JOEL GRIFFIN and Lisa McVeigh of Griffin Fitness.
David Ryan Palmer/Staff

By David Ryan Palmer
Assistant Editor

Two Benicia fitness gurus are among SolanoFit Magazine’s top 11 trainers to know in 2011 — and Joel Griffin and Lisa McVeigh did it with a simple message: There are no gimmicks or magic pills to give you the body you want.

“I feel honored, really, that we were pulled out of the bunch,” McVeigh said. “It really makes me feel motivated.”

McVeigh is a trainer at Griffin Fitness at 1100 Rose Drive #160; Joel owns the business. The trainers offer a no-excuses, self-empowerment method — Griffin’s motto is “Forcing you to be fit” — and business, they said, has been good so far this year.

Now that the January-February 2011 issue of SolanoFit has been released, it may be about to get even better.

“It feels great having a fitness magazine give you an award,” Griffin said, though he admits when he first heard about the feature, he was suspicious. “I thought at first it was an ad ploy.”

It wasn’t. Griffin himself is the first trainer featured in the edition.

McVeigh and Griffin both have an educational background in fitness: He attended the University of Illinois and is an Aerobics and Fitness Association of America personal trainer. He is certified in CPR by the American Red Cross and boasts more than 18 years’ experience.

McVeigh went to California State University-Hayward, is also an AFAA trainer with Red Cross CPR certification, and boasts nine years’ experience in the field.

Griffin Fitness relies on word of mouth to get their name around, and it seems to have worked: Both trainers say they have clients who come to their modest space from all over Solano County.

“We’re a small facility, so the only thing that we can produce is results,” Griffin said.

The magazine has already begun to affect the business, he said, generating more buzz for the gym and its no-nonsense approach.

“I went from being a trainer to being a business owner — mistake number one,” he says in the feature. “We fired ourselves as owners, became trainers again, and our clients can’t really argue with the results.”

The latest issue of SolanoFit is on newsstands now. The feature, “The 11 Top Trainers to Know in Solano County,” begins on page 22.

Find Out More
Visit www.griffinfitness.com/ or call 707-747-6677 to learn more about Griffin Fitness.

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