Survival Fitness is more than a gym. It’s a fitness community.

The new location of Survival Fitness is unmistakable. The fitness center recently opened in what was once the American Red Cross building on Washington Avenue across from The Bay Area Family Y, after nearly a decade in the Dunlap Building.

With its bold sign, and the outside of the building painted black and white, the fitness center is drawing attention.

Jason McCrandall says the location is perfect for the growing business, which is “completely different than the Y.”

McCrandall says when inside the old building at 228 Washington Ave., the CrossFit gym was starting to experience growing pains. Classes were at or near capacity, and the instructors wanted to expand offerings.

“We had a couple of our members who owned the building, and they finally convinced me.”

McCrandall says moving from a 1,600-square-foot building into a space of nearly 9,000 square feet was a leap, but he’s already seeing the benefits.

Different than a gym, McCrandall says Survival Fitness is more like a community, where people get not only personal training, but instruction. “We write the programming for everybody, so we are building them a fitness journey, rather than them doing it themselves.”

McCrandall says the goal of the CrossFit program is to get people moving “so we can do whatever activities we want with greater speed and for longer times, whether it’s jogging, running, biking, wrestling, playing football or doing gymnastics. Our goal is to build an overall higher fitness.”

Survival Fitness is also a small community, and McCrandall plans to keep it that way. Even though it’s a bigger facility, he says he won’t try to accommodate over about 150 people there.

Survival Fitness is located inside a Downtown Bay City building that once housed the American Red Cross.“Once you get beyond that number of members, you don’t have that personal community feel anymore.”

And he likes it that way.

“We are legitimately a community of people that work together to cheer each other on and build each other up and empower each other.”

Just like in the old facility, Survival Fitness offers CrossFit classes, workouts, personal training, and group classes. McCrandall says trainers in group classes are certified Level 1 CrossFit or higher, and there are classes to fit most anyone’s schedule.

“We were offering just the 5:45 a.m. class,” he says, but have since added 8 a.m. and noon classes. “I was surprised to find out how many people were just waiting for an 8 a.m. class.”

There are some people who need to build their nutrition skills in order to build up their fitness. McCrandall says the centers offers that too.

“We’re going to teach you how to do things. Maybe you want to work on nutrition – we’ll have one of our nutrition coaches sit down with you and work on a plan. Everything is on a personal training type of level.”
  
Keeping it personal is only a part of the picture. McCrandall says it’s also about motivating people to change their lives, McCrandall says.

“For us – our motto is if you want to change your life, you have to change your actions. All you have to do is take that first step.”