Justin Gordon, Randy Sampson and Jillian Faber are the proud owners of Farrell’s eXtreme Bodyshaping gyms in White Bear Township and Woodbury. But their fitness adventure started when they least expected it. “Randy and I used to work together in IT management at a large medical device company,” says Justin Gordon, head coach at the Woodbury location. “We always talked about starting a small business together, but didn’t know exactly what we wanted to do.”
Growing up with similar backgrounds, Gordon and Sampson were multi-sport athletes. While Gordon went into the Air Force after college, maintaining a good physical fitness regimen, Sampson spent 20 years working in various industries, including travel, retail and medical device. Along the way, both men focused more on their families and careers, and less on their physical well-being.
After seeing a picture of himself in a pool, Gordon was ready to make a change in his life and career. In 2011, Gordon left the medical device company and joined Farrell’s eXtreme Bodyshaping in Blaine. After attending a session for one week, he fell in love with it and had to tell Sampson about it. “It took me a while to arm-wrestle [Sampson] into trying one of the classes, but he did it, and we knew this was a path we wanted to start on,” Gordon says. After finding the White Bear Township location, Gordon and Sampson realized they might need a different perspective on working out.
“We thought it would be really smart to bring in someone who wasn’t getting up there in age [who]would help balance the business,” Gordon says. “So I asked my sister-in-law, Jillian Faber, to join us and she took a leap of faith in helping us build this place.”
Faber didn’t have the athletic background of Gordon, but wanted to do something to help people get in shape. “I grew up in a single-parent household, and not much time was focused on eating well, so I was a pretty sickly kid,” Faber says. “For Lent, when I was 13 years old, I gave up pop and lost about 13 pounds. After that, I started paying attention to my nutrition.”
Motivated and inspired, the trio got to work and implemented the unique method. “We have an all-inclusive program six days a week for 10 weeks,” Gordon says. “You get three days of each: cardio, kickboxing and strength training. During this time our members burn fat, get leaner and are guided on a nutrition program.”
The gym hosts four 10-week sessions throughout the year with the goal of getting people in shape and obtaining results. “We want to steer people in a different direction where they get excited about working out and eating better,” Sampson says.
More than 900 people have taken a class or session at Farrell’s, and the active membership rounds out to more than 300. The goal for Gordon and his team is to have 100 new people sign up per session.
Added benefits for members to stay motivated are the FIT Challenges that take place during or in between each 10-week session. “Sometimes we ask them to do 200 sit-ups and push-ups in two minutes, or as many as you can do,” Sampson says. Those who complete the challenge can put their name in a drawing for a free iPad or iPhone. “It keeps them motivated and competitive,” he says.
The best part for the three owners, however, is to hear how they have helped their members. “We’ve had people tell us that we’ve helped them turn around their lives just by having our company here,” Gordon says. “It’s important to hear this, because it keeps us motivated to keep doing what we do.”
