Designing Your Ideal Health Club with Hunter Manuel and Tatiana Somers of The Omni New York – EP057
Close your eyes and imagine the perfect gym… What do you see? Does it have the best in specialty equipment to serve elite athletes? How about regenerative technologies like hyperbaric oxygen therapy to accelerate healing? Does it employ a holistic approach to health and wellness, offering meditation and yoga programs? What about data? Does your ideal health club identify nutritional deficiencies, create an individualized program, and track your progress on the Cloud?
Hunter Manuel and Tatiana Somers are founding partners of The Omni Club of New York, an integrated fitness, wellness and sports performance facility on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Hunter has more than 25 years of experience in the industry, and he has led teams at top NYC clubs including Equinox, New York Sports Club and Palestra at the Penn Club. A competitive athlete his entire life, Hunter has a background in martial arts, bodybuilding, power lifting, running, biking and extreme obstacle racing. Tatiana is also a life-long athlete with a love of running, yoga and weight lifting, and she is taking on the role of Chief Design Officer at The Omni Club, leading its creative teams in the development of visual design, user experience, brand identity and content development.
Today, Hunter shares his personal fitness journey, explaining how a knee injury shifted his focus from football to body building and why meeting Tatiana led to another evolution. Tatiana discusses her struggle with an eating disorder and how Hunter helped change her perspective around body image. They walk us through Hunter’s recent battle with cancer, describing how he endured four surgeries in three months, the difficult course of chemotherapy that followed, and the family’s new whole food, plant-based nutrition plan. They talk about their nonprofit F.A.S.T. NYC, an organization formed to raise money for sports programs in east Harlem schools and their latest venture, The Omni Club of New York. Listen in to learn about the regenerative technology featured at Omni Club and its focus on overall health and wellness.
Topics Covered
[1:27] Hunter’s personal health and fitness journey- Mom enrolled in every sport available
- Lifting weights at 10, Dad had home gym
- HS football in small town Louisiana
- Shift to power lifting after knee injury
- Job at Equinox as personal trainer
- Depends on definition of health, fitness
- Strong, little body fat (220 pounds)
- Loved community, science of nutrition
- Extreme lifting long-term hard on joints
- Overweight child, eating disorder in HS
- Learned to accept body, see in new way
- Enjoys running (solitary, not competitive)
- Stomach pains, hurt to drink water
- Diagnosed after endoscopy, colonoscopy
- Endured four surgeries in three months
- Trained in hospital hallways
- Walk for cancer with ileostomy bag
- Cancer-free and blood work good
- Ended chemo early (3 months)
- Whole food, plant-based diet
- Very hard on body, destroys ALL cells
- More painful than surgery, felt ‘polluted’
- No way to know if helped or not
- Moved back to US from Russia, son in public school
- Hunter joined parent association
- More and more kids at house after school
- Started F.A.S.T. to provide sports programs
- Built playgrounds, trained teachers/coaches
- Café with best food, drinks
- Resistance training and super treadmill
- Hyperbaric chamber, cryochamber therapy
- Underwater treadmill, tread pool
- Massage pod, meditation and yoga
- Tracks data to store on Cloud
- Blood, DNA tests to individualize
- Training program free to members
- Families can train together
- Protect self as child during illness
- Grateful to be here, alive
- Life is NOW
Learn More About Hunter and Tatiana
Resources
Unexpected Recoveries: Seven Steps to Healing Body, Mind, and Soul When Serious Illness Strikes
