How Local Blokes Started (And Why It Became More Than Fitness)

How Local Blokes Started (And Why It Became More Than Fitness).

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Local Blokes, episode one, the podcast that runs off the Local Blokes Heavyweight Club. Boys, I'm going to say thank you now, because I'm sure a lot of you fellas won't make it through to the end. Probably get sick and tired of my voice and me talking to myself for the next 20 minutes. So I just want to say thank you to anyone that even bothered to jump on and have a listen. If it wasn't for you, I appreciate your time. If you're still here at the end, fellas, I'll say thanks now and hopefully you keep listening. And hopefully I see a bunch of you get involved with the uh local blokes program. But I don't want to get um I don't want this podcast to dive into the training, training, training. Like nobody wants to sit here talking about the training, the weights, the boxing. Um we'll touch on that every episode and tell a few little stories and talk about people's progress. But the goal is not to sit here once a week and talk about lifting weights and throwing punches. Um the goal is to give you a bit of an insight to the deeper side of what this whole thing has become and you know, different stories from different fellas and different experiences, and even having a laugh, talking about, you know, we'll do an episode after our first golf day, have a laugh about that. I'm gonna bring some of the boys on who have done the previous one, who are keen to jump on and tell a bit of their story and talk about it. Um, we're gonna talk about heaps of different things. We'll talk about business, we'll talk about finances, life, struggles, all the different things without making this a podcast that is just training, training, training, or the nutrition, nutrition, nutrition. Because that's not that's not what local blokes um has been built from. Uh funny enough, it's it's more than just coming in to get fit. Like it started as this thing to lose some weight for me last year when I was in a pretty bad mental and physical state, and it grew into something much, much more. Uh, and I'm just gonna give you a bit of an insight to how it started, what it became, where it's at today. And then each episode from here, we'll start to dive into different things, um, different stories, different people, and and let you come along for the ride over the next, what have we got, uh, next 14 weeks. So four weeks to our next program, and then an episode a week while the program's on as well. Today I'm talking solo. Today I'm here doing a podcast on my own. I've done a few podcasts in the past, but I've never sat here on my own talking to a microphone for 20 minutes solo. So we'll do our best and hope I don't stuff it up. And if I do, we'll just go with it and and roll on. I don't like editing these things, there's no editing. So whatever comes out is whatever you're gonna listen to. I'm not gonna stop and start and ask my wife to chop shit out. If I lose track a bit, I lose track a bit. Um how'd this begin? How'd this local blokes thing begin? Well, it's obviously been branded now to Local Blokes Heavyweight Club. It was known as the 100k club last year. Um, I think it's important to quickly state that heavyweight does not mean that you have to be overweight or here to lose weight to do it. The heavyweight is a bit of play on words for me. Um, I had two reasons for doing it. One, I was too heavy. I was I was feeling fatter than I had in a long time. I wanted to lose 12 kilos and I wanted to strip some weight. Two, I felt like I had a lot of weight on my shoulders and my head last year, and I wasn't overly well mentally. Um so the local blokes heavyweight club is not just about fellas wanting to lose weight, it's about blokes who just need something for them and a space for them, and who might just want to get around a bunch of the boys, have a good time, train, play a bit of golf, play a bit of touch footy with no massive requirements on them. So local blokes heavyweight club is more than just scales, more than losing weight. So it's open to any man who wants to get around it. But let's dive back to sort of how this begun and and why it's turned into a thing. Mid-last year, after 13 years of running my business, million highs, million lows, million experiences, plenty of good, plenty of bad, lost a lot of friends, made a lot of friends, um, made money, lost money. I've been going through this for 13 years. Um, arguing with people, building relationships with people, all these different things that I've experienced in business and personal life over 13 years kind of barreled up last year and just I was just lost. Middle of the year, I was lost last year. And it was a really confusing stage for me to go through this last year because financially I was the best I'd ever been. I was making more money in my business than I'd ever made before. Um I'd I'd never been so financially sound than I was mid-year last year, and I'd never been more desperate to get out of my business and get out of my gym than I was mid-year last year. Um, which was very confusing for me. Very, very confusing to have worked and hustled for so long to get to the point where it was like you can live the life you want to live. But at the same time, I was like, I don't even really want to be there, I don't think anymore. So this kind of spiral off that. I'm sitting 12, 13, 14 kilos heavier than I felt like I wanted to be. I wasn't really happy, I wasn't training properly, I was doing a bit of this, a bit of that, I wasn't eating overly well. I've never been a big drinker, but I was probably having more social drinks than I normally would, which for me, like even when I say that, it sounds probably silly because I don't drink. Like I don't like to feel drunk. When I do get drunk, I'm not a very good person. I don't like the way that I