Joshua Miller's Crossfit Gym isn't your average workout facility.
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It doesn't have treadmills, mirrors or tanning beds. At a glance, it looks more like a vacant farm supply store, with tractor tires, used for workouts, propped against the outside walls. Inside, however, is one of the most intense and unconventional workout programs in the area.
Miller started going to the gym when he was in his early 20s, after his girlfriend made a comment about his weight. He started working out and found he enjoyed pushing himself physically -- so much, in fact, that the girlfriend started to complain about how much time he spent at the gym.
After becoming a "gym rat," as he calls himself, Miller was constantly looking for new, more challenging ways to exercise. One day, a co-worker showed him a video of women doing the most rigorous workout he had ever seen.
"I was stunned," Miller said. "The workout was so quick and so intense, I knew I had to try it."
The method was called Crossfit, and it emphasized a whole-body workout with 10 points, including cardiovascular and respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy.
"Most workout systems just work on two: strength and cardio," he said.
Miller asked around about gyms that offered the training. The closest one he found was in Atlanta.
Miller knew there had to be others who would be interested in this kind of workout, so he and his wife, Julie, decided to open up their own gym and offer Crossfit training.
"It's easy to just jump into a business when you believe in it," he said.
Building a business
Initially, Miller and his wife kept their jobs and worked at the gym around their schedules. They learned a lot those first years, he said.
"Our first location was very cheap, but it was right in front of a crackhead motel," he said. "I learned I would get a great enough number of customers at a better location that the move would pay for itself."
That first location was 600 square feet. The Millers' gym has moved several times, slowly growing with each move. At one point, they lived in an apartment off the gym.
The Millers accumulated more clients, upgrading in size about once a year.
With such a strenuous pace, Crossfit isn't something a person could jump right into. Miller and his team make sure that any newbie to the gym begins with less than half the workouts, no matter what they are used to.
"We try to be responsible trainers," he said.
At every session, there is a workout of the day. On Friday, for example, the workout was 25 pushups and 250 meters on the rowing machine -- repeated as much as possible for 15 minutes.
"All of our workouts are 20 minutes or less," Miller said.
The Crossfit Gym also has longer exercises that serve to spice things up. One exercise, called the Murph, consists of running one mile, doing 100 pull-ups, 200 pushups, 300 squats and then running one mile. The gym's record for completing the routine is less than 40 minutes.
Miller said the program isn't for your average "New Year's resolution" gym patron.
"Most gyms make their money on people who sign up and never come," he said. "If you're not coming to our gym, we're going to call you and see what's up."
The regimen works as a group, and there are anywhere from three to 10 classes per day. Because of the format, every gym user gets almost constant personal training. This attention does come at a cost, however.
"The prices are much higher," Miller said. A one-year contract with Crossfit Gym is $80 per month.
The program attracts a lot of driven, type-A people, he said. This driven personality often benefits from the communal workout setup, injecting a measure of friendly competition into a day at the gym.
Kelly Cook is an amateur jiu-jitsu fighter and uses Crossfit Gym to prepare for his matches.
"It's painful, I'm not going to lie," he said. "But it's the best thing for being in shape."
Cook has a 3-0 fighting record and found out about the Crossfit system through Joshua Miller's Gracie-Barra jiu-jitsu classes held in the same building. After Cook's first bout, he knew he had to prepare more and decided to see if all of Miller's gushing was deserving.
"He swears by it," Cook said, "but it deserves it."
Growing clientele
The gym's future looks bright to Miller.
"I see us growing," he said, "not just in size, but in diversity. For a city that is more than 50 percent black, it doesn't make sense for my classes to be less than 10 percent black. I want everyone to come," he said.
Miller wants his gym to affect the entire community.
"Augusta does not have a lot of fitness-minded people," he said. "We'd like to change that."
Physical fitness and the Crossfit program have become a huge part of the Millers' lives. His daughter, who attends the University of South Carolina, spent a year studying Portuguese and jiu-jitsu in Brazil and plans to become a black belt. His wife works as a trainer at their gym, and holds records in fitness challenges.
Crossfit Gym has more than 80 people who come regularly to train, and Miller and his wife now manage the gym full time.
"People envy us," Miller said. "Even when we were living in the gym, people would say they wished they had our life."
TITLE: Owner, Crossfit Gym
FAMILY: Wife, Julie, and one daughter
EDUCATION: Bachelor's degree in nursing; associate's degree in emergency medical treatment.
HOBBIES: Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighting and Shotokan karate
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