While you wouldn’t think that passions for both healthcare and wrestling would merge into a new business venture, you’d be convinced of that logic as we at Stroll Harmony were after meeting Kirk Bemis.

 

Kirk grew up in Kimball, Nebraska, married Ginia in 1997, and has three children—daughter Josie, recently graduated from Colorado Mesa University; son Emery, a Marine stationed at Beaumont, South Carolina; and special needs daughter Danna, adopted four years ago from Ecuador. The family moved to Fort Collins from Lusk, Wyoming in 2021.

 

Kirk graduated from the University of Wyoming in 1993 with a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree, and therein begins the healthcare side of this story. Kirk has spent most of his 30-year career as a pharmacist with independent community pharmacies and has owned three pharmacies in Eastern Wyoming and Western Nebraska. And as Kirk observed during the early years of his pharmaceutical career, despite the ever-increasing number of medications for most every ailment, people were living longer but not necessarily healthier. Thus, as he saw with dismay how many people were embracing pharmaceuticals in lieu of better lifestyle choices, he began offering healthy lifestyle advice along with the prescriptions.

 

As for the wrestling side of the story, since junior high Kirk has had a passion for the sport, either competing, coaching or working in some administrative capacity. Kirk passed the wrestling passion down to Emery, who won a state title in his senior year in high school. Whether wrestling himself or coaching others—mostly youth—Kirk loves the intricacies and techniques of the sport, but he has always focused as well on developing life skills while grooming a better athlete. His philosophy: “A better athlete is not only a better wrestler; they’re a better son or daughter, brother or sister, friend or student.” And for the youth who’ve bought into Kirk’s training, whether for wrestling or other sports, he’s confident that he’s not only created better athletes but better, more confident and emotionally resilient adults.

 

Which brings us to how Kirk combined his two passions into one, namely the opening of Fit-Rx, a fitness studio for people who needed a shift away from ‘reactive health care’ to a more proactive approach. Fit-Rx is for those aging adults who either wish to stay at the ‘top of their game’, have been sedentary for years, or have a condition such as dementia, Parkinsons, MS, or some other infirmity such that they may not be able to train alone in a gym but need to improve balance, mobility, power, mind-body connections and core strength. In transferring his skill set from young athletes to the over-50 crowd—Fit-Rx’s youngest patron is 42; its oldest is 88—Kirk noted that, “I needed to make some changes. High school kids are easy to train because high impact activities are not a problem. But it took finding the right equipment to fully open the door to the paradigm shift that helps older patrons.”

 

But improving the lives of adults with physical challenges doesn’t mean just ‘dumbing down’ exercises that 20 and 30-year-olds can perform; it means thoughtfully creating an individualized and physically demanding program featuring one-on-one guided personal training addressing the six domains of functional health—balance, resilience, mind/body control, neuromuscular connections, strength and power.

 

The equipment Fit-Rx uses is virtually zero impact, with adjustments for any range of motion, and guided personal training by degreed and certified trainers. Kirk’s search for the perfect equipment took him to the Functional Aging Institute Summit in Denver in June 2022, where he found equipment unlike any other area gyms, equipment specifically geared to the type of training that helps people regain (or gain) an active lifestyle when they otherwise might have considered themselves too old for anything different. Kirk also prepared himself for the considerable specialization that is Fit-Rx’s forte by earning a Certification from the Functional Aging Institute, a Personal Trainer Certification from the National Academy of Sports Medicine, a Pain Free Performance Specialist Certification, and certification through Original Strength.

 

Much as Kirk believes in his program, he also believes in getting involved in his community. Along with membership in the Fort Collins Chamber of Commerce, he supports Realities for Children and has partnered with Dementia Together to help patients with cognitive decline live as active a life as possible. Kirk is also active in his church, Discovery Fellowship.

 

To find out more about Fit-Rx, visit the website at https://www.fit-rx.net/, or the gym itself at 4206 South College Avenue, #108, open every day but Sunday, or call (970) 803-2710.