Introducing: BlueFit

A flexible, futuristic gym experience is coming soon to BlueFit, a new fitness centre on Centreway Rd in Ōrewa.

Owner Steve Papps has big plans for the space, which will be renovated during the first two months of next year.

“It will be the world’s first virtual fitness facility,” Steve says.

“We are creating a personal and virtual hybrid, where we have plenty of staff to get to know and support our members, but also have the technology to provide a ‘wow’ experience.”

Features will include a ‘virtual wall’ custom made by Steve and his collaborators to be the first commercially used product of its kind.

The wall will have around 10 screens, where gym members will have 24/7 access to more than 500 different workouts, from boxing to Zumba, with a virtual trainer.

Gym equipment, like row machines and treadmills, will record the information about a member’s workout and send it to an app so that they and their personal trainers can track their progress.

Members will have free access to a Styku scanner, which can measure body fat and composition in 40 seconds, done in a “Star Trek style” room.

“I always like to visualise bigger,” says Steve, who has been in businessman for over 30 years.
He began his career as a door-to-door salesman, after becoming a father when he was just 16 years old.

He soon found his knack for business, progressing from catching shoplifters in stores to running a security business.

“While I’ve had tremendous success, I’ve also had tremendous failures. I was bankrupted after problems with a previous business partner. I lost everything – I went from living in a mansion to walking into Work and Income.”

Fitness got Steve back on track. He became the general manager of Harbour Fitness and started body building.

“In our first year, we had more new members sign up than any other gym,” he says.

He represented New Zealand at Mr Universe in Germany in 2010, placing 11th.

While he plans to eventually get back into body building, for now his focus is on BlueFit.

“My team has done a lot of research into why people quit the gym, and I plan to eliminate all of those barriers. I don’t want a slice of NZ’s pre-existing gym market; I want to create a new one.”