By Aaron Allen, The Seattle Medium
Kyra Gaines, owner of the newly opened Wellness Gaines Fitness Center in Renton, is a shining example of achieving something that you believe is possible. Gaines, who opened the doors to her business last weekend, worked in the fitness industry for years and after watching friends and colleagues start their own businesses, she decided to venture out on her own.
For Gaines, a former track and field athlete at Eastern Washington University, fitness and physical health has always been a way of life and an opportunity to turn her passion into a business.
“I am a big believer in praying to manifest the things that I desire,” says Gaines. “I really started visualizing what my studio would look like. And so, it’s kind of crazy but this is how it works, you start thinking on it, you meditate on it and it happens.”
Wellness Gaines Fitness Center is a complete holistic wellness center that not only centers on building the body but offers mental and spiritual wellness as well. Besides having an open gym that allows people to work out on their own, Wellness Gaines offers three different programs – Flow Gaines, Steel Gaines, and HIIT Gaines.
HIIT GAINES is a combination of brief, very-high intensity cardio exercises followed by equal or longer periods of rest. Think about 30 seconds to a minute of sprinting, followed by a minute or two of walking or slow jogging. The benefits of HIIT GAINES includes burning calories, losing weight, and building muscle. HIIT GAINES can also help you lower blood pressure and blood sugar, while improving oxygen and blood flow.
STEEL GAINES offers a different kind of training using dynamic moves targeting almost every aspect of fitness—endurance, strength, balance, agility and cardio endurance.
“People love [STEEL GAINES] because it’s challenging,” says Gaines. “It is efficient, and you only need one piece of equipment.
“STEEL GAINES can help you lose weight because exercises can use up to 600 muscles at a time increasing calorie burn, raising your metabolic rate and challenging your cardio,” adds Gaines. Training with kettlebells can also produce an after-burn effect leading to further calorie burn for up to 24 hours.”
FLOW GAINES is a yoga workout that works on the level of one’s body, mind, emotion and energy. It is a gentle way to improve your posture, balance, and coordination. Yoga has been found to improve quality of life, reduce stress, anxiety, insomnia, depression and back pain. It has also been found to lower heart rate and blood pressure. And, perhaps not surprisingly, yoga has been shown to improve fitness, strength and flexibility.
“I just wanted to provide a space that was designed to help people be their better self,” says Gaines. “Not only physically but mentally and that’s something that we always pushed [as a] message. It is something that we preach and teach and in my own life I live.”
Kyra’s father, Ronnie Gaines, not only saw his daughter transform her dream into a reality, he also helped her build it – literally.
According to Kyra Gaines, the property where here gym is located was vacant for some time and needed some renovations to facilitate her dream.
“Years ago, it was a Bally’s gym,” says Gaines. “Fortunately, my father is a contractor and so together he helped me put it together.”
Ronnie Gaines said that it was important that he approached the project strictly from a professional standpoint rather than on a personal level.
“When we [Kyra and myself] sat down and talked I was acting strictly as a contractor and not a father,” says Ronnie. “Because if I tried to be both at the same time, knowing me, I may have tried to take over her vision and I wanted this to remain her vision not mine, so I came at her as client/contractor in a total business relationship.”
Even though she was driven by determination and faith, the journey to open her business was not without challenges. With an idea to open her business that predated COVID, Gaines had to wait unit the coast was clear before embarking on her dream.
“Having to wait was my biggest challenge,” recalls Gaines. “Waiting on subcontractors, waiting on equipment, and waiting for stuff that was needed was probably the hardest part of this.”
Physical and mental well-being is the core foundation Gaines wants to provide for her community, especially people of color. Gaines is a believer that mental and physical well-being is a conversation that all people should have with themselves and others in an effort to better their lives.
“Going forward I plan to talk more about mental and physical health,” says Gaines. “This is something we can never get enough of and having these conversations [is important]. My instructors and clients know that if [they’re] having a rough time this is a safe space to come to talk with someone, move their body, sweat therapy, but also know that they have a friend here and that this not just about the business of the gym.”
Her father agrees and says that he is proud to stand with his daughter in this moment.
“I feel great about this, this has always been a dream, an aspiration of hers,” says Ronnie. “To see her dream come to fruition, this has always been a dream about this for quite some time and she has always been into fitness and to see this unfold is a blessing.”
