JACKSONVILLE, FL—The HIT Center on Phillips Highway has become a popular place for JSO officers to gather.

Why do so many go here for personal training? Because for many of them, it’s free.

“The goal is for them to do this, make that lifestyle change and make that long term change on their own,” says HIT Center owner Aaron Marsten.

The HIT Center trains both JSO officers and JFRD firefighters as part of their new contract with the city, which is worth $442,000 a year.

CLICK HERE to see the program’s proposal documents.

The city pays the entire bill for an eight week training program and nutrition classes for any first responder that shows they have a heart related health problem, including hypertension and obesity.

Only a small group of 100 has gone through the program so far but there are 480 JSO officers on the waiting list, all of them with a qualified heart condition.

“It’s not cost effective to fix it on the back end when for 1/220th of the cost we can fix it on the front end and give that officer a longer career,” says Risk Management Division chief Charles Spencer.

Spencer says this is the first of this type of preventative program anywhere in the state.

But he says the city has seen a 700 percent increase in four years in heart related insurance claims from first responders, which is much more expensive than the prevention.

“It’s good for the taxpayer, it’s good for the employee and it makes good financial sense for the city,” says Spencer.

He says in the initial group they saw lower blood pressures and weight loss, add that to the fact that participants pay nothing for it and the waiting list keeps growing.

Spencer says the cost to treat one first responder hospitalized for a heart attack is $200,000