BACKGROUND
Alan McGuinness and Sol Gilbert have been running gyms together since 2014, when the pair launched the inaugural Underground Gym in Brighton, UK. Now extended from 4,500sq ft to 10,500sq ft and spinning off to two more large sites in Newhaven (2017) and Tunbridge Wells (2018), Underground Gym prides itself on its powerful sense of community, bold atmosphere and clear intent: to welcome all, but nonetheless to be a place where you can really train.

The brand continues to perform strongly, serving a loyal community with a product members love and use regularly. However, over recent years McGuinness and Gilbert felt there was another complementary avenue they wanted to explore.

McGuinness explains: “We all know that gyms typically attract the same 10–11 per cent of users. Beyond this, there’s a far greater number of people who aren’t on a good health and wellness trajectory, but for whom going to the gym is a scary prospect.

“We’ve wanted to engage this population for a long time, but you’re never really going to attract and appropriately cater for them in a big box gym environment.

“We realised we needed to create a different type of venue: welcoming, nurturing, empathetic, holistic in its approach, coach-led and designed around small group training.”

The result is COACHED, a 3,500sq ft facility that opened in Brighton in February 2023.

OBJECTIVE
“The idea of COACHED is to change people’s health and wellness trajectory by empowering bodies and educating minds,” says McGuinness. “In the process, we know we’ll also change the lives of those around them: friends, partners, children.”

Spread over two floors, COACHED offers predominantly strength-based small group training on the top floor – at a ratio of one instructor to four members – and group exercise downstairs, once people are ready for this, at a one-to-16 ratio. There’s also a recovery suite and café.

With membership of the new high-end club starting at £150 a month, and all members going through a detailed application process to prove genuine commitment to making a change, the whole club experience needed to be a premium one, says McGuinness, not only in the level of personalised service but in the design and fit-out.

“That was one of the key requirements for us: equipment that was robust but also good-looking,” he adds. “We wanted our whole space to be visually appealing as well as highly functional.”

SOLUTION
McGuinness and Gilbert met Physical in 2022 and quickly realised this was who they wanted to work with “for the full kit-out, top to bottom: flooring and turf tracks, loads of functional kit, large storage racks, DAP, AirBikes, squat racks, sled…”

McGuinness explains: “The high quality of the Physical kit was the first selling point: everything is really well-made and looks great too.

“The option to integrate our branding was also key to our decision: we plan to open multiple COACHED locations in the future, so we’re very focused on building a strong brand.

“With Physical, we’ve been able to create a bespoke turf track for each floor: highly customised and branded centrepieces that we know are also manufactured to last. Our storage and squat racks are also custom-branded. There are flashes of COACHED branding all across the club.”

RESULTS
The response has been hugely positive, says McGuinness, with membership reaching 35 per cent capacity in just two months. “Everyone loves the warm welcome they receive in a club that feels like it should cost more.”

He adds: “It’s also been a great experience working with Physical. As so often happens in projects like this, we had a number of challenges in the build process, but the Physical team was incredibly accommodating, working closely with us to adapt to our evolving timeframe and equipment list. They’ve been a fantastic partner.”

BACKGROUND
Kirklees Active Leisure (KAL) is a charitable trust operating 12 facilities, the majority including gyms, in partnership with the local council in the Kirklees area.

Market leader by membership and presence across the region, KAL enjoys high levels of cross-site usage. “With varying types and sizes of facility across the area, it’s usually only a few miles’ drive to the next site,” says health, safety & projects manager Adam McNeely.

In 2022, preparing for a refresh of a number of its facilities, KAL put its equipment provision out to tender and appointed Physical for all functional and studio equipment, as well as making Physical one of two approved rig providers.

OBJECTIVE
The first two refurbishments with the new supplier line-up took place at Colne Valley Leisure Centre (November 2022) and the flagship John Smith Stadium (December 2022).

At Colne Valley, where a 220sq m gym floor meant space was a primary consideration, the key requirements were to expand the functional training space – without compromising other elements of the offering – and to create a storage solution that didn’t cause a bottleneck. “Previously, if members were exercising on the floor in front of the storage rack, others couldn’t reach past to get the kit they needed,” says McNeely.

Meanwhile, at John Smith Stadium, the challenge was a long, thin room where the functional zone was too small and cluttered with equipment and the free weights area was the first thing you saw. “Some members are still intimidated by free weights, so this wasn’t an ideal first impression,” says McNeely.

He explains: “Here, the goal was to re-zone and create more usable functional space. We also wanted to create a premium feel for this flagship site.”

SOLUTION
McNeely continues: “We looked at current usage trends and realised we had too much cardio equipment at both sites. We felt we could steal back some of this space to expand our functional zones.

