Severe and almost constant pain from scoliosis eventually led Shannon Anthony to leave her graphic arts job to open an alternative exercise studio in Boyertown.
After coverage for frequent chiropractic visits ran out, Anthony’s former employers researched ways to help her. They read that inversion tables could help with spinal discom-fort.
Often unable to sleep because of pain, Anthony caught a news segment about vibration exercise machines one night at 4 a.m.
These two pieces of equipment eventually became major elements of her business model after she used them and felt relief.
In 2009, Anthony opened Serenity Junction LLC in Boyertown, and, by 2014, she relocated her business less than a block away to South Chestnut Street. It’s when she began calling it Serenity Fitness & Wellness.
“I wanted to better define who we were and what we did,” she said about the name change.
VIBRATION EXERCISE
Recently working on a new marketing plan, Anthony noted that having a graphic design background has been helpful.
“And it gives the business a good image,” Anthony added about her former career benefiting her exercise-related work.
She has five vibration exercise machines.
“The vibration plates drop at a specific speed and a specific distance, 42 to 50 times per second, and at a drop rate of 2 to 4 millimeters, therefore contracting the muscles quickly and forcing blood flow through the body,” Anthony said. “In fact, 15 minutes on a vibration plate are equal to one hour in the gym.”
WINDING DOWN
Anthony noted that the human body is a machine, and that like a car needing oil, without blood circulating well, a person isn’t healthiest and operating optimally.
“The blood flow is increased dramatically when on a vibration plate,” she added.
While Anthony also has free weights and standard exercise machines, inversion tables and hydro-massage beds are wind-down aspects of routines.
HYDRO-MASSAGE BEDS
Anthony’s hydro-massage beds serve as the reward after formal exercise.
“The massage beds give your body a heated massage, using heated water jets,” she said. “The beds are fully enclosed, so you leave your clothes on and do not get wet during the massage.”
Specifications for the beds are adjustable on a touch-screen computer.
LASER LIPO
Anthony’s business also offers tanning, ionic foot detoxing, massage therapy, cold laser therapy, reflexology, body contouring and laser liposuction.
Adding laser lipo two years ago, Anthony said the machine is calibrated to a wavelength that triggers fat cell membranes to release contents into the lymphatic system to drain from the body.
Laser lipo success is best when combined with healthy eating habits and regular exercise.
VARIETY
Many clients are locals, Anthony said, who also has customers driving an hour once a week.
“It just makes everything flow,” Wilma Schaeffer of Oley Township said about the variety of machines and exercises at the studio.
Schaeffer appreciates that her arthritis is alleviated considerably by her workouts.
“When you leave here, you have relief,” Schaeffer said. “When I miss a day, I feel tired and not as bubbly.”
LOW IMPACT ON JOINTS
Steve and Cindy Moyer of Earl Township became customers in 2013, citing that Serenity’s exercise approaches are low-impact on joints.
Steve Moyer lost 50 pounds in the four years since starting an exercise schedule of Anthony’s recommendations. As a result, he received clearance to stop taking insulin for di-abetes.
Cindy Moyer, who had breast cancer, noted she likes the vibration exercise machines for the benefit of her lymphatic system.
“You can go to those big gyms and become another faceless number …,” Steve Moyer said. “At Serenity Fitness & Wellness, we feel like and are family to each other.”
