In 2010, David Kumpe and Bridget McGrath moved to South Lake Tahoe from Los Angeles with the hopes of opening their own gym. In July 2012, that became a reality when they opened Elevated Fitness in Heavenly Village Center.

“The name “Elevated” was the idea of elevating everything,” Kumpe said.

The goal with the name is to raise a client’s awareness of health, carbon footprints, consciousness, clean living while training at higher elevation.

This year, the gym is celebrating it’s two-year anniversary as the only carbon-neutral gym in the country and one of only three in the world.

“We’re a green facility where we have a green business model from the ground up, so our bikes have generators equipped to them, so as you’re pedaling you actually make usable electricity that gets fed back into the grid,” Kumpe said. “You’re lowering your carbon footprint by working out and so, with the number of bikes we have, we actually produce more power than we use and it’s completely carbon neutral.”

This gym is a functional training center focusing on group-private training, giving the feel of private training in a group setting. Clients from 16 years old to 74 can train together, but still get the attention of an individual training session.

“We’ve had the 74-year-old grandmother working out next to the 25-year-old MMA fighter. It’s all much more higher intensity and much more effective than your standard gym exercises of sitting on the machines and just kind of going through the paces,” Kumpe said. “We’re not your typical gym classes. A lot of people have a thought of classes at a gym being not as effective as your own workout, but ours is, you’re working with a trainer the entire time to get the results you want.”

Elevated offers more than training as clients can undergo full body composition tests included in the membership that analyzes a person’s weight, body fat, and bone density among other things and nutrition consultations where McGrath and Kumpe can prepare an exact meal plan based on a persons goals.

“We do a whole meal plan for people where we specifically tell people ‘eat this at this time or this at this time’ and really spell it out and if they have special diet needs—vegetarians or whatever—or they’re training for a body building competition. Whatever it may be, we have meal plans kind of specific to that,” Kumpe said.

With the success of the first location, Kumpe and McGrath plan to open another Elevated Fitness in Bend, Oreg., in the coming years and possible a few others with all being completely self-sustaining.

The first class is free as a trial and membership discounts are offered to police, fire, military and teachers.