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Buffalo Grove’s new fitness center comes out swinging
Vernon Hills resident Alla Zilber performs a series of punching exercises Oct. 23 during kickboxing class at Title Boxing Gym in Buffalo Grove. A Lake Zurich location is set to open this month. | Michelle LaVigne ~ Sun-Times Media
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Updated: November 8, 2012 2:46PM
BUFFALO GROVE — A workout gym unlike anything Buffalo Grove has likely seen before is now open in Town Center.
“I got super excited, the first time I saw it all,” said Kevin Bacon, a local salesman and trainer.
What he saw was the array of 54 heavy bags hanging in the center of the 10,000-square-foot gym. Lined up in rows of seven or eight, they are the focus of Title Boxing Club’s marketing and fitness plan.
“When they come to a class here, it completely changes everything you’re doing,” trainer Courtney Belcastro said. “They see a heavy bag, and everyone wants to hit it.”
The Title facility opened Sept. 9, the second location for franchisee Terry Diegel, who launched his first in April in Schaumburg. The group classes — offered before work, at lunchtime and after work — attract the majority of the gym’s clientele.
Programs come in two varieties: boxing and kickboxing. Personal training and unsupervised workouts also are available from 5:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. on weekdays and 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. on weekends.
General manager Eric Andriacco explained that the business is primarily about exercise. There are no prizefighters getting into a ring under the Title Boxing Club banner.
Bacon noted that the growing national chain boasts a clientele that is 78 percent female.
“We’re training people to train like a fighter, more than we’re teaching people how to fight,” Andriacco explained.
The gym has limited offerings of a traditional health club or fitness center. There is one rack of free weights, plus a few weight machines and treadmills.
As the staff put it, and as the small boxing ring and the speed bags on the side attest, Title Boxing aims to look and feel different than the traditional gym.
Title Boxing provides stressed-up suburbanites something to pummel their frustrations into.
Belcastro said a Title class can be more effective, from a calorie-burn perspective, than trying to stay self-motivated on an exercise bike.
“It’s mindless, but the intensity is much higher,” she said.
Trainer Tode Dmitrovic added that the group plans to open three more Chicago area locations in the coming months. Title also plans to debut its own brand of supplements.
