About Penthouse Athletic Club
Michael Christopher Warren
Founder · Penthouse Athletic Club · New York City
Here's something the fitness industry doesn't want you to know: fitness is dead simple. Nutrition is dead simple.
But simple doesn't sell. Confusion does.
Keep people confused long enough and they'll turn to you for answers forever. They'll try this program and that program, this studio and that studio, this diet and that diet. They'll stay stuck in a loop. That loop is very profitable — for everyone except the person actually trying to get in shape.
I built my career doing the opposite.
It started with 600 square feet subleased from a Zumba studio.
The couple running the studio had a simple problem: their students were beginners who eventually wanted more. When someone raised their hand wanting to go harder, they'd say "go knock on Michael's door." I said yes to everything and gave everyone more than they expected. That's always been the model.
In exchange, they asked me to teach a Sunday bootcamp class — 45 minutes. I said yes. Those classes became legendary. What started as 45 minutes stretched to 2.5 hours because nobody wanted to leave. Every single woman who walked through that door for the bootcamp eventually became a private training client. Not because I sold them. Because I gave them something they'd never experienced: a trainer who wasn't watching the clock.
From that sublease I built Body Makeover Fitness — my first retail space, inside a mall. Same philosophy. Relationships over transactions. Outsized value. Full attention. The clock was irrelevant.
While every boutique studio in New York was opening another spin class and telling you that "you never do the same workout twice," I went the opposite direction. I opened the only Versaclimber studio on the East Coast — a machine so brutal it's typically reserved for professional athletes. LeBron James trains on a Versaclimber. The US Tennis Association uses them. I opened a studio built around them and told anyone who walked in exactly what they were getting into.
We turned away just as many people as we accepted. Classes were capped at 20. There was nowhere to hide. And within a few years, NBA players were training at CRAG. Semi-professional tennis players. The producers of The Real Housewives of New Jersey called us — they'd heard about us and wanted to bring their cast in for a segment. We were ready. Then COVID happened.
I didn't build that by confusing people. I built it by being honest with them.
"One of my members went through a brutal divorce. She told me later that CRAG became her second home during that period. That it helped her get through it. That's the moment that puts everything in perspective. Not the NBA players. Not the Real Housewives call. That's why I do this."
CRAG ran for seven years. It survived a pandemic. It didn't survive the post-pandemic landscape — fitness in New York was just different after COVID, and I wasn't going to force something that had run its natural course. I closed it on my terms.
When I got here I started looking at retail spaces to open the next chapter. Ground floor retail in Manhattan requires institutional money — the kind that explains why you see the same chains on every corner. The spaces I wanted were on upper floors.
So I made that a feature, not a limitation. Call it the Penthouse Athletic Club. The name tells you it belongs on an upper floor. Some creative marketing to turn a constraint into a brand.
But the philosophy is identical to everything I've built before. Building gyms on the Upper East Side are beautiful and almost completely unused. Building management doesn't understand fitness. Residents don't use the gym because there's no programming, no community, no reason to be there. Meanwhile those same residents are paying $250 a month to commute to Equinox.
Why force someone already struggling to get in shape to add another obstacle — travel — to the equation? Why not use the resource they already have, in the building they already live in? That's Penthouse Athletic Club. CRAG evolved. The same philosophy — simplicity, honesty, full attention, no clock-watching — delivered where you already are.
The name tells you everything. Penthouse — the top. That's where we operate.
Eventually we'll evolve into a physical space again. When the time is right. But right now, the building gym model works. And it works because the principles behind it have always worked.
Sessions end when the work is done — not when a timer goes off. My clients consistently say they never feel like I'm waiting to leave. That's not a technique. That's how I operate. Two ears, one mouth. I listen twice as much as I speak.
Your body only does three things: push, pull, or rotate. Everything else is a variation. Athletes become great by doing the same things repeatedly, with perfect form, over time. I'm not here to impress you with variety. I'm here to get you results.
Because when we're working together, you are. Full attention. No other clients in the background. No distractions. You get everything I have for the duration of our session — and usually more than you expected.
Three fitness studios founded from nothing. CRAG built into an institution that attracted professional athletes and turned away clients who weren't serious enough. People who trained at CRAG called it their second home and said they'd follow me wherever I went next.
Wherever I went next is here.
Schedule your complimentary assessment. 30 minutes in your building gym. No clock-watching. No sales pitch. Just an honest conversation about what you're trying to accomplish and whether PAC is the right fit.
Schedule Your AssessmentOr call (212) 361-9010