Longtime New Hyde Park resident Mike Salvietti opened Rock Your Body Transformation Center in Mineola last May and has since experienced much success. His approach to fitness is different from other gyms and his clients have been responding well to his methods.
“The main reason I got into fitness was that my parents weren’t into fitness and I saw how it affected them in their personal lives and their health,” Salvietti said. “That kind of scared me in the other direction.”
Originally from San Diego, CA, Salvietti has been in the fitness industry his entire working life. As a teen, he worked at the front desk of gyms, then later became a personal trainer. He expected to always be a trainer at a gym or a doctor’s facility, but eventually realized he could offer his clients more by founding his own business.
Owning a gym, he said, “gave me the freedom to help clients with solutions other than just a workout. Giving them accountability as well as nutritional consulting to complete the whole puzzle.” Trainers in most gyms are not allowed to offer those extras for liability reasons, nor do they have the time.
Prior to opening Rock Your Body in Mineola, Salvietti subleased a church gymnasium in New Hyde Park where he did fitness boot camp with large groups. Approximately 90 percent of his clientele followed him to the new improved location, where he runs large group and semi-private programs.
“We cater to busy people who just want to feel better, don’t want to get hurt in the process and don’t have six to 10 hours a week to do it,” Salvietti said.
The majority of his clients have hectic schedules. He and his team teach them how to stick to the bare essentials and hold them accountable to the process, while also caring about them as individuals and respecting their time.
“They go through their day predominantly catering to the needs of everybody around them, not doing anything for themselves,” he said. Most clients spent two to six hours per week at the gym and don’t have any other time to spend working out.
Salvietti provides effective workouts and metabolic training to facilitate fast fat loss. In addition, he and his team work with clients on a flexible dieting plan, modified to their preferences, goals and body type. Salvietti believes that any training program will fail without a nutrition component and, consequently, makes nutrition as important an element as the workouts themselves.
He recognizes that “transformation” is a buzzword that lacks real meaning these days. At his gym, Salvietti compares the transformations of his clients to those of caterpillars into a butterflies. “It’s about…how they view…themselves physically and have a relationship with food and how they carry themselves in society,” he said.
“Lifestyle changes manifest themselves physically,” Salvietti continued. “We take that term [transformation] seriously as improving who they are.”
Rock Your Body Transformation Center offers a two-week trial, a six-week challenge and several membership levels. The facility is open Monday through Friday, 6 a.m. to 9 p.m., and Saturday, 7 a.m. to 12 p.m. For more information, visit rybitness.com or call 516-877-8130.
