ZX Fitness' owners expect to add two to three clubs over the next two to three years. Photo by David Buzo.

CHARLOTTE, NC -- ZX Fitness inherited all the members of the clubs formerly known as Peak Fitness. It also inherited Peak's past baggage.

ZX Fitness President Ron Poliseno, who took over that role last month, is well aware of that fact. ZX Fitness is working with the Better Business Bureau and the North Carolina Attorney General's office — which has sued and settled with Peak Fitness in past years — to alleviate any remaining complaints and operations issues. Beyond that, it's a new day for ZX Fitness, which has nine clubs in North Carolina and three in South Carolina.

“As a result of buying the assets of Peak Fitness, we also acquired that reputation, which we are doing everything we can to eliminate,” Poliseno says. “We are not Peak Fitness. We have no ownership or management that was involved with Peak Fitness.”

The name change to ZX Fitness occurred in January after Fuzion Investment Capital acquired the assets of Peak Fitness out of bankruptcy from the club's parent company, Fitness Management, which filed for bankruptcy last year.

Poliseno took over the reins after Fuzion added Allstate Financial Group, Bothell, WA, as its new private equity partner. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. Poliseno serves as Allstate's vice president of new business development. (Allstate is a separate company from the Allstate insurance company.)

“From a financial perspective, it was a very good opportunity,” Poliseno says. “We saw an opportunity to get involved with a company that had a very good membership base of over 45,000 members.”

ZX (short for “zero excuses”) offers a new $10-a-month price model. Additional amenities can be added to memberships on an à la carte basis. With this model, ZX Fitness sold more memberships in August than it did in January. ZX Fitness also is averaging 150 new memberships per club per month.

Poliseno admits that ZX Fitness, which averages 35,000 square feet per club, is directly competing with low-cost clubs such as Planet Fitness, which made famous the $10-a-month model.

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