Josh and Valerie Queen: Welcome to The Gym

Josh Queen remembers seeing the pretty blonde when she came into Precision Fitness a few years ago.

He was one of the co-owners and trainer, she was a client.

"It took me about a year to talk to her," he said, smiling. "I told her, 'You're beautiful, you're intimidating to talk to.'"

"You talked to every body but me," she answered

"I wasn't intimidated by them," Josh Queen said.

He finally found the courage for that first conversation. Good thing. It led to wedding vows last July.

Today, Josh and Valerie Queen are partners in love and life. The former employees at Fitness on Fourth recently opened The Gym at 1701 N. Fourth.

The owners and personal trainers already have 125 clients, ranging in age from 8 to 89. They work with seasoned powerlifters, folks trying to slim down, beef up, become stronger, faster and even jump higher.

"A family can come in here, we have something for everybody," Valerie said.

The Queens practice what they preach.

Josh, 32, packs a solid 275 pounds on his muscle frame, while Valerie, 34, is a trim and toned 5-8, 128 pounds.

The Gym has free and resistance weights, cardio machines, and a variety of equipment spread over its 2,600 square feet. Their staff includes trainers David Sheppard and Kirk Brown.

It's a smaller operation by some fitness gym standards, but one that gets the job done, Josh said.

"We brought it back to the bare bones. We want to stay a mom and pop shop," he said.

Valerie said they teach people how to make the changes they want to make in their lifestyles. It's not just about fitness at The Gym.

"We're definitely more than trainers," she said.

Why did you decide to open your own gym?

Josh: My wife and I have always wanted our own thing. We work together really great. It was kind of the next step in things. We had enough clientele, plus we wanted to have control. We wanted to get in with husbands and wives, that's our next big adventure. Because that's where we're at with our lives. We have the luxury of making deals that work for husbands and wives, really just get out and do our own thing.

Val: A lot of couples have families. If you have the whole family on a plan, it's a lot easier for someone to lose weight, and keep in shape.

Do you motivate each other?

Val: He really trains himself, but I always have him train me because I get more out of it. I've always been in fitness, I've always had trainers, so this is like the next step, coming into being a trainer. It's something I have a passion for. I want to help people. It's amazing to watch how you can change their life. They can take off 10, 20, 25 pounds, it makes people evolve. It's very exciting.

Josh: I've always struggled with my weight. Always. From a young age, I knew if I could get into this industry, it would have a check and balance for me, I would have the information I need. I've got to practice what I preach. I've always tried to get into this industry and about eight years ago, I finally got into it. It's been great. We live our life. I do football and MMA, right next door here. She does figure shows and kick boxing. We're all about keeping in shape.

So it's working?

Josh: She's the first woman in my life who would do the miles with me and ride the hills with me and do everything I would do and think that was fun. I hated it, but it's something that has to be done. She loves it, so it's a really good balance between us.

Val: It's very encouraging to have a partner that does that with you, that kind of pushes you along when you don't want to do it.

Josh: Especially when you're riding up a hill and she's in front of you. It's, 'I'm getting beat by a girl.'

Val: I beat him up the hill and he beats me down.

Josh: The weight helps.

Do you have different training styles?

Josh: I'm kind of a drill sergeant, she's a little bit nicer, pick them up type, so we're a good combo in that sense.

Val: I'm getting a little meaner. Hanging out with him, I find myself louder and yelling at them more. Then I pat them on the back.

Josh: You can't always be their buddies. Like their diets, they're terrible. That's why they come to us. There's no way they would do it on their own. Accountability is huge. We make them write a journal and they bring it to us. We weigh and measure them regularly so there's always a check and balance. We don't stop with them leaving our gym. It never stops there. We're constantly in their lives, constantly calling them.

You bug clients at home?

Josh: We go home and our clients constantly talk to us on the phone, usually text, we talk them through whatever they're going through, help them out. One thing we've been able to do as a couple is we go to people's houses, we go through their pantries, we usually cook a dinner with them, kind of show them what's good, what's bad, we get in their houses more, in their lives a lot more.

Do you have any bad habits?

Josh: Oh yeah.

Val: Everybody does. We're good the majority of the time, but everybody has cheats.

Josh: I'm honestly very human. I struggle every day. I grew up a chubby fat kid and all those bad habits. They don't just go away. You have good runs and then you have bad runs. It kind of depends on how your life's going. When you're up and everything's good, it's good. When you're down, it's down. I'm more of an emotional leader. When stress comes into my life, it's there.

You were a chubby fat kid?

Josh: I was pretty popular because I was pretty good in sports, but in the same sense I got made fun of. You put up a good front and you laugh it off, but it eats away at you. So now when my clients have those changes, I know what they're going through. I get just as emotional as they do because I've walked that walk and I walk that walk every day with them. That's something I can relate back to my clients. For me, it's really personal, I have connection. When they lose weight I know how that feels. I can see them glowing and their lives changing.

Val: I grew up watching my mom. My mom was really overweight and she struggled. I watched her cry because people would say something at the store. So growing up seeing her deal with it and watching everybody pick on her, I always had a passion that I wanted to help her. My mom was my best friend and it killed me to see people pick on her. So I took that into this business and I was able to learn more and more to give that back to her. I grew up wanting to help people after watching my mom struggle. It was a struggle for her to put her shoes on, or her seat belt. You take that for granted. You don't realize how it feels to not be comfortable in your own skin.

How do you relax? What's fun?

Josh: Fun?

Val: Do we ever relax?

Josh: Our life is 100 miles per hour.

Val: We have a good circle of friends we hang out with and go the movies.

Josh: We love the outdoors, be outside, go boating when we can, but we never have time. We're so busy. We've even more busy now, but that's OK. When it's your own thing, it doesn't seen to bother you at all.

How much time should someone expect to put in to get into decent shape?

Josh: With the exercise, we have twice-a-week, 15-minute program. What that's going to do, it takes your muscles, breaks them down so they have to recover. From those two workouts, you're going to be burning calories seven days a week, just from your muscles recovering. I believe that for most people that would be enough. That isn't where the work is. The work is in their nutrition. And where's that? That's every day, all day. In the beginning, it's way more work but after a while, it becomes second nature, you don't think about what you're doing, you just do it. In the beginning, nutrition is a full time commitment.

What are your diets?

Josh: A balance between proteins and carbs, keep your metabolism going by eating more often, just little tricks like that that we've learned and mastered through the years.

There's not a client out there, we can't figure out how to keep them going. I make it a point to really get involved in my clients' lives.

Do most people have poor diets?

Val: Most people don't know. They'll eat something and not read the labels.

Josh: They know of the obvious things like candy and cake, but they don't understand between a light carb, a flour carb and a whole wheat grain. We teach them a lot of the mechanics of the body, the biology of the body and how it works, and how some food is good, and some food is processed. Our first sessions with people, their eyes are this big, like 'Wow I didn't know there was so much out there.'

Are there foods and drinks to be avoided?

Josh: Alcohol. You know the problem with alcohol is? It stops your liver from detoxifying fat for a while and it focuses on alcohol. For a couple days your body is not focusing on fat, it's focusing on alcohol.

Val: People don't realize that. You go out to dinner and you have a margarita, you don't realize how many calories are really in that.

And fast food, there can be 1,200 calories in one meal.

What's one thing you would want people to know about you as personal trainers?

Val: When you do personal training, it's not about the gym. It's about your relationship with that person. A lot of my clients said, 'I'll follow you anywhere.'

Josh: This is my life, this is my career. We live it, we eat it, we breathe it, can't stop talking about it.