Eli’s Fitness Studio

Eli’s Fitness Studio is a personal training gym at 4199 N Dixie Hwy in Oakland Park, positioned along the Dixie Highway corridor that runs through the eastern part of the city. The business has been operating in South Florida since 2010, per its own website, which states the studio has been “changing lives in South FL since 2010.” That timeline puts Eli’s among the more established independent personal training operations in Oakland Park, having weathered more than a decade in a competitive fitness market that includes plenty of larger chain gyms nearby.

The studio’s name and story trace back further than its Florida opening, though. Owner Joao named the business after his father Eli Evangelista’s original gym, Eli’s Academia, which Evangelista founded in Santos, Brazil in the late 1970s. When Joao opened his own personal training facility in Oakland Park, he kept the family name rather than branding it under his own, a choice the studio’s marketing frames as honoring that original Brazilian gym and the training philosophy that came out of it. Combined, the website cites over 50 years of private training experience behind the operation, spanning both generations and both countries.

Eli’s Fitness Studio positions itself specifically as an alternative to larger commercial gyms, describing the space as an “intimate gym” built around one on one and small group personal training rather than open floor memberships. The focus is squarely on personal training and coaching toward weight loss and general fitness goals rather than group class programming or a self service equipment floor. That model tends to suit clients who want more direct coaching attention and accountability than a typical gym membership provides, even if it comes at a higher price point per session than a monthly gym membership would.

The studio has picked up at least one notable testimonial along the way: John Offerdahl, the former Miami Dolphins All-Pro linebacker, is quoted on the Eli’s Fitness website praising Joao’s “expertise, creativity and heart for the health of the body, soul and spirit of each of his clients.” Whatever one makes of a single athlete’s endorsement, it does point to a training approach that has built relationships with clients invested enough in the results to speak publicly about it. The studio keeps early hours, opening at 5:00 a.m., which fits a personal training business built around clients fitting workouts in before work. For Oakland Park residents along the Dixie Highway corridor looking for dedicated one on one coaching from a trainer with a family training lineage stretching back to 1970s Brazil, Eli’s Fitness Studio is a longstanding, independently owned option.