Interview with Peter Castricone, co-owner
Q: How did you get involved in this business?
A: After the government shutdown in October 2013, I grew weary of my job as an architect with the federal government and decided that I needed a lifestyle change. I approached my wife, Lucia, and her sister, Lenka, with the idea to open a small, family-owned business. We ultimately decided to shift our focus from designing buildings to designing programs for healthy and active living. Although I have 25 years of weight-training experience and am a certified fitness trainer, it was only in early 2014 that I began focusing on the recovery aspect of training. When Lucia and I realized that this important component of fitness was missing from all of the box gyms out there, we decided to create a fitness business that focuses on recovery. And then Lucia and Lenka introduced me to whole-body cryotherapy, which uses liquid nitrogen to hyper-cool your body to achieve some amazing anti-inflammatory and pain-relieving effects. I was hooked, and now our business model is centered on the prolonged use and positive effects of cryotherapy.
Q: What distinguishes you from other businesses in your category?
A: To us, fitness means being healthy, and recovery is as important as physical training. So we go beyond the workout and beyond the gym to elevate and empower our clients to an entirely new lifestyle of health, wellness and athleticism based on the cryotherapy lifestyle … not just for today but for a lifetime. With a state of the art cryosauna, targeted cryotherapy and NormaTec compression sleeves, Novera is able to provide all the benefits of recovery, including pain management and injury rehabilitation. We also provide private instruction in Pilates training and spinning classes.
Q: What do you like best about your line of work?
A: As a longtime sufferer of sports-related chronic pain, I love being able to help people find relief from pain.
Q: What is your business’ biggest challenge?
A: Our biggest challenge is education. Although cryotherapy has been used for centuries and is widely available and wildly popular in Europe, it has only begun to gain general awareness in the United States. Novera is the first in Colorado to offer whole-body cryotherapy to the general public as a nonmedical rehabilitative recovery and pain-management tool. Getting the word out is the most difficult aspect of our job and educating potential customers is our greatest challenge.
Q: Something people might be surprised to learn about you or your business:
A: Novera is derived from the Portuguese nova era, which means “new age.” Even more fun: Lucia and Lenka are twins originally from Slovakia. Lucia has been in the United States for about 12 years. She became a U.S. citizen just this year.
Profile
Business: Novera Fitness
Address: 801 Brickyard Circle, Suite A, Golden
Hours: 9 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday through Friday, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday
Founded: 2014
Contact: 303-278-0082; ; @noverafitness
Employees: 8
