NEW AGE FITNESS COACH AND ENTREPRENEUR
JOE CARABASE’S M.E.L.T. FITNESS
PROMISES “MORE ENERGY, LESS TIME” –AND
AIMS TO EMPOWER 5,000 CONNECTICUT
RESIDENTS BY 2015!
By Jonathan WidranCombining his years of fitness training expertise with a lifelong entrepreneurial spirit, Joseph Carabase inched closer to his dream last year when he signed the lease on his first M.E.L.T. Fitness location in South Windsor. He recently opened a second location in Glastonbury, with a satellite facility Harwinton, and currently has over 200 clients on his Boot Camp focused group personal training roster.
He’s off to a thriving start, and expects to have over 200 clients by the end of June. But the Connecticut native has even bigger goals for the motivated folks in his home state: “Our mission is to empower 5000 people throughout Connecticut to make changes in their lives fitness wise, through our training or online newsletter, by 2015.”
A lofty goal? Of course, but absolutely worth every grunt and ounce of sweat to see smiles of pride on the faces of clients that range from a very overweight 13 year old girl to a 75 year old who has never worked out before. “We want the 30 minutes people spend with us to be the best part of their day. We feel lucky to have the opportunity to be an important part of their lives, to make positive changes and inspire them to feel better walking out than they did when they came in.”
The M.E.L.T. Fitness Fat Burning Boot Camp is the only Hartford County boot camp or training studio that guarantees to crank the client’s energy levels, burn belly fat and tighten up the body in professionally designed 30 minute workouts. M.E.L.T. is confident that people can get as good results in their group personal training programs, so they offer group (boot camps) and small group (2:1 or 3:1 ratio) to allow a more affordable option then the traditional “luxury,” personal training expense.
The M.E.L.T. trainers are Professional Results Coaches who are able to adapt to multiple people all at once. The farthest thing possible from a cookie cutter box gym class, each workout is professionally designed to burn fat, build lean muscle, improve balance and functional movement and make the client feel amazing.
“When we meet new clients we figure out what they need and create a prescription of what kind of training would be best for them. If people feel more comfortable starting off in a small setting, we make sure to accommodate them and prepare them for the bigger group, more affordable option. But for the most part, we recommend our 15-20 person boot camp, which runs Monday through Saturday. This is because unlike most personal training studios and big box gyms, we treat our boot camp as group personal training, providing different levels of exercise within the workout and a specific body focus each night.
“Clients get good results by coming in as little as three days a week,” he adds, “but for best results, we suggest a five day a week plan. Every night the camp has a different focus. Each client is at a different level and we can modify the exercises if we need to. But generally the goal of our clients is the same – 90 percent want to lose fat, tighten up and have more energy, which we are able to accomplish through the template of workouts that we use. The camp is broken up into five stations, each with a different exercise, which are rotated into four at a time. Our coaches move around to make sure everyone is doing the exercise the right way.”
Currently 65% of M.E.L.T.’s clients are enrolled in boot camp (with a minimum six month commitment required), which are taught by Carabase (five times a week) and the four other coaches (a word he Carabase prefers over “trainers”) he has. Others are enrolled in one on one or small groups of 1-4 people. The training is not that much different from the boot camps unless the clients are enrolled in the small group because of a physical limitation such as arthritis or Parkinson’s Disease.
“I still love teaching boot camp, even though I’m also supervising the other trainers and the whole operation,” he says. “I love being able to impact people’s lives by making sure they are doing everything right. In boot camp, we get to see people progress from not being able to do even a single push up to doing many of them, and there’s always that beautiful smile when they can fit into jeans they couldn’t squeeze into when they started. There’s a unique energy that happens when people are accomplishing this in a group environment and, in essence, growing together.”