speak and sometimes carry on when I'm drunk, so I don't really get drunk. So even having casual drinks, it's minimal. Like I just don't really drink. But anyway, I was drinking, probably having a few more drinks than I normally would. Um, like I said, wanted to lose weight, wasn't really training with any purpose, haven't had a boxing coach for seven years. I've been the coach now for that long with Joe. So no real direction, anything for myself bar business. And I've just given everything in my life to business for the last 13 years, but specifically the last seven years, I just obsessed over it on another level, and it's all I thought about, all I did. Um, and probably the last five years since my mother died, my mum died, then we hit COVID, went through all of that. My mindset started to change about the things that I wanted in life, and I wanted to be happier than financially. I didn't want to, it was like happiness over finance was kind of the mindset, but I still wasn't executing that, and I don't think I still believed that. I think I was telling myself that's what I wanted. It hasn't been to the last year since I've really realized like I'm just more interested in being happy and healthy than I am in trying to be rich. And last year that was happening, and I was getting wealthier by being happier. Not wealthy, I'm not wealthy. When I say wealthier, I was earning more money than ever because I was trying to be happy and I was doing the things to move in that direction. But as a result of that, I realized there was a lot of things I didn't want to do anymore that weren't making me happy. So this kind of all spiraled. So mid-last year, um, I sort of start coming to this realization as well that the competitive boxing side of things, there's a lot of great people in it. A lot of people I've met friends who have become very close friends, a lot of gyms I get along fantastic with. There's a lot of great people in the boxing community, and boxing has done a lot for me in my life. Uh met my wife through boxing. Uh, boxing allowed me to buy a home, buy the cars we have, boxing has allowed me to have a good business and a good life in a different avenue, you know. Um, not from a fighting aspect, you know. I was an average amateur boxer and I enjoyed it, and I found a way to make boxing work for me and the people around me, and I enjoyed it in a lot of ways. It's also a very, very toxic environment in the competitive arena. Um, very, very toxic, very political, very there's a lot of hate and a lot of drama, and you know, I was in my I was amongst that for years. It's just you're in it, you're in it. You can say you don't like it and you don't want to be around it, but when you're in it, you're in it, and you have to be like you're just in it, there's no way out of it. And I realized last year I'm just fucking over it. Like I'm over it. I don't care. I don't care about different gyms, dramas, I don't care about fight dramas, I don't care about what coach likes what coach. I don't care about it, I just don't care about it anymore. Like I got to a point where I just went, I don't care. And you're actually bringing a lot of negativity into my life, which translates into my personal life, and I just don't have the energy for it. So most people don't realize last year I travelled once for amateur boxing and all the other shows that we had, my fighters fought at home. Um so I started to heavily step out of traveling for amateur boxing more last year. I was traveling for the pros quite a bit, which also took its toll on me and hit me this year, but I started to ease out of it. Um and funny enough, the thing that I went to to give me some health and I thought happiness and see where I was at turned out to be boxing again. Which just sounds completely contradicting of what I've just said, but that's what I decided I was gonna do. So mid-year, I'm going through all these different things with my business, with boxing, coaching, all this sort of stuff that was going on. And I'm like, I just need to get fitter, get happier, and do something for me. Didn't want to go back to rugby league because my knees just can't, like I just can't, my knees just can't deal with it, my body can't deal with it. And being hit on a rugby league field at 35 from all different angles, I was like, it's just not, it's not an option for me anymore. So I decided to go back and have another fight, and that might sound like you chose to fight instead of play footy. I I think rugby league is in regards to the damage that gets done to the body, 10 times worse. Like played it for 24 years. Rugby leagues don't, you're getting hit in the legs from the side, you're getting elbows to the head, you're getting whacked off the back fence. Like footy is tough, it hurts, it's you know, you're sore for days after, and you can't control where you're being hit. It's not you and one other person, you're getting hit from all different angles, and it goes on for fucking 70 minutes, and it's just it's just too taxing on my body at 35. So at 35, I made the decision of well, I'll go back and have a fight. I thought we'll see if this fixes my head and a bit of focus on me is good, and I'll prioritize my health, my training, and my diet for the next 14 weeks. Um, at that stage, I hadn't actually locked in. I shouldn't say 14 weeks, I prioritised the rest of the year. I I hadn't made a decision on what date or what I was gonna fight, I just went, I'll start training. So I was trained for the first three weeks, and I was losing weight, feeling better, and all of a sudden I was starting to feel a bit happier and had a bit more control in things, and I was like, oh, this is good. Like, this is alright. Let's set a date. So I set a date. Um my pros had fights coming up, so excuse me, they'd just been matched. Um, what if I'm just starting out their pro career? So I set a date and I went, you know what, I'll I'll fight