A knee replacement can make even a familiar gym feel unfamiliar again. For Sharon Candelario, a Gulf Harbour member for three years, the first weeks back weren't about building strength so much as re-learning what her body could do.
"When I first came off my knee replacement and was discharged from therapy, the instructors tailored the workout even though it was a group class," she said. "They'd ask if I could do this, if they could bring me a pad for my knee. I never felt intimidated at all."
Sharon spent her career as a physical therapist. "From my standpoint, I don't feel like there are a lot of instructors who let people do something bad for their back," she said. "The teachers here are very well educated and know what they're doing."
Formal therapy eventually turned into a six-day-a-week habit. She used to be a cardio person. Now she’s in strength classes most of the week, and she’s noticed the difference in how her body looks and feels.
Sharon's path to the Harbourview Center ran through physical therapy; Michael Scheske's runs through tennis. He's on the court four or five days a week, sometimes six, and squeezes gym time in around it.
"Between the two of us, we're there twelve times a week," Michael said. "I think it's probably forty-eight visits a month at the gym. Past noon it thins out, but most people go in the mornings. We use it quite a bit."
Their Sports Membership was built for this kind of split interest. Sharon plays very little golf, and Michael plays only a little more. They spend most of their time on the tennis courts and in the Harbourview Center.
Sharon had been coming to Sanibel Island for thirty years before joining Gulf Harbour, and she was always looking for a gym while she was in town. She used to train at a small gym run by a woman named Kari Fundingsland, until one day she found it closed.
"I thought, that's just great; I loved her gym," she says.
Amazingly, when they walked into the Harbourview Center for the first time, a familiar face greeted them.
"There's Kari at the front desk," Sharon said. "I said, ' What are you doing here? And she said, I'm the Fitness Director."
She still takes Kari's Friday class when she can. "The choreography is excellent." She also notices how the instructors handle beginners and members managing an injury.
"You're not going to worry about them doing something that could hurt you," she said. "Or if you tell them about an injury, whether they'll accommodate you."
With more than forty classes running each week at the Harbourview Center, Sharon and Michael never run out of ways to fill a morning. Tennis, strength training, balance work, and the locker rooms all sit in the same building.
"There's a lot there if you want to use it," Michael says, pointing to the steam room and the infrared sauna as part of his own routine after a workout.
The Sports Membership never asked them to choose one sport over the other. It gave tennis, strength classes, and recovery space to two people with vastly different experiences. It let both of them fit under the same roof.
If a week built around tennis, strength training, and improving your health with instructors who meet you where you are sounds like the kind of fit you're looking for, you’re in the right place.