DNA testing to analyze fitness and nutrition offered by Gold's Gym

Many gyms have gone high tech, but trainer H.B. Sairn feels Gold's Gym SoCal is leading the way with DNA testing for nutrition and fitness.

They are the first chain to implement testing through a company called Fitness Genes.

"People are a little bit apprehensive right up off the bat because this hasn't really been done before," said Sairn.

DNA fit testing began in the late 1990s but it's really been the last four or five years that it has started focusing on genetic variations to help predict how people should exercise.

"What type of time of day should you work out? When should you be consuming the majority of your calories throughout the day?" said Dr. Dan Reardon, CEO of Fitness Genes.

Reardon, a physician and researcher, says knowing what you are made of also helps with living a healthier lifestyle.

For fitness: Timing, frequency, intensity, duration, length between rest periods can help - along with nutritional factors:

"Things like, should you follow a low-carb diet, what type of fat should you consume, how much caffeine can you drink or should you drink coffee before you work out, what sort of supplements you should take," Reardon said.

It made a fan of fitness buff Isaiah Knoll.

"I was going too slow and my rest breaks were not long enough. I found out that my body reacts to fat as an energy source really well and I have a high metabolism for caffeine so that's great to know," said Knoll of Pasadena.

Sairn, who has a master's in exercise science, says with the tests he's able to speed up a client's success. After a simple saliva test is sent to the lab, results are accessed via a website so trainer and client can see how to proceed.

You don't have to be a Gold's Gym member to take the test. The company has a kit you can get from the website and do it yourself. However even though they provide a good amount of information, it's still up to you to interpret data and make those changes.

Which Reardon admits, may not be effective for all.

"Some people cannot follow workout plans and diets and therefore the type of information for those people is completely different to the information you give people who can follow workouts and diets. The compliance rate of people who like to follow these programs is about 70 to 80 percent," said Reardon.

Fitness Genes offers testing and results for about $200.