“In most gyms, there’s a class that’s the most popular, the one everyone wants to take. Here you’ll find all the best classes in one place,” says Sara Koch, who is putting her muscle and moxie behind a new health club in New Canaan. She and her husband, David, are the founders of Oxygen Fitness, a 10,000-square-foot, three-floor facility that’s located at 22 Pine Street to encourage locals to stay local when working out.
Koch—a mother of four who lives in New Canaan—has created the type of gym she herself has wanted for a long time. “The fitness trend in recent years has been a boutique experience,” she says. “People have been going to studios that specialize in yoga, kickboxing or Pilates, but they haven’t had access to one that offers all of those things. There was a time when I was a member of three different gyms and I found myself leaving town every time I wanted to exercise. We live in this great community. We should be able to work out here, too.”
With Oxygen, the couple offers a fitness center that’s close to home, is hip and high-tech and also staffed by professionals who Koch says embrace fitness as “their life work.” Her team of trainers are experts in their respective fields.
Oxygen is a state-of-the-art facility, with a main studio for cardio and boxing (bags hang on tracks set overhead and slide out into the room at the touch of a button), an indoor cycling studio with stadium seating, and a small studio for barre technique and yoga. And, because you don’t want to hear anything other than deep breathing in that yoga class, each studio at Oxygen is engineered with customized acoustical insulation. Other Oxygen services include a juice bar, on-site child care (“There are no screens in the kid’s room,” says Koch. “Play is roaming based.”), and a fitness concierge for each member. Koch, it seems, has built the gym of her dreams. “Fitness is my passion,” she says. “It makes you feel good physically and mentally, no matter what you have going on in life.”