Member Merri Bush, 42, said she would not normally have joined a gym. But the Lord's Gym allows her and her daughter Christyna Askey, 21, to walk on the treadmill each morning as they read and discuss the Bible.
The first Lord's Gym opened in 1994 in Roseville, California, as a nonprofit community centre for teens. Its founder, Doug Bird, is a former drug dealer who is now the pastor of Abundant Life Fellowship Church in Roseville, a town near Sacramento.
At first, the gym expanded across the nation mostly as non-profit community centres, but then for-profit gyms also began to appear, including the Clermont gym.
"These are places where fitness is important, not sex or vanity," said R Marie Griffith, a professor of religion at Princeton University who has written about Christian diet and fitness programmes, according to the New York Times. "It's supposed to be that we're not going to forget we're Christian here. There's a sense of comfort around people with the same moral values as you have; no one's going to 'rock your world'."
Gym member Per Heistad, who said he frequently travels for business and is a self-described gym buff, said he is no longer comfortable at other gyms.
"I don't need anything to lead me into temptation," Heistad said. "I can get there on my own."
"It's a Christian business, a Christian environment," he added. "It's a better feel. You stand a little taller, don't grunt, don't get pumped and yell, 'Daddy's got a new set of pipes.'"
Although the company logo depicts Jesus and the Cross, Lord's Gym welcomes all people to enjoy its facilities and does not require doctrinal or religious views to be shared as criteria for membership.
Lord's Gym contributes 10 per cent of its income to Lord's Gym Youth Outreach Centers around the US, James and Betty Robison with LIFE Outreach International, and several other non-profit organisations.
