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By Matt Hickman
Herald/Review
SIERRA VISTA — Twenty-seven years ago, bodybuilding legend Jack LaLanne was on hand to christen the opening of what is today the Buena Health & Fitness Center on South Highway 92, next to the Uptown 3 Theater.
Today, the little club that could is still going strong and its owner, Hank Diaz is a bodybuilding legend in his own right.
 Mark Levy Herald/Review Jane Strain works her triceps at Buena Health and Fitness Club Friday. Hank Diaz’s club has been a Sierra Vista fixture for over 27 years. |
As a multi-purpose health club, Buena does not have some of the swankier amenitites of younger rivals Summit Fitness or the Cochise Racquet Club, but for senior citizens and those on a budget, the 8,000 square-foot. facility seems to suit them just fine.
When Diaz opened in 1980, the average age of his clientele was 27. Today it is 47 with 60 percent 55 years or older. Likewise, Diaz has aged from a 47-year-old competitive bodybuilder to a 74-year-old competitive bodybuilder.
“I have empathy with the elderly,” Diaz, who will be competing in the Mr. Universe bodybuilding competition in Hollywood, Calif. in November, said. “I never had any problems myself until my 70s. I’d never been to a chiropractor, but now I can empathize with people who have a lot of pain.”
In addition to a partnership with the Sterling Health Care plan which pays the monthly dues of some qualifying seniors, many older members are attracted to the club’s indoor, heated pool, the only of its kind in town.
The 18-foot-by-45-foot pool is the site of more than a dozen water aerobics classes each week, an exercise ideal for those who because of age, injury or infirmity have a difficult time with dry ground exercises.
“You won’t see an indoor, heated pool in any facility under 20,000 sq. ft.,” Diaz said. “It’s too expensive to maintain.”
Diaz said his maintenance costs on the pool come close to his annual labor costs.
“When this facility was built, it was never intended to be a complete co-ed facility,” Diaz said. “We just don’t have any more room. There’s not much you can do.”
The facility features pretty much every exercise a member could want. The equipment, however, may not be as new or as numerous as in larger clubs.
In addition to a full allotment of free weights and machines for weight lifting, it has four treadmills, six stationary bicycles, a stair-climber, three elliptical machines and two rowing machines.
Each machine gets a tremendous amount of use and often one or two at a time will be on the fritz.
The close quarters also force men and women to cross paths between the locker rooms and the showers and the sexes share a three-sink bathroom facility between the locker rooms.
Also, the club is closed on Sundays.
Still, for the member who prefers Buena’s $20 monthly fee to the $40 or so he or she will spend at other full-service facilities in town, these inconveniences may well be worth it.
But seniors aren’t Diaz’s only membership base. Younger bodybuilders, who may not have the resources of their older ilk, certainly appreciate the lower dues and perhaps the instruction of Diaz who each spring puts on the Copper Classic, which at 24 years is the state’s longest-running natural bodybuilding championship.
In his 27 years, Diaz has seen the motivation for people joining gyms change.
“(In the 1980s) people just wanted to get in better shape. Nowadays they want to live longer,” Diaz said. “You go around and you see 60 percent of people are overweight, obsese. The minority are the people in shape ... That’s a big draw, especially with the Baby Boomers. Everyone wants to live a little longer.”
To combat a food industry he and his son Carl, a trainer at the gym, see as poisoning the health and redacting the life expectancies of Americans, Hank also employs nutritional counsel.
“There was a time when you had to confront certain diseases at 60 or 70 that now people at 40 are starting to develop,” Carl, who is currently filming weight-training videos designed for women, said. “Preventative health care is going to be a big thing. People are going to want us to have knowledge of how to counteract these problems.”
Hank has his own eight-week, high-protein nutritional plan designed to take off 16 pounds.
“All research that has been done and is being done to decrease the rates of death from cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, etc., strongly suggests that exercise and diet are the two major lifestyle changes that must be taken seriously by all,” Hank Diaz said. “God created us in his own image but us the choice to maintain our health.
“Buena Health & Fitness adopted the slogan ‘exercise is good medicine’ approximately 10 years ago and we are dedicated to making exercise and getting fit affordable for everyone interested.”
Buena Health Fitness currently has 877 members with an average of 250 to 260 attending each day.
The busiest day of the week is Monday, with as many as 325 coming in, while the slowest is Saturday with an average of 150 showing up to work out.
Mike Frawley wrote on Sep 15, 2007 4:21 AM: