Scottsdale Airpark News, May 2011:  If you’re an executive who doesn’t mind getting bossed around in the name of fitness, then you’re probably not interested in Dave West and Alan Cohen’s approach to working out. At Koko Fit Club, which opened in January, no one’s doing the Louis Gossett Jr. impersonation. That’s because there are no trainers. “Nobody to call in sick, no drama, no vacations, no days off,” says West, who likes to think of the club as more of a salon than a gym.” Instead of trainers, the two business partners—West once worked for Cohen at another company—have invested in computerized workout machines. The computers don’t yell; they offer an on-screen readout that encourages members by showing how much of the health benefit they received from a particular exercise, up to 100 percent.

Scottsdale Airpark News, May 2011:  If you’re an executive who doesn’t mind getting bossed around in the name of fitness, then you’re probably not interested in Dave West and Alan Cohen’s approach to working out. At Koko Fit Club, which opened in January, no one’s doing the Louis Gossett Jr. impersonation. That’s because there are no trainers. “Nobody to call in sick, no drama, no vacations, no days off,” says West, who likes to think of the club as more of a salon than a gym.” Instead of trainers, the two business partners—West once worked for Cohen at another company—have invested in computerized workout machines. The computers don’t yell; they offer an on-screen readout that encourages members by showing how much of the health benefit they received from a particular exercise, up to 100 percent.

A mysterious irony of American corporate life is that plenty of entrepreneurs, having reached certain levels of autonomy in the business world, can be found humbly bowing to the orders of their personal trainers at the gym on a daily basis.

“Again!” one such trainer might bark. “Two more reps!” (Pause.) “I lied! Three!”

If you’re an executive who doesn’t mind getting bossed around in the name of fitness, then you’re probably not interested in Dave West and Alan Cohen’s approach to working out.

At Koko Fit Club, which opened in January, no one’s doing the Louis Gossett Jr. impersonation. That’s because there are no trainers.

“Nobody to call in sick, no drama, no vacations, no days off,” says West, who likes to think of the club as more of a salon than a gym.

Instead of trainers, the two business partners—West once worked for Cohen at another company—have invested in computerized workout machines. The computers don’t yell; they offer an on-screen readout that encourages members by showing how much of the health benefit they received from a particular exercise, up to 100 percent.

Based on a strength test, the computer designs a workout regimen for each new club member. The information goes on a flash drive a member may insert into any of the weight/exercise machines or treadmills. Over the course of up to a year, members perform different exercises designed for them and which they can follow precisely on a video monitor. The exercises vary from day to day, week to week, and take anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes a session.

Do the routines within the computer’s pre-set range for you, and you earn the maximum amount of points. Max out those points and you move up the ladder of Koko-dom faster, earning different colored cords for your flash drive to show off to family, friends and fellow members. And soon enough, a member will get the payoff by having reached one of five choices of goals: weight loss, total body definition, sports performance, muscle building or fit-and-flexible.

At 40, West’s wife, Suzanne, says she has increased her strength by 40 percent after two months on her regimen.

Koko Concept

The Bell Road location is the only one in Arizona, but one of 27 nationwide in 13 states. The Pembroke, Mass.-based chain’s founder, an American of Japanese ancestry, gave the clubs their name based on the Japanese word koko, which translates to “one-to-one.”

Instead of dozens of trainers, the chain has only one: Michael Wood, who recorded his guidance in Massachusetts. It is Wood’s voice that members hear explaining the exercises.

Since opening Jan. 21, the club has 60 members ranging in age from 11 to 70. While most are within the three-mile radius that is the business’ target customer base, many are from farther away. One comes in from Fountain Hills. The partners are looking to open a second facility in McCormick Ranch to increase accessibility to different parts of the Airpark.

“We see 55 of the 60 every week,” says West. “We want people in here. That’s not what [typical] gyms do. They take your money and don’t want you to show up.”

Cohen says there’s a reason 85 percent of the U.S. population doesn’t work out: Most gyms are intimidating to new members who don’t know what all the different machines are for and how much they should use them. And a lot of newcomers shy from comparing their bodies to “the beautiful people” who’ve been crunching abs for years, West adds.

Fear of injury is another deterrent, but the pace of the KoKo system is slow, controlled and fluid, so the chance of getting injured is much less, explain the owners.

The concept at West and Cohen’s business is simple: “We’re for that 85 percent,” says West, “for  anybody who knows they need to exercise but doesn’t know what to do. The computer guides you through it.”

Koko Fit Club

6245 E. Bell Road

Suite 113

Scottsdale

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