Yes, it's that time of year again when everyone starts to think about fitness and exercise. However, the team at Sunflower Strength & Conditioning adds one more important element to that yearly goal--community.
Owners and coaches Marc and Stephine Limon and Bill and Brenda Komma got together to answer questions about this downtown gym and what people can expect when they come through the doors.
Q: How long have you been in business?
A: Since 1 June 2015 – 10 Years 6 Months.
Q: How did the gym get started?
A: Sunflower Strength & Conditioning exists because the gym we were working out at was closing. Rather than going out and finding another gym to workout at, we opened one up so that we all could continue to workout together. We had 30 members join us at Sunflower Strength & Conditioning. Some of those same 30 athletes are with us still today.
Q: Describe the atmosphere or culture in the gym.
A: The space is built on friendliness and genuine connection, where members share encouragement, and celebrate progress together. It’s an environment rooted in commitment: people show up not only for their own goals, but to inspire those around them. Whether someone is pushing through a tough set, getting their health back on track, mastering a new skill, or returning after time away, the community rallies with support.
It’s a place to escape the reality that work, and home life, can be tough, and we all need an outlet. This gym reminds us that everyone goes through the same hardships, but we all have this sense of belonging to this supportive community. It’s our therapy.
Sometimes we put our scores or weights on the whiteboard and other times we put our score in a DW which stands for DID WORK, which is celebrated just as much as any other score we put on the whiteboard. We celebrate everyone’s victories even if your victory for that day might have been just showing up.
In our motto, "Strength. Conditioning. COMMUNITY." community is in all caps on purpose. We provide a safe, clean space with trained and experienced coaching and top-notch equipment, but all of that would be just things if it wasn’t for our greatest asset--our community. We have fostered an environment where a local police officer is working out next to a schoolteacher who is being cheered on by an electrician and a retired Army guy who is here trying to get his health back.
Q: Describe your typical client group.
A: As of today, we are 53-percent female. Our oldest athlete is 66 years old and our youngest are a couple high school soccer players who are 17. We have athletes with PHD’s, and we have athletes with developmental disabilities. Regardless, we all work out together. We all do the same workout, but we just provide scalable options for those who need it.
Last year we had three of our athletes who had babies. The gym came together and threw a baby shower for all of them. This last weekend we had a 1-year birthday party at our gym where their family and our gym family came together to celebrate. I am not sure if you are going to get that type of community at a cookie cutter gym.
On Friday nights our athletes attend the early classes because later they will go to watch another athlete’s kid play in a football game or soccer match.
It sounds cliché but we're serious when we say that you come in the door for the workout, but you stay for the community.
Q: What are your classes like?
A: We have five classes a day, Monday through Friday, and one Saturday class at 8 a.m., all led by trained coaches. Every class starts with a specific warmup to the workouts we are going to do for that day. We generally do a MetCon (a metabolic conditioning workout that combines strength and cardiovascular exercises) that is between 10 and 25 minutes. Our MetCons consist of lots of different types of equipment and movements. We do Olympic and Power Lifting, also we have gymnastics movements, as well as conditioning equipment to make it interesting.
After the MetCon, we move on to our strength or skill portion of the class. It’s called Strength or Skill because that is the part of the class that we focus on not only strength such as deadlifts or squats, but we also work on what we consider a skill, like pull-ups, rope climbs or jumping rope. We get all that accomplished in one hour.
Our Friday workouts are primarily what we call HERO workouts. These workouts are written in honor of fallen police officers, fire fighters or service members, so they are typically our hardest workout of the week. We wear red on Friday for “Remember Everyone Deployed.”
Sunflower Strength & Conditioning is located at 112 SW 4th Street. To learn more about the gym and see the weekly schedule, log into sunflowerstrengthandconditioning.rxgym.com. There you can also sign up for a free week of classes to test them out.
The space is built on friendliness and genuine connection, where members share encouragement, and celebrate progress together.