The Village at Pacific Highlands Ranch is the new home of Elevate Training, a fitness studio offering the latest in Lagree.
Lagree method workouts are done on a Megaformer, a large spring-loaded platform with handles and bars. Clients perform slow, controlled exercises on the elevated machine, getting a full body workout that is both high-intensity and low-impact.
Owner Bekah Burns opened the new Pacific Highlands Ranch location over the summer, her fifth studio in San Diego.
Burns, a San Diego native, started her fitness journey as a teenager after she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, getting into group fitness classes and pilates. While in college at Pt. Loma Nazarene, she went to a certification course thinking she was getting certified as a pilates instructor, but it turned out to be Lagree instead: “It was a super intense, hard but low impact workout that I basically fell in love with.” She’d never been so sore.
Burns began working as a Lagree method trainer while she was in school and just after graduating college she stepped into the management role at Elevate Training. Within just a few years, Elevate fell into her lap when the original owners sold her the business and its two studios—what had started as a part-time hustle became her full-time career in 2019.
“I had never planned to be a business owner or an entrepreneur,” Burns said. “I started building a team and then COVID hit a year later…. but we survived. Once we got out of the tumultuous fear of not knowing what was going to happen next, we started to expand. I went from two to four studios in a year and opened the fifth in July.”
In addition to the new Pacific Highlands Ranch location, Burns owns the studios in downtown San Diego, her native Carlsbad, Rancho Bernardo and Solana Beach, which moved last year into an expanded space with an infrared sauna in the Beachwalk Shopping Center. Her staff of 60 trainers rotates teaching between the studios.
For several years, Burns had been trying to get a space in the 92130 zip code and her persistence paid off when she signed the lease and got the keys to the new space on the same week she gave birth to her second child.
“It’s not for the faint of heart that’s for sure,” said Burns, who juggles running five studios with a newborn and kindergartner at home. “I’m so grateful to do what I love…obviously, there’s a lot of highs and lows with business ownership and the biggest challenge this past year has been navigating the split between motherhood and opening a fifth studio and re-organizing the structure to give me more time at home with my family.”
The Village at Pacific Highlands Ranch space was previously a Pure Barre so it didn’t require many changes although the permitting process was lengthy. The second-floor studio is simple, just 1,500 square feet with 13 megaformers ready to be worked.
Like the traditional Pilates reformer, the megaformer uses the same kind of spring-based resistance and low impact exercises but Burns said the method is more similar to strength training and weight lifting.
“Most of what we do is a version of squat, lunge or plank. It feels like familiar movement patterns on an elevated, moving surface,” Burns said. “Each class is 40 minutes, no break. It’s non-stop time under tension, so you get a killer full body workout mentally and physically without spending hours a day or doing different types of classes to achieve results.”
The classes promote increased strength, endurance and core stability. More importantly, Elevate aims to be a supportive studio helping clients live stronger and grow more confident and more connected to their purpose. As the motto on the wall and t-shirts states, it’s a place where “fast lives slow down.”
Elevate offers memberships, class packages and drop-ins at 5965 Village Way, Suite E 202. To learn more visit elevatetraining.com