The Orangetheory Fitness Franchise Co-Founder Credits Her Father’s Positive Attitude with Her Successes in Business and Life

Growing up with a father who worked as a football coach and physical education teacher, Ellen Latham learned from an early age to value health and wellness. Latham dedicated her life to fitness by pursuing physical education and physiology degrees, and eventually becoming an exercise physiologist. 

But her life took an unexpected turn when, as a 40-year-old single mother, she lost her job as a manager at a high-end spa in Miami Beach. That event would become the catalyst for creating the cutting-edge metabolic workout that became the foundation for Orangetheory Fitness.

Turning setbacks into successes is at the heart of Latham’s story. Here is how she went from an unemployed exercise physiologist to the founder of a billion-dollar fitness empire.

Early Life

One of Latham’s early memories was her father’s reaction to her last-place finish in a skating race when she was just 8. Rather than focusing on the loss, Arthur Calandrelli praised his daughter’s turns around the rink. Calandrelli, who worked at the local high school in Niagara Falls, N.Y., never based his success on dollars but rather on the fulfillment he gained from contributions to society. His personal motto was simple yet effective: “Momentum shifts up.”

Momentum shifting up is focusing on what you have and not on what you don’t have.

“My father very much lived by this sports psychology theory,” Latham explains in the documentary entitled, “Momentum Shift.” “You can momentum shift up or momentum shift down. Momentum shifting up is focusing on what you have and not on what you don’t have.”

Her father’s motto and positive attitude stuck with her as she earned a bachelor’s degree in physical education and a master’s degree in exercise physiology from the State University of New York at Buffalo. She later moved to South Florida and applied her education in work as a trainer and manager at some of the Miami area’s most prestigious spas.

Latham also made a name for herself as a fitness expert by appearing on several TV programs, writing columns for The Miami Herald and South Florida Sun-Sentinel, and serving as fitness editor for Women’s Fitness magazine. 

A Momentum Shift

But Latham experienced her own unexpected momentum shift. After dropping off her son, Evan, at school and going to work, her boss called her into his office and fired her. “I was devastated. I really didn’t know what I was going to do,” she later told a journalist. Falling back on her dad’s philosophy, she focused on what she had rather than what she didn’t have. What she had was a Pilates certification and a spare room in her house where she spent the next year working from 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. training Pilates clients.

As her business grew, Latham needed more space and secured a studio big enough for 10 Pilates reformer machines. Meantime, she recalls her clients asking how they could boost cardiovascular fitness in workouts beyond their Pilates sessions. “My members were not happy with any group metabolic programs that existed out there,” Latham told a Fast Company interviewer. “They were cycling, working with personal trainers, jogging around the park, and I kept listening to their complaints that they were not getting the results they wanted. So that’s the reason I started the workout, to solve a problem for my members in my small Pilates studio.” 

The Founding of Orangetheory Fitness

Latham developed what she called Ellen’s Ultimate Workout, which involves activities including work on a treadmill, rowing and strength training. Her clients experienced remarkable results, and Latham sought to bring her fitness method to even more people. She admittedly didn’t know much about franchising at the time so she paired with franchise-savvy partners Jerome Kern and David Long.

Together, they established Orangetheory Fitness in 2010, which was unlike any workout on the market and pioneered the use of connected, wearable technology, combined with science and expert training. “They really respected my many years in this business,” Latham told Strong Fitness. “They listened, and that’s what made the partnership so fabulous.”

Orangetheory offers a personalized, heart rate-based workout in a motivational group setting to ensure members of all fitness levels and abilities can be successful. Workouts combine strength, power, balance and interval training to increase endurance and improve overall fitness. Unlike high-intensity interval training, members adjust their own levels of effort during the workout based on their heart rates, with a goal of spending 12 to 20 minutes in the “orange zone,” defined as 84-91% of their personalized maximum heart rate, to boost metabolism and burn calories and fat. 

Certified trainers guide members through the five different heart-rate zones depicted in gray (resting), blue (easy), green (challenging), orange (uncomfortable) and red (“all out”), while instructing members on when to push harder and when to pull back for recovery. The heart-tracking and analysis technology enables members to view their performance in real time. Members also receive emails summarizing how many calories they burned and the amount of time they spent in each zone. 

The fitness franchise hit a major milestone when it exceeded $1 billion in systemwide sales in 2018. Orangetheory more recently merged with Self Esteem Brands to form a new company called Purpose Brands, which now operates in more than 7,000 locations and provide health and wellness services to 6 million members across 50 countries and territories.

Lessons from the Ellen Latham Story

Latham has received numerous accolades for her achievements, including the 2017 IHRSA (now called Health & Fitness Association) Woman Leader of the Year and 2016 EY Entrepreneur of the Year for a Service Based Business in Florida.

Her inspiring story, detailed in the documentary “Momentum Shift,” also features Orangetheory coach Joe Oniwar and an Orangetheory member named Kristen. They both discuss how Orangetheory changed their lives, and how they, like Latham, turned setbacks into successes. 

Today, Latham continues to inspire others through her celebrated book, “PUSH – A Guide to Living an All Out Life: The Story of Orangetheory Fitness,” and motivational speeches.