Train with intention
DVSN definitely isn’t your typical gym. Instead of the standard machine weights there are balls, tires and ropes.
Red lights pour over the space and there’s lots of talk of training intentionally, dynamic movement and functional patterns.
“Our workouts are biomechanical, the way the body was designed to move,” said Dustin Little, who owns this new fitness centre in the bottom of the Soul Downtown building on St. Paul Street with Willie Coetzee.
“Rather than do weights, we pick things up, throw and slam things and run, you know, all the things people were doing before somebody came up with a weight machine.”
By working your body the way humans have for millennia, you get a better workout and are more balanced, they say.
Such an approach helps you drop body fat, build muscle, reduce pain and stress, improve energy and libido and prevent disease.
All this is done under the red lights in a wide-open space.
Red light therapy, also called photobiomodulation, is illumination at a specific wavelength and strength that improves skin, enchances circulation, reduces inflammation and pain and quickens recovery and healing.
Reaping all these benefits isn’t cheap.
A personal training session with either Little or Coetzee is $105, or you can buy 36 sessions for $3,213.
Or you can opt for group training at $26 a class, $228 for 12 classes or $150 a month for unlimited classes.
There are three classes daily – boxing, kickboxing and jungle workout.
“We want to separate ourselves from the cookie-cutter training,” said Coetzee.
“We want to be more client-centred and do something different and more personal.”
Coetzee, who played his major junior A hockey with the Red Deer Rebels, went on to play professional hockey in the American Hockey League from 2009-16.
Little is a former competitive mixed martial artist who also trained as a kickboxer.
The two of them met while working at Steve Nash Fitness World in Kelowna and decided to go into business together when they tired of the traditional corporate nature of chain gyms.
Speaking of Steve Nash Fitness World, it is in the midst of renovations to convert the UFC Gym portion of its facility at Kelowna’s Orchard Plaza into a new group training and recovery space.
The gym has seen more demand for group fitness, especially bootcamp classes, and needed the extra space.
UFC Gym members now have access to everything within the Steve Nash facility and some of its elements have been retained so members will continue to have access to mixed martial arts-style training.
Imagine, not just lamps, but couches, tables and ottomans radiating with warm light.
It’s called LED furniture and the light-emitting diodes are embedded right in the furniture.
The lights and the colours are controlled with a remote.
Kelowna’s All Occasions Party and Event Rentals now has such furniture available for hire for your next soiree, corporate event or wedding.
Red and green lights look festive at a holiday party and warm white can make a wedding or any other occasion glow.
All Occasions touts LED furniture as clean and elegant during the day and energetic and vibey by night.
Speaking of parties, All Occasions also rents dance floors in a variety of sizes, lounge furniture that doesn’t light up and all the other things you might need for a gathering from tables and chair and stages to bars, linens and tableware.
Steve MacNaull is The Okanagan Weekend’s business and wine reporter and columnist. Reach him at steve.macnaull@ok.bc.ca.