PEABODY — After five years of operation on 215 Newbury St., Peabody resident Vinnie Santos recently celebrated the expansion of his KMF Strong gym, adding a new lounge area, a juice bar, and a semi-private coaching room to the fitness space.

Also new to KMF, which stands for “Keep Moving Forward”, is a training program that mixes personalized exercises through tablets with individualized guidance from a trainer, something Santos says is the first of its kind in Massachusetts.

“We combine one-on-one and programming together. The cool thing about that is that one-on-one is super expensive. Most people can’t afford it,” he said. “And then programming is super cheap, but nobody knows how to do the workouts or execute the proper form. That’s why we have the coach. So we offer this as a limited training for one price.”

Santos caps these semi-private sessions at six to ensure everyone is getting the instructions they need, resulting in everyone being able to do exercises specific to their routine while still having the aid of a trainer.

Since the program launched on Jan. 13, 18 KMF members have already signed up for the unique opportunity that Santos and his trainers offer.

In all, the new space KMF took over from their neighbor that used to be a dance studio expanded the gym from 4,400 square feet to 7,500 square feet, 

To fill some of the new space, 16 pieces of equipment are being delivered to the gym by the end of March, including unique items like a linear row that only one other facility in the area currently has.

Making KMF’s rapid growth particularly special for Santos is the reward of being a successful business owner in the city, where his fitness journey has evolved dramatically from when it first started on the Peabody Veterans Memorial High School soccer team.

After a few stints playing on teams in Portugal, Santos returned to where it all began and was hired as a personal trainer at a gym called Workout World. After a few months, he rose to the position of Personal Trainer Manager.

“A few months after that, COVID hit. Then, during the process of going through COVID, one of the trainers at the time came up to me and said, ‘Hey, do you want to open up your own gym?’” Santos said. “I obviously had no idea how to do it, but I took that big leap of faith, and went on board.”

Three business partners soon ballooned into five business partners, which eventually whittled away to today, where only Santos now runs KMF, along with his two staff members and three independent trainers.

That number used to be much higher, with as many as 20 independent trainers working at KMF at some points in the past. After deciding to make structural changes to the gym, that number went down along with the member count.

“We also used to have 400 plus members. Now we’re around 250, so the quality over quantity is nice,” Santos said. “We have almost 100 reviews, and none of them are less than five stars and the main thing that we hear is the cleanliness of the gym and customer service. Those are the top two things that I have my employees focus on.”

As a result, KMF is never crowded with loose equipment or people, providing an environment where members feel comfortable, something that Santos believes makes his gym stand out from the crowd of corporate fitness companies.

However, the first thing everyone notices about KMF isn’t usually the friendly service or principled neatness; it’s the stunning Matrix-inspired lobby and LED-lined walls that draw the most awed reactions.

“We used to get that reaction a lot in the beginning… and if it’s their first time, they get a nice little shock, and that’s all by design,” Santos said. “My designer has an 80/20 rule, where he says that 80% of the money you want to allocate to designing your gym should be in a reception area because you want people to walk in and have that wow moment.”

Santos found his designer, Cuoco Black, after hearing him speak on a YouTube podcast. When he learned that Black just so happens to live in Massachusetts, Santos got in touch with him so he could get help making KMF stand out.

“He said, ‘Pick a movie that you want to draw inspiration from,’ and at the time, we were listening to this guy who talked about ‘Escaping the Matrix’ all the time. So we thought, ‘Oh, let’s do the movie The Matrix,’” Santos said.

KMF’s lobby now features a new juice bar where members can get healthy drinks like protein shakes. Santos hopes to eventually branch even further into the nutrition and lifestyle sector of fitness to promote healthy habits for his members in a more holistic fashion.

Additionally, he’s tried to see how he can donate equipment he doesn’t use anymore to Peabody Veterans Memorial High School, something that would be a gift to the community that’s supported Santos throughout his journey.