When you have twenty years of collective experience in the fitness world, you’ve seen the landscape change a few times. Jay Ross and Jim and Julie Migliaccio – owner/coaches of OPEX Gold Coast – know when things change, finding the best product that serves your client’s needs creates trust, longevity, and fulfillment for everyone involved.

Personal experience and success within the OPEX system gave them the confidence they needed to begin offering Individual Design (ID) programming to their clients as an OPEX Gyms™ licensed affiliate. In fact, since their soft launch in January, their ID client base has grown to fifty members in just six months…

When did you begin offering OPEX individual design to clients? Why did you decide to add this to your business model?

Jay Ross: We’ve been in group collectively for twenty years and it just started to feel stale, one of the things that has always been important for us was to be a leader in the conversation about “what is fitness?”

The prompting to be on the forefront of fitness led us to look inward both personally and professionally and made us ask ourselves what we really wanted our service to look like.

Any great coaching moments or client success you’ve been a part of where it clicked that individual design made sense?

Jay Ross: We have a client named Susan who came to us when she turned fifty. She was at a point in her life where she needed to reprioritize health in her life. She was pre-diabetic, had chronic high blood pressure and cholesterol, she was overweight and in pain. She came in as a personal training client initially and we started her slow.

When we were moving in the direction of programming with OPEX we transitioned her over to an individual design client. She thrived in the environment and went from once a week personal training sessions to being in here four to five times a week following her own program. She’s no longer diabetic, she’s off of her blood pressure medication and she’s lost over 30 lbs.

What mentors do you look to for inspiration?

Julie Migliaccio: James Fitzgerald, he was my coach for many years before he stopped coaching. I could rattle off many within the fitness industry: Charles Poliquin, Robb Wolf, Christopher Sommer – these are just some of the people that I follow daily – their blogs, education, philosophy’s. I think a lot of the coaches at OPEX are genius level in their thinking – Michael Bann, Mike Lee, James Taylor, Sharon Prete. I’m just blown away by what they have to offer under any circumstance, even if I wasn’t in the OPEX system.

What’s one mantra or philosophy you use for inspiration for yourselves and for your business? 

Julie Migliaccio: Probably the biggest one, is the term “higher order.” Whenever I think of that and I think of the journey we’re on as a business, a gym, the way we train and the way we want to affect people – that constantly comes into my mind. “Higher order” that’s what we’re about, next level. Just purpose, you know?

What is something you want to pass on to your clients? What do you want them to walk away with because of you?

Julie Migliaccio: First and foremost, self-reliance. Even in the group model: I can teach you, I can show you, but it’s always those clients who do for themselves that see the most progress. You can turn your back and you know they’re doing the right thing and if they don’t know the answer, they’re going to find it.

Also longevity, we come from a culture where a lot of people want a quick fix or we get the athletes that want to go hard all the time. Many of my clients have been with me for many years, we’ve aged up together. They’re still in the game at 30, 40, 50, 60 – I don’t want them to go anywhere. They can get better, they can feel better they can keep doing this. It’s really a process of longevity and health and wellness and vibrancy and all that stuff.

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