The gym is aiming to serve women who feel intimidated in traditional fitness spaces by empowering them with equipment and training designed specifically for them.<\/p>\n
DENVER \u2014 When Carissa Gomez and Alex French describe the last few months, they often default to speaking in unison \u2014 a habit that emerged somewhere between a move to a new state, the renovation of a former CrossFit box, and the launch of their new women-only gym in Denver.<\/p>\n
Co-owners Gomez and French held their grand opening of Divine Feminine Fitness on Saturday. It’s one of the few gyms in Denver built exclusively for women.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very surreal,\u201d French said. \u201cThis is something that we’ve been working on, and oh my gosh, I’m already emotional about it.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two met as personal trainers at a women\u2019s gym in Kansas City, but \u201cnever really, like, talked together,\u201d Gomez said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That shifted in May, when they sat down for lunch and, as Gomez put it, \u201cwithin 15 minutes of talking, we’re like, we’re moving across states, and we’re doing this.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Within the next few days, the Denver gym they would eventually purchase went up for sale.<\/p>\n
By July, they had taken over the space in southeast Denver that used to be Kali Fitness. Over the next three months, they expanded it \u2014 at one point knocking down a wall themselves \u2014 and reworked it around a central premise: traditional gyms often aren\u2019t designed for the physical realities or psychological barriers many women face.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe both came from like just co-ed gyms,\u201d Gomez said. \u201cWe saw all of these different ways that just kind of stopped women from feeling comfortable in the gym.\u201d<\/p>\n
Gomez said the pattern held across their clients.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen in general were just calmer when they came to the gym, and they felt more comfortable and confident coming into it whenever it was just women,\u201d she said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their goal, she added, was to create \u201ca safe learning zone\u201d where women could \u201cbe encouraged by one another.\u201d<\/p>\n
That approach extends to physiology and equipment. The co-owners said most commercial machines are built around average male height and proportions.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere’s a lot of equipment that actually doesn’t fit the majority of women’s bodies,\u201d French said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To address that, they selected machines with wider height ranges and options that reduce the need for improvised adjustments.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their programming also reflects research on hormonal fluctuations and metabolic differences.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cMen can just train the same all day, every day. Their energy is always the same,\u201d French said. \u201cFor women, our bodies require so much more work and deference, and so it’s important to be able to pay attention to that and have programming that reflects that as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
For some early members, the shift is tangible. Kylie Gray, who works in a women-dominated field and recently relocated to Denver, said she found the business online and immediately recognized it might feel different from a traditional gym.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI suffer from, like, a lot of, like, gym anxiety,\u201d she said. \u201cI’m too intimidated to, like, go up to the lifting machine.\u201d<\/p>\n
After taking one of their classes and getting involved in their personal training, Gray said it gave her the confidence to be more consistent than she had been in years.<\/p>\n
“And I’m starting to achieve some of my goals,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Inside the gym, the owners acknowledge that the work has been consuming.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe’ve put blood, sweat and tears into this place,\u201d French said. \u201cLiterally, we were on all floors, scrubbing the floor, Cinderella style.\u201d Still, she said, \u201cAll of it is so worth it\u2026 just to see the impact and the change we’re having in women’s lives.\u201d<\/p>\n
Both French and Gomez believe the need they see locally reflects something broader.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike, if we affect one person, they can affect somebody else,\u201d Gomez said. \u201cAnd it just continues. And it’s just this massive movement.\u201d<\/p>\n