The facility is called Club 40fied. It refers to our target market which is people over 40 years of age. It also refers to the importance of being physically and mentally fortified– perhaps, in this day and age, even more than before.

By the time we hit 40 we’ve got really busy lives with family, business… Health and fitness tends to take a backseat. The decade from 40 to 50 is probably the last real chance to turn things around for most people. Things will become considerably more difficult after 50 or 60 because of the joint problems, lack of mobility, loss of bone density and lean muscle mass. Most people who don’t suffer from any major medical condition are still able to turn things around for the better and we have to emphasise the fact that it will only get harder if they miss this window.

Our philosophy is to create strong, resilient, anti-fragile bodies that move well, that feel good. After 40, training tends to stop being the ultimate goal: it becomes a means to an end, so we can actually do the things that are more fulfilling. Ultimately, we’re moving towards being able to do everyday life activities with ease and looking towards the future of potential retirement and enjoying those years. You’re not just doing it for yourself, you’re doing it for so many other people around you! It actually travels down through generations to come.

We believe that many people are not involved in physical activities because they feel intimidated, uncomfortable or even anxious about going to a gym. When you go into a typical gym, it’s quite confronting. There’s lots of steel and weight and loud noise. Ours is very much a softer and more holistic approach. It’s connecting with nature, it’s for those who are potentially quite anxious about going into a commercial facility, this is going to be a warming experience for them. It’s definitely a place that will feel right to those people.

When you walk in, it’s a very welcoming environment that should put most people at ease, ready to have a conversation with whoever meets them there. There’s no confronting black rubber floor and slogans on the wall like “Go hard or go home”, “No pain, no gain,” those sorts of things. We’ll just have a coffee or tea and a chat about what they’re seeking, what their goals are, what they need.

This theme will continue into the gym with a nature motif. When you’re in nature, you’re going on an adventure. You have some physical work to do, like on any adventure, but the environment itself will always be something where
most people will feel good being close to beautiful places. With the café and the soft, zen garden area, we want people to start really enjoying their lives. We’re really getting to understand what it is they want. Also, it’s for us to get across how we can support you in the right way, to get you to where you want to go.

We have been in this industry for over 20 years. We are very much aware of the shortcomings of most gyms and programs. Most fail to understand that each and every person is different biochemically, as well as psychologically.

With commercial gyms, a lot of the time you’ll just be a number. They will probably never bother digging deeper into why a person wants to lose weight. They want more confidence, they want to be happier, they want their partner to
be happier, they want to take care of themselves. So many people that will start implementing changes to improve their lives but lean out of it very quickly, because it’s quite often uncomfortable work or they allow the saboteur within to dictate to them that they’re not worthy of this.

We really want to know our members and understand their deep emotional reasons for coming. We want to personally engage with every single member, understand their lives: not only what’s important to them for coming to our facility, but most importantly understanding what are going to be the roadblocks that they need to navigate to achieve their success.

Exercise is only one of the pillars of wellbeing. The main reason for people discontinuing their physical journey is because the mental momentum, the psychological momentum, has run out and they can’t find the motivation anymore. To consider the body just as a physical thing that can lift weights and perform movements is crazy because all the systems are connected in the body. The emotions, hormones, muscles, nerves and bones, they all connect and communicate with each other. We can’t create a healthy, happy human being by just looking after one aspect.

We will be providing mental fitness programs and workshops, along with offering activities such as breathing classes, playful movement classes and outdoor programs to address another very common health concern, stress.

A huge issue that we see in this field is that people often jump straight into moving again after decades of inactivity. They may feel that have to “make up” for the missing time or they completely misjudge their physical abilities. They remember what they used to be able to do and feel that they aren’t that far gone from that level when, unfortunately, they often are. Many are just very excited about moving again, which is wonderful, but it may cost them by getting little injuries that force them to stop. That is why working with the right kind of coach can lead to a much better outcome through a positive and rewarding experience.

Often, people get drawn into “8-week total body transformation” type programs that are based on the idea that one can turn their health around in just a few weeks. The training volume and diet that goes with such programs are unsustainable in the long run. Most people can do it for 8 weeks but what about the rest of their life?

Shouldn’t we, coaches, give them something that they can rely on for years and decades? How about giving them knowledge and understanding of health and movement so they can make better decisions and remain strong for life? That’s the approach we use, and based on the feedback from our clients, it has made a very positive impact on their lives. They can enjoy their boats, fishing, playing golf or tennis, hiking, cycling and having all sorts of adventures. They are able to play with their kids and grandchildren, they have a better relationship with their spouses due to feeling happy and confident. These are the important things, not how many kilos they can lift or how fast they do it.

Our system is designed to safely and gradually restore their mobility and flexibility, and to steadily build their strength and movement ability.

Another huge aspect of being involved with physical training or gyms is that lots of people tend to do it with headphones on and shut the world out. We’ve seen that community has really taken a back seat. We are not interested in creating such an environment. We want to allow community to be fostered, where people can come to a place where they’re making friends that have got similar goals so they can support each other and be supported. That’s paramount.

