A Gym for Early Risers and Third Shifters

With group classes, free weights, circuit training machines, a variety of cardio equipment and knowledgeable staff, anyone considering joining a gym would be hard pressed to come up with a reason not to join Anytime Fitness.  

The 24-7 gym is owned by Dawn Gilday, of Old Lyme, who chose Montville for its convenient location. She said her gym is more than convenient; it’s like working out at home.  

“It’s smaller and we’re more personable,” she said. “We’re not a big box gym.”   Gilday will be celebrating the gym’s one-year anniversary next week and she said she’s still get new members.  

“Our average customer is just someone who wants to get in better shape. We get a lot of people who have never been a member of a gym before,” she said.  

The gym, located in the Stop and Shop shopping plaza in Uncasville, is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and is nestled nicely between a GNC and a tanning salon. It has the standard equipment you’d expect in a gym and then some.  

The bikes and treadmills have ports for your iPhone so, if you can’t find anything to watch on any of the cable stations piped into the TV set that is attached to your machine, you can watch your own movies without draining your battery. Or since they offer free wifi, you can go online or stream Netflix.  

Maybe you’re tired of cardio and want to mix it up. There is a variety of group exercise classes and Fitness on Request, which is a service that allows you to download and project an exercise class onto a big screen. It’s as if you have a big movie screen at home and you pop in your favorite workout DVD and workout just like that.  

Gilday says the Fitness on Request is they gym’s most popular feature because “people can do what they want.” The kiosk has a changing inventory of classes, which range from yoga to boot camp style workouts.  

Gilday said not too long ago, she was firmly cemented in the corporate world as an environmental regulator at Americas Styrenics and she was pretty shy. She said about four years ago, she needed to break out of that shell and a friend convinced her to enter a physique competition.

“It’s like Miss America but with muscles,” she described. “Sometimes you think of body building but it's not body building, it's a step down from that.”  

Gilday stepped up on stage that day in 2009 and her life hasn’t been the same since. Gilday won her division that year and she has been competing ever since.  

“It really boosted my self confidence,” she said. “That's why I own a business today.”  

Gilday said she loves owning a gym and hearing members say they’ve met their goals is what keeps her going.  

“This has its moments,” she said of the occasional headaches of owning a business. “But all it takes is one person to say ‘I accomplished my goal’ and it brings me back around. I did the right thing.”  

Gilday said if you walk in she can let you try out the gym for free for seven days but if you like them on Facebook, you get 14 days for free.