered Squat Bar
- Multi-grip Swiss Log Bar
- Safety Squat Yoke Bar
- Juggernaut Tire