The importance of human connection will be emphasised every step of the way in the forms of training in a small group, spending time together, running lots of special events such as workshops, seminars, social Fridays, etc. We’ll do family Saturdays where you can bring your kids along and not just keep them out of the way, but involve them in the same training, a Saturday workout with some smoothies and coffees. We plan to take them hiking… We’re keen on bringing in special speakers, interesting people with adventures to talk about, things that make this a club, not a gym.

Also, our clientele is going to be relatively small in number and we’ll know them and their orthopedic profile incredibly well. We’ll understand how they move and where they need to improve. We’ll understand their strengths and weaknesses so that, in a small group environment, we have the skill to format and adapt for everyone so it feels incredibly personalised for them. This is paramount for us as it makes our clients’ journey a much more positive one and enriches their lives beyond the physical results that come from exercising.

How great would it be to have three generations training together in one facility? Parents, grandparents, and kids. It would be incredible. Ultimately, what we’re seeing in facilities these days is that parents are wanting their kids to get into training a lot earlier. We see a lot of 12-year-olds and above getting memberships at commercial gyms. What we want to do is start even younger. We’re teaching kids that it’s great to move. We look at kids on the beach or just in everyday life and most naturally move well, instinctively. Unfortunately, they lose that instinct when they go to school, where they have that structure of sitting down on the floor or at desks. We want to encourage that movement is play, exercise is play. Movement is medicine, really because kids see it naturally as fun. We want to be able to bridge that gap where it can be fun with other activities. It can be fun with other people, with your parents, with your grandparents. When the parents are starting to see that they can do what their kids are doing, starting to recognise what their body is capable of, that’s amazing. It can be something as simple as a forward roll or a cartwheel.

For the older generation, it could be a matter of life or death. The major danger for anyone in their 70s or 80s is falling, and not being able to get up due to the lack of strength or mobility. Or falling and breaking something as important as an arm, wrist, or hip because the bone density is low and there is no strong muscular structure to protect the body. Your quality of life is heavily compromised by a lack of strength and mobility. We look at the statistics of the elderly that have had a fall, quite often it means death in a year, but mostly it means entering a nursing home and losing independence and freedom.

We welcome older clients. We think the social aspect of our program will benefit them. They love to catch up because sometimes it is their only social interaction for the day. That’s what we want to foster. Come down, have fun, we want to listen to the stories you’ve got to share. It’s not about “Okay, you’ve done your exercise, off you go.” We want them to hang around, we want them to interact with us.

We’ve been in the industry over 20 years, and our qualifications are too numerous to list. Notably, we both are certified Medical Fitness Specialists, an important title to list because we are starting to have a demographic that will have some medical conditions. We have years of experience in collaborating with Allied Health to help people achieve long lasting or even permanent results. Our focus is and has been on functional strength and movement training versus prioritising aesthetics. This leads to real positive changes in our clients’ lives when it comes to everyday activities, hobbies and experiences. Toned arms and shoulders look nice but not having back pain or knee pain will help them sail or play golf a lot more.

When people first start with us, we’ll have the preliminary chat, and then look at how they move. We’ll have assessed the orthopedic profile of each individual so we know how best to support them and move them into the sessions and classes that are going to be beneficial.

When we look at strength, that’s going to involve different modalities. We look at body weight strength, we look at loaded strength whether it’s with kettlebells or suspension systems like TRX. When we’re using these types of tools, it encourages the three systems of the body, the nervous, skeletal, and muscular systems, to work together. Machines tend to not really encourage the interrelationship of those three. The nervous system is not properly challenged and people may miss out an important part of physical development.

When we’re looking at stability-type training, we’re now starting to build a foundation for success, and that could be something as simple as standing on one leg, balance beam walking, things like that. They’ll get to understand that you can’t fire a cannon from a canoe. The better our base of stability, the greater strength and power we can start to generate. When we come to cardio, yes, we’ll have some cardio machines you can utilise, but we’re also looking at different forms of cardio or general physical conditions. That can be sled work, it can be battle ropes, kettlebells with different types of loaded carries.

When we look at mobility, it’s to ensure we have optimal range in the moveable joints. We may bring in games for warm-up and gentle movement to inspire them to greater range. For us, it is very important to educate our clients in the long run. It’s a lot better an approach and a lot more enjoyable for most people and a lot of clients are interested in knowing and understanding why they do what they do, and not blindly following instructions.

The tree symbolises wholeness and completeness, being close to nature. It also represents strength and survival, like after a bushfire how quickly nature bounces back, it’s incredible. The human body has similar abilities to bounce back if you nurture it, if you feed it, if you look after it.

Those are the underlying aspects that we want to put across as our business. But also, for our clients to be the best versions of themselves. The roots being understanding what your values as an individual are, your non-negotiables, because a lot of the time people aren’t really clear on that. That’s what we help them to unpack in that first session. Then the trunk is about strength and working together, understanding our values then working together in cooperation to move forward. Then the branches are the path that we’re taking to get to the goals that we’ve set, the leaves and the fruit being the rewards of all of the projects we’ve set out.