By Bill Petzold
Editor
VASSAR — You only live once — sometimes abbreviated as YOLO by the younger generation — often has been used as an excuse for making bad or dangerous decisions.
But certified personal trainer Larry McGrandy, owner of the new 1 Life Fitness fitness club, 171 East Huron Avenue in downtown Vassar, sees ‘you only live once’ as the main reason to make good decisions when it comes to fitness and nutrition.
“Life is too short to not really be able to get around, and to not be able to play with your kids,” said McGrandy, 33, a 1998 Vassar High School graduate. “I really think that while we’re here we should make the best of what we’ve got.”
McGrandy said he became involved with the fitness industry almost by accident. After returning to the area about 11 years ago, McGrandy would work out at Diversified Fitness Club in Frankenmuth. He hit it off with the owners and staff, and before long he had a job folding towels at the front desk. From there he took part in a 12-week staff challenge to see who could get the best results working with clients. After the challenge was over, nine of the 11 people he had been working with asked to keep working with McGrandy.
“I thought, ‘Why not?’ I figured it was just something to do while I was on the clock,” McGrandy said. “One day the guy who hired me pulled me aside and said, ‘You’ve been doing a lot of training for these people for free. I think it’s time you started getting paid for it.’ I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘We’ll get you certified and then you can charge ‘x’ amount, we’ll start you out right now at this amount and once you get certified we’ll take you to the next (level).’ I was a little nervous, because these people had been working with me for free for a month or two after the challenge was over, I was afraid to start asking for money. That was the hardest thing for me.”
But all nine had no problem paying McGrandy for his help, and they stuck with him for the next eight years.
Now McGrandy is bringing a decade of fitness knowledge and a passion for helping people to his hometown. The response has been positive.
“We opened with 112 members and that was without any machines in here,” McGrandy said. “In just one week we’ve added another 38 members. We’re up to 150. My goal is to hopefully hit 200 by September. (Our clientele so far is made up of) either the younger generation, which would be people in their early 20s, or people age 40 and up.”
With a few remodeling projects yet to be completed, McGrandy expects fitness classes to start in mid-August or the beginning of September. 1 Life offers its members a number of machines, free weights and other fitness options to keep a person’s routine from becoming routine.
To help run the business, McGrandy has enlisted the help of manager Stephanie Oliver and personal trainer Vince Leveille, a fellow coach at Vassar High School.
McGrandy is the head varsity softball coach for the Vulcans, and also helps out with strength and conditioning for Vassar athletes for basketball and football. He expects to be an assistant coach for the JV football team this fall, and will juggle his duties as a coach with working with clients at 1 Life.
“I’d always enjoyed fitness from being an athlete in high school, and that was always just a part of me,” McGrandy said. “But when I got into (working with clients), we were doing fitness consultations and part of it is about finding your ‘why?’ — Why do you do what you do? Why do you want to lose weight? Why do you want to get in better shape? I had this kind of epiphany one day. It was kind of weird because I had gone eight years not knowing my ‘why’ because I love helping people, that’s just who I am.
“When I was 18, my dad passed away. I watched him struggle with cancer for the better part of two years, and it was probably the hardest time of my life. … I used to beat myself up over the fact that if I knew then what I know now about the human body, about nutrition about fitness, you know maybe there was something I could have done extra to help my dad, and maybe he’d still be here.
“One day out of nowhere I thought, ‘You know, I might not have been able to help my dad, but for as much as I love people, I’ve got a chance to help the loved ones of somebody else so they don’t have to go through what I went through, because I don’t ever want to see anybody go through that. I truly think that’s where my passion is, it’s helping people kind of do things they never though possible, whether it be losing weight, feeling better or even working with athletes one-on-one, helping them develop that mental strength that it takes to strive for competition.”
1 Life Fitness is open 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. For information on membership rates and services offered by 1 Life Fitness, contact the club at (989) 882-9555 or call Larry McGrandy at (989) 529-0207. Information may also be found on the club’s Facebook page.
Bill Petzold is the editor of the Tuscola County Advertiser. He can be reached at petzold@tcadvertiser.com.