LYNNFIELD — Conor Griffin, owner of Heroes Fitness, will be the first one to say that the gym isn’t about him, but he’s come a long way.
Griffin became interested in health and wellness in high school. Playing football, he was a self-described overweight lineman — clocking in at 250 pounds. Griffin’s coaches wanted him to be even bigger but he wasn’t having it.
“I dropped all the way to about 170 pounds,” he said. “People didn’t even recognize me.”
Griffin credits working out and an improved diet for his weight loss.
“I was eating Long John Silver’s and Taco Bell,” he said. “I had to understand getting more vegetables in, getting more protein, and all that stuff and that’s where it really took off.”
Griffin also picked up rugby and even traveled to Ireland to play the sport. After his playing days were over he decided to go to college, where he was searching for his identity.
“Rugby was my identity,” he said. “I needed something else and that’s when fitness fully took over.”
At Merrimack College, Griffin started a fitness program at the school that allows for students to take workout classes such as boot camps and spinning.
After school, he began working at crossfit gyms and was nominated by Reebok as one of the most inspiring trainers in the crossfit space.
Then came Heroes Fitness.
Owning his own gym and having his own brand had been Griffin’s goal ever since high school.
“I’ve worked at so many gyms,” he said. “From virtual, to crossfit, to personal training, to boot camp in Boston, and I always wanted a gym that could really do it all and really welcome everyone too and be empowering, kind of like a soul-cycle vibe and community.”
Griffin went on to explain how he came up with the name “Heroes Fitness.”
“You are really coming in here, working towards whatever goal it is; everyone’s welcome and you are really being that leader, and representing a good model for everyone else,” he said.
Griffin also mentioned that a lot of people looked up to him as “the fitness guy” and that he didn’t want the gym to be about himself. He wanted the gym to be a place that brought everyone together.
“I want to empower everyone and feel like they are a part of this brand and this team,” he said. “So my wife was like ‘what about if you feel like you are a hero; why not heroes?’ and just from there I loved it.”
Griffin wanted to change the gym landscape in Massachusetts as a whole. He said that he was tired of people leaving the state to go to better gyms, so he decided to open his second location at MarketStreet Lynnfield.
He said he wants to create an experience when individuals walk into the gym.
“Walking in here, you are going to see your functional cardio machines, but then you are also going to see your squat racks and free weights, and then we also have cool things for pretty much everyone — where you got your crossfitters, your functional athletes, your bodybuilders, and then people just want to come here and play with everything,” Griffin said.
“We offer personal training, an open gym where people can just come in as they please, and then group classes. Our group classes are on the level where it should be a New York City vibe in the sense that we are really focused on creating the best experience for you, with being motivating as well and having a great time doing it.”
What also makes Heroes Fitness different is the fact that it offers in-house physical therapy with Josh Blatt, DPT, having an office in the facility.
“A lot of people need physical therapy, ” said Griffin. “What Josh is doing is amazing. He’s taking that full hour with his clients, unlike your regular physical therapy, which is now just 30 minutes and go do your homework. He’s taking the full hour to work on you and get you back into the gym.”
Blatt has been in sports medicine since 2011. In his career he has mostly worked with athletes at the collegiate and high-school level, but has also done some work with the U.S. Olympic ski team.
Blatt said it has been great getting to work with Griffin.
“Everyone has had an experience, either with a physical therapist or in the gym where they feel like they have been given a cookie-cutter approach to wellness and it’s not a one-size-fits-all scenario,” Blatt said. “You have to think dynamically so we kind of bounce ideas off each other.”
