Second Chances: Women's fitness center reopens under new ownership

Second Chances: Women’s fitness center reopens under new ownership

The former Just for Women Fitness Center is open again, with new owners and a new name: Bella Health Club.

The women-only gym shut its doors last September, only to be resurrected by Brenda Gloor and Luz Neolia Ramos, who acquired the business in early November and spent a couple of months remodeling and adding "a few little extra perks," says Gloor, who was client of the gym under its previous owner, Nancy Vela.

"I’ve been working out here for five or six years, and Luz has been my personal trainer," she says. "We thought us two could come in and put it together and do something with it. That’s how we decided to do it. I’m the janitor and she’s the brains."

Ramos learned the ropes while working at the gym under Vela, handling office duties, teaching classes and conducting personal training. Bella Health Club offers a wide range of workout equipment, free weights, treadmills, elliptical trainers, stationary bikes, a recumbent bike and a fully equipped aerobics room, Ramos says.

"We offer a variety of classes, including Zumba, pilates, indoor cycling, step, strip aerobics," she says. "We have classes in the mornings and the afternoons. Brenda got certified as a lifestyle weight management specialist. On sign-up, our members get to meet with her so that they can get either meal plans or tips on how they can maintain or lose weight, depending on what their goal is."

"We can take them through the course and show them (what’s involved), whether they want to lose weight or whether they want to tone," Gloor says. "If they are a little overweight, we get them set on the right course, so they don’t come into the gym and just get overwhelmed by everything."

As a women-only fitness center that also includes workout equipment, Bella Health Club occupies a niche of its own in Brownsville. Coed gyms are a turn-off for some women, Gloor says.

"It is very offputting," she says. "It’s also offputting for their husbands and boyfriends. A workout is a personal thing that you’re doing for yourself, not for onlookers. I think women and their husbands and their boyfriends feel more comfortable knowing it’s an all women’s gym."

Bella Health Club, at 34 S. Price Road, is open from 5:30-11 a.m., and 3-8 p.m., Monday through Thursday, and the same hours though it closes at 7 p.m. on Fridays. The gym is open from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturday. It’s closed Sunday.

The new owners are depending largely on worth-of-mouth and a little newspaper advertising to build up their client base.

"We do have a lot of previous members from Just for Women that were waiting to see if something was going to reopen here or what we were going to do," Ramos says.

Meanwhile, the two are becoming experts on the care and feeding of exercise equipment.

"We took a bike apart the other day, and we have oil from our fingers to our elbows," Gloor says. "But we got it fixed."