Brandon gym gains new owners, new name

Matt Beukelman is full of surprises.

Take for instance, on the day that he and his wife, Margo, 26, exchanged their “I do’s,” he informed his bride that he’d just put in an offer on a building in Dell Rapids to expand their gym, Rapid Fitness. 

That was in 2018. 

And now, the couple – who first met at the gym where Matt, 30, worked as a trainer – have brought their gym and its vast offerings to Brandon. They recently took ownership of Amplify Fitness, located at 712 S. Eighth Ave., and have already begun sprucing up the workout venue.

At their charter gym in Dell Rapids, they offer group classes, accelerations, personal training, nutrition counseling and exercise program design. 

“We have a variety of clientele there, anybody from young middle schoolers that we encourage to go through a fitness orientation just to establish a healthy relationship with exercise and fitness to get the basic foundation, to high schoolers – athletes, non-athletes – then your gym pop(ulation) – anybody that wants to live a little bit of a healthier lifestyle. We also have powerlifters and your silver sneakers crowd,” Margo informs.

Although the ink is barely dry on the purchase paperwork, the Beukelmans have rolled up their sleeves to spruce up and clean up their second gym location. They’re bringing a new color scheme – think blue and gold – adding new equipment and amenities, class offerings, and a full-time, on-site manager in Baltic native, Houston Wentzel. Wentzel was Beukelman’s first powerlifting athlete that he mentored, and Margo said when this opportunity arose, Wentzel expressed his desire to fill the role.

“Gyms get a lot of wear and tear and the equipment has had a lot of use,” Margo said. “And Houston will be here all of the time and will be doing some personal training, too.”

Rapid Fitness in Brandon, a 24/7 access gym, will be staffed daily from 3 to 6 p.m.

Along with the new color scheme and equipment, comes unlimited membership offerings. They are doing away with punch cards for tanning, sauna and classes and replacing it with the “unlimited membership” that allows members to “come as often as you want,” Matt said.

Matt said they’re also striving to “create a safe place for young people to be.”

“High schoolers could be anywhere and you’re bringing them to the gym, so it’s really cool to see it be a priority for that younger demographic,” he said “Sure, I want them to work out to get better at sports in high school, but I also want them to have a really healthy relationship with exercise. So, when they graduate, I still see them continuing to exercise thereafter. Let us help you find something that you enjoy, because there’s just not one way to do this thing.”

Matt said the opportunity to expand Rapid Fitness to Brandon came unexpectedly. A friend had asked him to look at the business venture, but then decided to forgo it. Beukelman, however, remained intrigued.

“Our biggest thing is to find a need and fill it,” he said. “Before I went to Dells, there was not personal training like I do personal training there.”

They believe Brandon has a large enough population to support two commercial gyms.

“The population of the town says there’s room for more,” he said, “and in the end, we (Anytime Fitness) both have the same goal. I know we can come in here and have an immediate impact and get involved with the youth, like what we have done in Dell Rapids. Again, you want to create that safe space, and if I can influence somebody’s life 1 percent or push them positively 1 percent, the long-term repercussions of that are real profound. So, that’s kind of what I want to create in a sense for anybody who walks through the door.”

Days after taking ownership, they put up a “Get to know us/ask us” box, encouraging members to tell them what they wanted.

“So, things like squat racks or bumper plates, chalk. It’s just trying to listen to the members of what they want, because really, it’s their club and we just happen to run it,” he said.

They’ve already received a wealth of requests, they say.

Updates inside the gym will continue for a month or so and the last thing they will add is a new exterior sign that will light up Highway 11.

“I don’t want the outside to say my name until the inside is my brand,” Matt said.

They also want their members to be as comfortable as possible.

“We don’t want people to shy away from asking a question. Matt ‘nerds out’ when somebody clicks the ‘Ask Matt’ button on the app (they have a Rapid Fitness app) with nutrition guides, fitness manuals and all that stuff. We want people to feel comfortable here and not feel intimidated,” Margo encouraged.

“We’re trying to remove as many barriers as possible to success. Whether you’re doing classes, cardio or free weights, anybody should be able to come and be successful to some degree is the idea,” adds Matt.

Matt initially set out to be an accountant, a career path that a placement test recognized he could excel in.

“But placement tests are only as accurate as you know yourself, and at that stage of life, I didn’t know myself at all,” he said. “I tested very well in all my placement scores for math and academics, so I was told banking and accounting, get away from people, lock yourself in a closet. My first semester, I don’t remember who the teacher was, but I had my earbuds in during class and after class he pulled me aside and said, ‘Matt, what are you doing? You could go very far in this career, you have a knack for this.’ I remember saying, ‘Well, what if I don’t want to go far in this career? I don’t remember how the rest of the conversation went, but I remember thinking, ‘What am I doing?’”

It was then he started to take himself more seriously from a professional standpoint.

“I was going through the motions in that phase of life, and that’s where I kicked it up and decided I don’t want to do anything that I don’t love, and that’s where I just went, ‘I’m all in.’”

He perfected his craft by attending the National Personal Trainer Institute in the Twin Cities, which is similar to a tech school for personal training. 

“Hindsight, I didn’t know tons when I graduated. I learned a lot, but it was like, ‘Hey, you’re equipped, get in the field,’ and that’s what I did. I went back to school several times for several different things, like posture restoration, nutrition, business management, and by the time I got to the end of all that continuing ed, I felt confident in what I do,” he said. 

That education led him to a gym in Sioux Falls, where the owner was priming him to take ownership of the business.

“Three months in I knew I didn’t just want to train, I wanted to do more. I wanted a bigger platform to help and influence,” he said.

Two years later, he began to press the owner for financials. But the two couldn’t reach an agreement on the price.

“What I was willing to offer was not what he was looking for, so we didn’t come to a deal and that’s when I started looking elsewhere. Within three weeks, I had bought the Tryon Gym in Dell Rapids and that’s where we started,” he said.

Although the Dell Rapids gym was cash-flowing, he knew it had the potential to do better. 

“And now we offer a variety of services like tanning, the sauna, group classes, 24-hour gym, personal training, nutrition consulting, accelerations, and working with youth. That’s kind of what I want the Brandon location to be is to be able to accommodate for a really diverse clientele.”

The Beukelmans are working to bring in a variety of classes, including yoga, yoga fit, yoga sculpt, kettle ball, kettle ball sculpt, a barbell class and boot camp-style classes, to name a few.

Margo, who went to school to teach, did that – one year in Sioux Falls and three years in Dell Rapids – at the middle school level. She recently decided to “change it up” and be a personal trainer for pregnant and post-partum women.

“For the two years that I was pregnant, I was really frustrated about who do I listen to. Google says this. My girlfriend says this. My doctor says this, and so, I got certified in pregnant and post-partum,” she said.