One To One Fitness has an impressive 30 year history in Washington DC and Northern Virginia. While it is one of our area’s crown jewels, it may also be one of our best kept secrets. “That’s fine with us,” say owners Doug Vasiliadis (40 year McLean/Great Falls resident) and Pat McCloskey (50 year Vienna resident).
“I started working in health clubs even before going to college when I was 16 years old,” says Vasiliadis. “I’ve always loved the members and loved the environment, but initially grew to hate the business. Mass marketing, high pressure sales and binding contracts were the focus. Club owners would hire a used car salesmen before hiring a fitness professional with a Master’s Degree in Exercise Physiology. When my wife Helen and I opened the first One To One (Tysons Corner, 1986), our goal was to be the anti-health club. One To One has never employed a commissioned sales person, we’ve never made a single cold call, trainers had to have degrees in exercise science and we are all about service—personal training to be exact (which no one even heard of back then). No sign ‘em and leave ‘em membership sales. Instead, we listen to people, assess their needs, educate them, cultivate a long term relationship, do our best to keep them healthy and help them accomplish their objectives.”
Fast forward 30 years, personal training is now a household term and One To One has earned a national reputation both as a pioneer and as one of the most respected personal training companies in the fitness industry. Over the past three decades, One To One has trained many high profile celebrity clients such as NBA stars Sherman Douglas in the 1990’s, Jerry Stackhouse in the early 2000’s, Washington Redskins superstar quarterback Kirk Cousins who began training at One To One when he was a rookie and numerous others. However, according to Vasiliadis and McCloskey, one of the greatest things about One To One is the variety of clients of all ages and fitness levels that you will find training there. It is not uncommon to see a rising youth athlete training in hopes of earning a college scholarship, a mom training to get back into shape after having her third child, an executive training to improve his golf game or a senior citizen working on her strength and balance to remain vigorous in retirement. Many have been clients for between five and twenty five years. Vasiliadis still takes pride in the fact that One To One is unlike all other health clubs, chains and franchises.
“Not only do we have wonderful long term relationships with our clients, our trainers are also like family. Many of them have been a part of One To One for decades, which is unheard of in our industry and something we are very grateful for and proud of,” says Vasiliadis.
McCloskey, who also serves as One To One’s Director of Training and Staff Development, is equally proud of his highly talented staff and grateful for One To One’s diverse and loyal clientele.
“We don’t just implement one style of exercise. That’s the beauty of our high quality personal training. Our trainers were well educated even before we hired them. We then invest a great deal of time teaching them and helping them become expert personal trainers who know exercise science and who are capable of teaching a variety of methods and training all types of clients,” says McCloskey.
McCloskey has also served as conditioning consultant for US Women’s Soccer, consults for numerous sports teams, is a faculty member of the world famous Gray Institute and travels the country providing continuing education to fitness professionals.
One To One Fitness has locations in Washington DC and Northern Virginia. For more information, visit their website at www.1to1fitness.com.
Viva Tysons Magazine is proud to bring our readers our new Ask a Personal Trainer column so send us your exercise and fitness questions, and Doug Vasiliadis and Pat McCloskey of One To One Fitness will answer them in our upcoming issues.
