Classic Winner founder and trainer Todd Schneider stands with some photos of past contestants in the Caloric Responsibility Gym. --NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
mcranker@medicinehatnews.com @MHNmocranker
Medicine Hat’s biggest weight loss challenge has seen some big changes this winter.
Formerly known as the Classic Loser, the Classic Winner will be running for its eighth consecutive year under trainer Todd Schneider. He says there is a lot to a name.
“I think the name says it all,” said Schneider. “It’s about bettering people’s lives and optimizing their lives. We’ve really evolved over the years … We think we’re at a transition point, and the new name really reflects what we’re trying to do here.”
Alongside the name change, Schneider says the group is hoping to get more local businesses involved with the program.
“We want to go back to focusing on local, corporate sponsorship,” he said. “We’re looking for a number of businesses that are local, to get on board and take part in the competition. We’re looking at taking a CEO, manager, office manager, whoever, and changing their lives. With that comes some really good exposure, and if they want, they can sign their whole office team up for Classic Winner.”
While he is hoping for 10-20 local businesses to sign up, people in the community can sign up for the contest as they always have been able to.
“Exercise is a great thing, and it can do great things for people,” he said. “This is a local competition, and we want to go back to those roots. We want to get as many local people and businesses involved as possible — we want to continue to change people’s lives.”
Another addition this year for the Classic Winner is the ability to compete privately.
“Another thing we’re doing this year, we’re allowing people to compete out of the public eye,” he said. “The people or organization can compete, but they don’t have to be public, and they can train privately. A lot of people don’t want to train in the public eye, but want a safe place to go with a group of fitness naive people. We can offer that.”
Schneider says the competition is for anyone, and that people can reach out to him for more information.
“Any person or business can reach out,” he said. “We’ve had a great journey over the years, but we want to get back to those original local corporate roots. We went through a phase where were got a lot of large, national sponsors, but we want to make sure we’re giving back to the community as much as possible.”