This physical trainer is at your beck and call;
focus is on seniors and fighting Parkinson’s

By STEPHEN FLANAGAN JACKSON

EA Fitness owner Eric Allen, pictured on right, visits homes and senior living facilities. Rock Steady Boxing is a program that helps Parkinson’s disease sufferers.

An amazing number of entrepreneurs operate in the South Shore area. One of the most unique is Eric Allen, president and CEO of EA Fitness. You do not go to him. Allen comes to you! If you are out of shape physically, stressed out, want to maintain your good physical condition or need some physical rehabilitation, Allen’s mobile services as a trainer are a phone call or email away. Like Delta, he is ready when you are. And like Domino’s, he comes to your home.

Allen responded to the following questions in an exclusive interview with The Observer News:

How long have you been in business in Hillsborough County? Where are your business locations?

EA Fitness has been providing senior fitness solutions services in Hillsborough County for six years. Our business location is our client’s home or senior living facility. Our Rock Steady Boxing Class is conducted at the Sun Towers Retirement Community.

Eric Allen, president and CEO of EA Fitness, specializes in helping seniors get or stay in shape from the comfort of their home or senior living facility. His Rock Steady Boxing program helps those suffering with Parkinson’s disease.

What type of business do you own?

EA Fitness is a fitness company that focuses on senior citizens. Our unique business conducts in-home functional training services, group fitness classes (Fired Up For Fitness) at senior living facilities, and Rock Steady Boxing to help people fight back against Parkinson’s disease.

What did you do professionally before your present business?

Before EA Fitness, I was a research ethics consultant.

Where did you grow up, attend high school, and attend college?

I was born and raised in Washington, D.C., and attended high school there. I finished high school in North Carolina and completed my undergraduate degree in Exercise and Sports Science at Greensboro College and earned my Master’s degree from UNC Greensboro in Liberal Studies.

What are some of the challenges of your business?

Awareness is one of the biggest challenges EA Fitness faces. Many individuals only look towards a physical/occupational therapist without the knowledge that qualified personal trainers can assist seniors, following the completion of their therapy and when they are not eligible for physical/occupational therapy.

Eric Allen, president and CEO of EA Fitness, specializes in helping seniors get or stay in shape from the comfort of their home or senior living facility. His Rock Steady Boxing program helps those suffering with Parkinson’s disease.

Connecting with local neurologists so they can advise their patients that Rock Steady Boxing is worldwide is also a challenge. We need to connect with local neurologists to inform them of our local EA Fitness program here in Sun City Center and have them partner with us to recommend people battling Parkinson’s to our class and training.

Growing the email newsletters’ following has been challenging. We have two newsletters: one for people fighting Parkinson’s disease and another for caregivers.

What gives you a sense of contentment and satisfaction with your business?

The thing that gives me the most satisfaction is knowing that I am helping my clients “Win at Life.” Our company motto is “Don’t let what you can’t do stop you from what you can do.” So finding ways to aid seniors to improve their quality of life provides me with contentment. Additionally, I am thrilled when I hear stories from my clients, indicating that they can participate in life instead of observing life because of the physical training work that we have done together.

What are the short- and long-term outlooks for the South Shore area?

The short-term goal of EA Fitness is to develop an interactive class on balance, which will teach seniors how to avoid falls, fall safely, get off the floor independently, and help them learn how their bodies are indicators for losing their balance.

The long-term goal of EA Fitness is to develop a senior fitness repository guide that will include indexed exercises and videos specifically for seniors to reference and to use to improve both their knowledge of fitness and their individual strength, quality of life, and dietary habits.

ERIC ALLEN

Anything you would like to add, either about your business or your personal/family life?

EA Fitness works primarily with seniors with any physical, cognitive/neurological, or impacting physical disease(s) such as arthritis, etc., which falls in line with our company motto “Don’t let what you can’t do stop you from what you can do.” Visit our website to see what our clients have to say about working with EA Fitness. Visit eafitness.org/pages/testimonials.

The founder and CEO of EA Fitness, Eric Allen, is an avid sports fan and still plays competitive basketball.

Allen also enjoys riding his road bike all over Tampa, where it’s common for him to ride 7 to 15 miles. His passion for sports rolls over into his training in both exercises and motivational analogies.