“Lead times meant we’d already ordered our main gym floor equipment, but Physical was able to design the new functional training zones in a way that really made the most of the available space.”

In both locations, Physical provided a wide range of functional equipment – slam balls, medicine balls, kettlebells, TRX, battle ropes, dumbbells, skipping ropes, power bags, foam rollers, plyo boxes and so on – stored in bespoke Exigo rigs.

It also provided a sled for the stadium, where customised turf carrying KAL’s logo and colour scheme provides a powerful new first impression; the expanded functional zone is now the first thing you see when you enter the gym.

McNeely continues: “We also asked Physical to provide the flooring for both projects, and the differentiated zoning we’ve been able to create at John Smith Stadium in particular is really powerful, with four different types of flooring for four distinct training experiences.

“At Colne Valley, we also needed to be clever with storage and Physical came up with an excellent solution. Rather than running the full length of the wall – members used to get in the way of each other all the way along – it’s a space-efficient corner rig. It also has two integrated lifting stations with the platform cut in and flush to the floor so the space is multi-purpose.”

And all of this was delivered in a tight timeframe, with a two-week window for each installation. “The Physical team were confident they could deliver on time and on budget, and they did exactly as they said they would,” says McNeely.

“There were challenges along the way, as there so often are with projects like this, but I can’t fault Physical’s speed and responsiveness in addressing and overcoming them. I believe you find out more about a company when challenges arise than if everything is plain sailing, and we very much appreciate Physical’s customer service and ability to find solutions.”

RESULTS
“Both gyms have been transformed, from the layout and look and feel to the lighting and equipment. The response from members has been very positive and converting a sales tour is easy these days!” says McNeely.

“It’s also been really pleasing to see all the new zones being well used: members have embraced the expanded functional training zones and there are no areas of the gym going untouched. But equally, we haven’t cut CV to the point where people are having to queue for machines. It feels like we’ve struck a good balance between clean functional floorspace and equipment.”

BACKGROUND
Sanctum is both the owner and five-star service department managing three luxury serviced apartment buildings in north-west London.

Offering stays of anything from two nights to six months or even a year, Sanctum prides itself on providing all the perks of a top-quality hotel, but with the added space that comes from staying in an apartment. Amenities include 24-hour security, fully furnished and equipped apartments, concierge, porter, reception and maid service.

At the newest location, which opened in Regent’s Park in July 2022, the Sanctum team also wanted to add an on-site gym; at its other two locations, clients have access to an off-site gym.

OBJECTIVE
Sanctum general manager Michelle Mojzis explains: “We had 8.5 x 5m available for a gym, so not a huge space, but we wanted to create a fitness offering that was free to use for our guests, and that provided them with everything they needed for a good workout before a day in the office or a day of being a tourist in London.

“We had a good idea of what we wanted in terms of equipment, but finding our supplier started with a Google search. We ended up speaking to four different companies, but quickly settled on Physical.”

SOLUTION
Mojzis continues: “Of course, price is always a factor and Physical’s equipment is great value, but we also really appreciated the way Paul [Farrell, Physical account manager] went about things.

“We put in an enquiry through the website and quickly received a response, already from Paul. He then came to see us in person – twice, in fact – and we really appreciated those face-to-face meetings. So many companies use video conferencing nowadays and that doesn’t work for us. It was also Paul who placed the orders and who followed through with us to the end. We didn’t have to deal with multiple departments, which made the whole process really simple and stress-free.

“As I say, we had an idea of what equipment we wanted, but it was Physical who completed the vision. Paul took us through all the options within each product type, so we could cherry-pick exactly what we wanted, and helped with design and layout ideas. With his expert guidance, we were able to confirm our order within the space of a quick meeting.”

That order included a treadmill, cross-trainer, upright bike and rower; a good selection of strength training equipment – Smith machine, DAP, dumbbells and barbells with storage racks, Olympic plates and benches; plus stretch mats and a stability ball.

“From order to installation and beyond, everything happened as Paul said it would: the whole thing has been very straightforward and we’ve found Physical easy and efficient to work with. They’re also down-to-earth and trustworthy – you get a real sense of it being a family business – which makes them great partners,” says Mojzis.

RESULTS
“We’ve created a space that looks beautiful and that’s well-used,” Mojzis concludes. “There are always clients in the gym, but it’s never overcrowded. It’s worked really well.

“And the value of having an on-site gym is fantastic. When people search on an engine like booking.com, they’re increasingly applying filters such as ‘fitness centre’. Offering an on-site gym has added real value to our product and allowed us to stand out.

“If we do another building, we’d certainly look to include a gym and would definitely work with Physical again.”