We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Denny Locascio a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Denny, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear a story from back when you were an intern or apprentice. What’s a memorable story you can share with us?

I was lucky to find an internship my sophomore year in college which was a year before I would start the exercise science program.
When I was playing college rugby, a friend on the team took the time to help me get the internship which became one of those turning points in my life.
Interning for the universities strength & conditioning department open so much in my life, from knowledge of training, to following a career path, creating mentors and friends, and overall life experience.
Interning impacted my life so much that for the past 15 years I host interns at our business to give back what was given to me.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

As a kid i’ve always grown up around sports and fitness. I didn’t know how to turn that into a career until college when i started interning for the strength and conditioning department as well as starting the exercise science program.
Once graduating from college and working for a few years at a private gym, a friend and I wanted to have a more significant impact on the local youth sports community.
For 12 years now we have been able to impact local youth sports athletes and their families through fitness.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

One of the biggest times we had to show resilience as a company was during the covid lockdown. Our gym doors got shutdown for 7 weeks. So imagine your business not being able to operate for 7 weeks.
We overcame this by working on what we can control. We send our members at home workouts, kept our coaches on the payroll, opened up our garage gyms to those who still wanted to train.
We also were hugely helped by the local community. Both Lululemon and our county helped with grants.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest lessons to learn in the fitness industry and specifically as a gym owner is you can’t just be a technician, you also need to learn about business.
The exercise science college degree and personal training certifications are designed to teach you to be a healthcare practitioner not a business owner.
Just because you know how to train the human body and can get people results that does not qualify your business to be successful.
for the business to be successful you will have to learn marketing, sales, relationships, staff development, and many other subjects that are not provided as just a trainer.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ImpactFitnessUSA.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/strongdlo/