Staten Island gym owners take training to the next level with app to track and monitor fitness

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — As a strength and conditioning coach with more than two decades of experience, Gary Miller’s goal is to make training fun. Sled pulls, farmer carries, keg lifts, kettlebell snatches and more — his cache of functional movements are designed to build speed, encourage agility and improve cardiovascular health. Challenging? Yes. Boring? No.

“This gym is for athletes and everyday Joes and Jills who are sick of just picking up barbells and dumbbells and tired of walking on the treadmill,” noted Miller, describing Powerbuilding Fitness, the Travis-based warehouse-style gym that he owns with business partner Brian Tutovic. “We use a lot of unique specialty equipment here, and work on functional movements that exert the body but don’t overwhelm it. We cater to clients who are looking to lose weight, grow muscle, gain strength or all of the above.”

And the two-year-old training facility is about to step up its game with the launch of a branded, cutting-edge fitness app that allows gym members to track their progress and interact with other workout-minded individuals.

“We’ve been working on this project for months, and we are one of the only training facilities in the country that offers this type of personalized technology,” Miller said. “The idea behind it is to create a culture that allows users to work with each other, share training, nutrition, health info and recipes. It’s extremely neat and innovative, and I’ve never seen anything else like this before in the fitness industry.”

Miller should know. After working out for the entirety of his adult life, the 43-year-old gym rat, a professional powerlifter who started competing in strongman competitions at the age of 37, has been focused on helping athletes across the country fine tune their fitness routines for the past 22 years. After graduating from William Paterson University with a degree in exercise physiology, he worked as a fitness franchise consultant before becoming a fitness director at UFC Gym. He developed and patented a portable training tool a decade ago before opening Gary Miller Fitness in 2016. Powerbuilding Holdings Corp. was launched in 2020.

“For years, fitness has been so misdirected,” Miller said. “People are either completely focused on nutrition or overly obsessed with working out. What they don’t realize is that tracking and training should go hand-in-hand. You have to combine both if you want to truly lead a healthy lifestyle. Our app will offer users a way to track all of their numbers in one streamlined place. It will offer you a big picture of everything you’re doing right and everything you’re doing wrong. And in addition to measuring your health stats, it will also offer a social component where you can share fitness tips and recipes and stay up to date with what’s trending in the workout world. It will be an absolute game-changer for the fitness industry.”

Created by Tutovic, who is a computer programmer by trade, Miller said the technology is different than popular apps like My Fitness Pal and smart watches like FitBit and Apple that simply track macros and count steps. The Powerbuilding app is more in-depth, Miller explained, allowing the user to order and monitor bloodwork and receive supplement recommendations for any numbers that seem askew. A marketplace feature is also in development so that subscribers can use the app to purchase meal plans and have them sent directly to their home.

It’s just one example of how Miller’s Powerbuilding team is guiding clients on their quest to get in shape and find fitness.

“The coaches at this gym are all former athletes, some of us still competing in strongman and bikini competitions,” Miller said. “But that doesn’t define who we are, and it’s definitely not an indication of the people who populate our gym. Our clients come from a variety of different backgrounds, many of whom are not generally comfortable going to a regular gym and are instead looking for a private setting. Some are overweight, some are out of shape, many know nothing at all about training and come here to learn. People like the anonymity that this space provides.”

Consisting of 3,400 square feet of training space, the facility has both indoor and outdoor settings that clients can use. Miller and his team start the training process by using a Fit3D full body scanner, which creates a 3D replica of the body, complete with circumference measurements accurate to the tenth of an inch, and measures of body fat percentage, weight, balance, BMR and more. Training and nutrition programs are then formed based on those results.

“This machine sheds a lot of light on why you might not be losing weight with other training methods,” Miller said. “It’s a great blend of technology and fitness, and it allows us to gain really great insight into planning a very personalized fitness regimen.”

And it’s that type of fitness philosophy that Miller said hopes to extend beyond his gym — building a global brand around this new app.

“Fitness certainly encompasses training, but it also includes health, nutrition, mindset — essentially anything to do with a healthy lifestyle,” Miller concluded. “Our coaches are trained to not only educate, inform and coach you — they are trained to help you build upon your wellness. With the assistance of your coach and this new app, your lifestyle can be transformed for the better.”