This New Small Group Training Gym Is Perfect for People Who Can’t Afford a Personal Trainer

Leverage Fitness is a new small group training gym in Rittenhouse. Photograph by Caroline Cunningham.

You know, meeting one-on-one with a personal trainer every week would be a pretty fantastic way to make some serious strides in your fitness goals. Unfortunately, though, one-on-one sessions don’t come cheap, and if you’re a millennial, you’ve probably got some student loan debt to square away before you can start pouring half your paycheck into workouts. That’s where small group training comes in.

Leverage Fitness, a new Rittenhouse gym by Philly trainer Rob Licata, will offer personal training in addition to semi-private classes with small groups of no more than four participants. In these sessions, you’ll get way more attention than you’d get in regular fitness class — especially important in strength training, where form is everything — but at around half the price of a private training session.

There’s a spacious weight area at Leverage. Photograph by Caroline Cunningham.

And at Leverage Fitness, you also still get some of those nice perks that are traditionally reserved for boutique fitness classes. The sub-ground-level studio is done up with chic black-and-white branding, exposed copper pipes, black turf, tiled showers, a coffee bar, and specialized equipment — like the Concept 2 Skierg and Technogym SkillMill treadmills. Additionally, everyone wears a heart-rate monitor throughout every workout — the data from which is displayed on screens around the gym — so the trainers can keep an eye on how hard you’re really working.

Specialized equipment gives the small group training gym a high-end feel. Photograph by Caroline Cunningham.

Classes at Leverage will all be 50 minutes in length, and they’ll operate as full-body circuit classes, with a mix of strength and cardio intervals. While most of the classes on the schedule will be small-group format, maxing out at four participants, Licata says the gym will also offer a couple of group conditioning classes — for around 15 or so participants at a time — every day. These classes will follow a more traditional boot camp-style format, and they’ll be priced at a regular boutique fitness cost, at $30 for a drop-in.

Left: a Skierg. Right: the entrance to Leverage Fitness on 16th Street. Photograph by Caroline Cunningham.

Leverage Fitness’ classes officially kick off on Saturday, September 15, with a couple of group conditioning classes, and on September 17, the semi-private classes will commence. You can find the schedule of upcoming classes here.

If you’re interested in checking it out and seeing what a small group class is like, Licata is encouraging new members to take them up on a 30-day intro package, which includes a personal training session, six semi-private classes, and six conditioning workouts, all for $129 (that’s, like, less than $10 a session, people).

Ready to visit for yourself? Leverage Fitness is located at 1530 Locust Street (the entrance is on 16th Street though, just FYI).

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