Fitness First

When I wasn't working, I would stand at the gym door and I would say hello to everybody who walked in the door.

And I remember when I first started working for Fitness First, So I got poached from a gym that I used to work at.

It was called Viva Fitness in Adelaide.

And I moved from Viva to Fitness First when they first came to Adelaide.

But anyway, I got poached to go and work in there because they had a whole bunch of young trainers and the young trainers were complaining that they weren't getting enough personal training sessions.

But I think at the time they had like 1,500 members or 1,800 members or something.

So, um, yeah, just started like most people do and just like did my Cert 3 and Cert 4.

Um, started in like a big, big box gym, like a Fitness First, which I think you have in the UK, like a big, you know, 5,000-member gym, which I think is a, was a good place to start because you just sort of like learn the ropes, learn sort of how to run a business, and then it was very much, at that time it was the, the real trendy thing.

I mean, look, as a personal trainer, you're always gonna have to train gen pop, like fat loss clients.

That, that's sort of how you, you know, you pay your bills.

pizza.

My miscellaneous one was only a brief one, but remember my ongoing war with fitness first?

Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

And I've been, firstly, I had an issue with- I'm still on

fitness first side, by the way.

Well,

And three, two, one.

I've joined a Fitness First.

Hey guys, welcome to the Push For Legs Podcast.

I'm myself, Dan Inge.

And me, Tom Hall.

What's going on, buddy?

Fitness First.

My fitness is about fifth at the moment, I think-

Mm-hmm

... and Jets and Fitness First are under a bit of pressure.

Yeah, the traditional gym revenue's been declining.

The industry's declining at 2% year on year over the last five years.

Me and the boys, we used to go...

In Australia you'd have, um, two weeks free for kids at Fitness First.

So we'd go to the gym and just fucking just do chest and shoulders every day.

[laughs]

Oh yeah, I certainly felt, funnily enough my brother was a Les Mills master trainer for, for combat and pumps so I'm pretty, pretty familiar with the program.

It was, it was pretty massive like, but that was probably when those bigger gyms were probably, probably took up more of the market shares you know like your Fitness First and, um, the, the franchise, like a chain here called GoodLife.

They, they, I feel like they really had the market share so like you'd have, you know, these big gyms but I think now, you know, the, it's a lot more boutique facilities and you know, HYROX fac- HYROX places and F45s and, well they're not as big anymore and CrossFit so they sort of took a lot of the members out of, out of those big gyms that probably had a 7 or 8,000 member base so Les Mills could be, be quite successful.

Yeah I hadn't, I hadn't really heard much about Les Mills in the last decade or so, so I guess they've-

Mm-hmm.

And then I upgraded to Fitness First, and that's where I'm still training now.

[laughs]

Right.