first. I'll just make that my date. I'll get on first, I'll fight, then I'll get out and I'll corner them. That'll give me something to work towards. I ran it past them. I said, Do you guys feel comfortable if I do this? And the two that were fighting said, Yep, cool, awesome, let's do it. We'll corner you, you corner us. Awesome, thanks. So there was 11 weeks till that date. So I thought, I want I I'm training on my own. I wasn't training when the pros are training or the amateurs because I had to give them my attention. I need to do something here for me. So I was training alone. I thought I missed training with a team. Like with my boxing team, when I was boxing with Joey and the boys, we were very team-oriented. Everything was awesome. We trained as a team, we pushed each other. You'd spar, you'd do your bag work, your partner work, you'd run together. Everything was together. You'd still do your individual stuff, but it was like very team-oriented for years. You push each other, it was awesome. The best environment at that time was being at boxing and training together. And then I got rugby league, which I played for, I think, 24 years, which was team-oriented and around the boys. So I was kind of craving having some training partners. Not training people necessarily, but having some training partners, even just for the fitness side. So I thought, what if I throw it up to on my Insta and see if anyone in the gym or wants to come train with me for 10 weeks? There was 11 weeks to the flight. I'll just throw it up for the last 10 weeks. If anyone wants to train with me, they can come train with me. And I'll just literally make that bag conditioning, some basic partner work, footwork, stuff that I do that they can follow along easily without me having to stop and coach. And if they wanted to get a nutrition plan with it, my wife can manage the plan similar to mine and make it work for them. So I threw on my Instagram within 10 minutes, five of the boys, six of the boys had messaged me, man, I'd be pretty keen to do this. Like I'm actually struggling because I was honest to why I was doing it. I'm struggling with a bit of drugs or a bit of drink, or I just, you know, I want some more structure in my life. So there's a handful of blokes straight away, and I'm like, that's pretty cool. Maybe I'll throw it up online with actually a registration, and I'll just see if more of the boys want to do it. That'd be pretty cool to have a big crew all training. So Allison just did a registration form for me, threw it online, and I said, I'm getting heaps of messages. This will just make it easier. If you're keen, click the link, go have a read, you'll see what I'm doing and how it works. And if you want to get involved, just register. This way I know that I've actually got people that are gonna do it, not just say they're gonna do it. Posted it up, got up the next morning. 20 blokes are registered. And I just was I just said to Al fuck, this thing's just registered 20 20 blokes. Like that. I hope they understand like this is what we're doing. I don't want this to be this big thing that I've got and I put all my energy into. I I hope they sort of understand. I better shut registration off. Anyway, we don't shut registration, we go about a day, jump in the car, go to work. That afternoon, Alison comes down and she goes, Oh, you've got 32 guys registered. It wasn't even 24 hours, and 32 blokes had registered to come and train alongside me for 10 weeks. So we've quickly shut registration off. Um, went through the names, a lot of the boys from the gym were in there, and a lot of new guys who had never been in my gym had signed up. So, long story short, got them all together, explained it to make sure everyone wanted on board. Everyone wanted on board. I was like, I've never signed 32 people in 24 hours for anything. If you go back to an old red vs blue, which is known as fight club, that would take a couple of months to sign that many people. Granted, you're signing them up to be punched in the face and potentially go out and lose a fight in front of 500 people. That's a daunting experience. That's a slow process to buy people into. But 32 in 24 hours was something that I've never experienced in my gym. So straight away I sort of went, there's something about this that's obviously uh attractive to these blokes. And I'm thinking, I haven't marketed this. I didn't go out and market this as some self-help group or some big fitness thing. I literally just spoke how I feel and what I'm going through and what I'm doing this for. Not going back to box at 35 to try and be someone. I'm going back to box at 35 because I need something for me and I want to get fit and healthy and have something to work towards. I'm not boxing in like you know, uh going from an amateur to having the fight at 35 in the pros. It's not because I'm going to try and be a professional boxer at 35 years old. I'm 35, I move different, I box different, and I don't like wearing headgear. I'll just do it in the pros. It wasn't this thing. It was just me talking from where I was at in my life, and it attracted so many guys in. And within week one, I started to realise so many of these guys are going through the same shit in their own way with their families and their work and their lives. And we were sitting down the first week of training, and then a couple of the boys were talking about different things, and I just said, Yeah, like I used to have a really bad coat problem. And sort of a few eyes opened up, and I was like, Yeah, like I was really bad for years. Like, this shit dictated my life. I thought it didn't, and I just started talking about I've always been pretty open about that. Done a lot of yuck, nasty things in my life, been a bad person many times in my life. Um, all conscious decisions that I made, but that's what I've done. So I was just very upfront and honest about what I'd done in my past