‘All about the community’: Albert Lea couple opens functional fitness center with hopes of making exercise less intimidating, accessible
Published 9:00 pm Thursday, October 9, 2025
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Ryan and Stacy Palmer recently opened Foundry Fitness, a functional fitness gym in the building formerly owned by CrossFit Innerdrive. The gym focuses on making crossfit style functional fitness accessible to everyone regardless of past experience or athletic ability. Ayanna Eckblad/Albert Lea Tribune
Ryan and Stacy Palmer opened Foundry Fitness to help people in the community overcome the misconception that crossfit exercise is too complicated or difficult. Ayanna Eckblad/Albert Lea Tribune
Albert Lea couple Ryan and Stacy Palmer at the start of September opened their gym, Foundry Fitness, with the goal to bring functional fitness and CrossFit style exercise to everyone in the community.
Functional fitness, they explained, puts an emphasis on full body conditioning and strength training, which is good for maintaining bone strength and muscle mass at any age. It involves traditional strength training, gymnastics movements and aerobic conditioning like running and using bikes, rowers and other equipment
Ryan Palmer previously worked as a football and wrestling coach at Albert Lea High School in various capacities from 2005 to 2017. He said he pulled back from coaching after his three sons — also athletes — graduated from high school.
It was then, he said, that he became interested in functional fitness. While away at school, his sons also got involved with the activity.
“Now it’s kind of something we do as a family,” Ryan Palmer said.
One of their sons is currently a coach at a functional fitness gym in South Dakota.
“When we travel, it’s something we can drop into different gyms and do as a family,” Stacy Palmer said. She added this has also made it possible to see a variety of different CrossFit gyms and explore what does and does not work in the business, a skill that would come in handy when they opened Foundry Fitness.
The Palmers began the process of acquiring the gym building from CrossFit Innerdrive about nine months ago.
CrossFit Innerdrive’s owners were going to leave the fitness center business, but Ryan and Stacy Palmer said they did not want to see the functional fitness gym go.
“It’s something that we just love to do, and we didn’t want it to leave this community, this type of environment,” he said. “As someone who’s coached and been in different athletic endeavors throughout my life, I have a hard time going in and working out on my own and staying motivated. So this type of environment is important to me.”
It’s the only gym of its kind within 30 miles, Stacy Palmer said.
Ryan Palmer said there is a very good functional fitness gym in Austin, but he did not want to make the commute there every time he wanted to work out.
It was then the couple decided to open their own functional fitness gym, using the building and equipment from CrossFit Innerdrive as a starting point.
Foundry Fitness currently has 10 coaches. Some of them coach more frequently than others. Ryan Palmer said this gives members the opportunity to have multiple people mentoring them in their fitness journeys.
When it comes to functional fitness, he said, the goal is to make it as accessible as possible.
When people think about CrossFit, he said, they tend to become intimidated and think it is too complicated or difficult to do.
Even with his life-long background in athletics, he said, stepping into a CrossFit gym for the first time was intimidating. He wants to remove this barrier for others.
“The goal is to scale any movement that we have or any exercise that we have to fit that individual. And it doesn’t matter how slow you have to start, how many modifications need to be made; the key is just to be here,” Ryan Palmer said. “This is all about the community and everybody helping each other out.”
Another way the couple has made the space more inclusive is by setting up a children’s play space that is equipped with cameras so parents can work out while still keeping an eye on their children.
Right now, Stacy Palmer said, they are renting the space from the Albert Lea Economic Development Agency. She said their hope is to open a brand new facility about a block away that better fits their needs.
Ryan Palmer said the hope is to open the new building by spring.
Foundry Fitness will have a special grand opening event Oct. 18. It will begin with their traditional Saturday morning class at 8 a.m. followed by puppy yoga at 9:30 a.m. Afterwards, people are invited to enjoy coffee, breakfast burritos and doughnuts. The cost of the classes that day will be a freewill donation to the Humane Society of Freeborn County, Ryan Palmer said, and people do not have to participate in the classes to join the fun — they can just stop by to check out the space and ask questions.
Even when it’s not the grand opening, he said, Saturday classes are always free for newcomers to drop in and see what the gym has to offer before committing to membership.
Stacy Palmer said Saturday classes are often big classes with a wide mix of ages and abilities.
To learn more about Foundry Fitness, visit the gym’s Facebook page or Instagram, @foundryfitmn, which is curated by Ryan and Stacy’s daughter, Taylor Palmer. Foundry Fitness also has a website, foundryfitmn.com.