Ultimately, M.E.L.T. Fitness’ goal is to help their clients reach a state of sustainability where they do not need their coaches to be there every second to help them work out. In between sessions, they provide workouts clients can perform on their own based on their goals and equipment available (even if they do not have equipment). M.E.L.T.’s In-Home Training has been able to help people who would otherwise never workout. Coaches pay home visits with all the equipment necessary and deliver our rapid results 30 minute workouts. As they say on the website: “All you have to do is answer the door! We will motivate and coach you through the program!”
Joe Carabase has been a fitness professional for over five years and through extensive trial and error, he has created a workout system driven by functional movement, cross training and intensity that shreds body fat while building a lean and toned physique. One of the biggest selling points of his programs is the lack of time spent actually training. Even before he launched M.E.L.T. Fitness, his professionally designed programs and expert lifestyle tips allowed his clients (and himself) to “look better naked” with 10-30 minute workouts.
Carabase is a nationally certified personal trainer through the Aerobic and Fitness Association of America (AFAA), the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and a Nutrition Specialist through the International Youth Conditioning Association. He is a also a contributing author to the international bestselling book “Total Body Breakthroughs.” For two years, Carabase worked as the Director of Professional Fitness Training at Branford Hall Institute. He earned a degree in Business Administration from the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts of Amherst.
Carabase has been into sports and fitness since his freshman year in high school and South Windsor. He excelled at lacrosse and was being recruited to play college football when severe injuries to his anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ended his dreams prematurely. His love of fitness grew spending time in the weight room during his football days, so the next step beyond the gridiron was becoming certified as a trainer.
He worked as a trainer while majoring in marketing at the University of Massachusetts, working both on campus and later at gyms throughout New England and the University of Queensland, Australia, where he studied one summer. He tried several times to go the “straight and narrow” route, getting internships at various times doing sales for industrial and insurance companies, but neither of those satisfied him. Feeling that his future career was in fitness, he began writing a book because “I knew there were basic things that most people could apply and get results.” His provocative title? “How To Look Better Naked”! He was so committed to the work that he left one of his internships while still in college and moved to Tampa for a month to stay with a friend, get a waiter job and finish it.
“I finished writing the book but I didn’t realize how hard the publishing world was,” says Carabese. “I thought maybe a more efficient way to get my information out there was to create a website, which I called Carabase Training.com.” After graduating from UMASS, Carabase decided to leave the ‘safe road’ behind, take a leap of faith, and start a fitness company in Hartford. “At first I worked out of a gym and went to people’s houses, trying to build a clientele. I did a lot of networking, hoping for referrals and attended many fitness industry seminars. As he built his clientele, he also segued for a time into a steady position teaching fitness training at Branford Hall, where he helped developed a curriculum for personal training. He taught business and sales, diet and nutrition, exercise for “special populations” and was ultimately offered a job as director of the school’s Professional Fitness Training Department. While teaching 20-24 hours a week, he continued to build his in home and corporate training businesses and launched his first boot camp – which of course became the foundational element of M.E.L.T. Fitness.
“Working with some good mentors and through extensive trial and error,” Carabase says, “I was able to fine tune a fitness program that would set me apart – which led to the concept of shorter workouts and high intensity functional training. My clients started seeing results and I kept honing my techniques into exactly the kind of training I do now with M.E.L.T. I was always trying to redefine the meaning of ‘intensity’ and move people outside their comfort zone to get results. People think it’s always about screaming, grunting and lifting the heaviest of weights but I don’t do. Whether you’re 92 years old or 8, our programs at M.E.L.T. promise to work you out at the right intensity that will get you double results, in half the time.”
Summarizing the philosophy that drives the goals he sets for himself and his clients, he adds, “Fitness is a lifelong journey, not an all or nothing approach. If you eat something bad, enjoy it and focus on eating better the next time. If you miss a workout, look forward to how good you will feel after your next workout. If you just don’t feel like working out, pick three of your favorite exercises to perform two total sets of 10 reps each – not only will you feel better, I bet you’ll end up doing more!”