and how it basically ruined my life, and how now like you've got to live with those consequences for a long time. But I was just straight up about it and the gambling. I was very open about how bad of a gambler I was, which is something I never really spoke too much about prior to a lot of people. But gambling was just shocking for me. And it wasn't like we were trying to force these conversations, it was just a natural conversation, and I just told the boys my experience in about 10 minutes, nothing major. And I feel like that built this level of trust between the boys and me that wasn't my intention. But that level of trust for the boys, I think a group of them, all of a sudden they felt like fuck, if the guy that owns this gym that's training with us is openly saying this, maybe I can sort of say something. I never encouraged one of them to speak about their lives. Drink drug, alcohol, excuse me, anything. And it just begun. And it wasn't like every day we sat down and spoke about drugs and drink or gambling or finances or struggling to pay your mortgage or mental health. Like that was never once the way that we did this. We never sat down and had these conversations like, all right, boys, sit in the circle, let's open up. It just became this thing where training was always the core thing. We turned up, we trained, we pushed, we had a laugh, we threw a bit of shit on each other, some banter, but we all pushed each other. And that just started making the boys go, Oh, I fucking got pissed on the weekend. Like I didn't want to do it, I did this, or I've actually got a bit of a gambling problem, boys. Like I'll be honest with you. And I'm telling this is the honest truth. They just started opening up to each other. And we had a group chat on Instagram, which also started to become another avenue for that. At the same time, there's different memes and gifts and piss taking getting thrown in, which is obviously that's what the boys do. I don't care what age you are, the boys have a laugh in a group. But it also became this sort of, I guess, like safe ground in the gym and in this group chat that you could just be honest about where you were at and what was going on. And even though maybe 30 or 40% of these boys had no drink, drug, alcohol, mental health problems, they just wanted to get a bit fitter, they didn't judge or feel like I don't want to be here because these guys are there, and these guys who were battling demons didn't look at these guys going, I shouldn't talk about this or whatever because they're not there. This thing just spiraled. And I've never seen anything like it. It wasn't forced, it wasn't intended. It was just get in, train, feel better. Here's my date that I'm working to, come train with me. 32 guys registered, one left within two weeks for reasons that were legit. 31 finished the program. 31 men finished a 10-week program. Every single one of them men got a result. Some got unbelievable physical results. They all got mental health results, they all made new mates, they all got a whole different level of connection. 31 out of 32 people made it to the end. That wasn't because I did anything or my team did anything to constantly try and get them in the gym. That happened because we made a simple system of training. My wife made a simple nutrition system. That's a very easy concept for anyone that owns a gym, any trainer. Creating the culture and the trust and the mateship is the hardest part. And when you force that and you try to control that culture, I've learned this. I tried to control this for years. I want it to go this way, I want it to go that way. That don't work. That doesn't work. You have to allow culture to be created within itself. And this thing, just by a bit of honesty and truth and having a laugh, a bit of banter, but at the same time pushing each other, this thing created this culture that I've never seen in my club before. These guys were just rolling on, pushing each other. This group chat's still live. Program ended seven months ago. The group chat's still live. The banter still goes in, the chat conversations still go on. Twine or 28 of the boys still train in classes and in the gym today, still turn up with each other for classes to train in general classes. They don't have to be here. There's no structure. They can pick and choose any time slot they want, but they choose to come together. I played golf with five of them yesterday. Like, we didn't most of us didn't know each other before the program or before the gym. Four of the six boys didn't even play golf before. But we went to golf because one of the boys had a birthday and he wanted to have a game of golf. No one felt like they should have to go. Everyone was like, yeah, it's Mark's birthday, let's go. Like I was pumped. I'm keen as it's Marky's birthday, let's go to golf. So we went up, excuse me, had a game of golf. The banter was good all day, the piss got taken, but at the same time, everyone was encouraging each other to keep playing. We didn't even have a beer. One of the boys had one beer, no one had a beer. Saying that, there's no encouraging them not to have a beer. Like, that's what's been unique about this. That's what's pushed it. There'll be no encouragement for drugs ever. I just there's no encouragement for drugs. I'm not going to judge or dictate, but there is no encouragement for the boys to ever take drugs. I will never encourage boys to gamble. Nor do I have a problem if they want to gamble. I had such a gamble on problem. I will never encourage men to gamble. And I will never encourage men. Men to drink. But on a social day going out to golf, and we've got two social days in each 10-week block, which is golf days, having a few beers with the boys on a golf course in the daytime, enjoying yourself a bit of banter, and then finishing up and going home to your families, that's a good positive outlet. Don't drink if you don't want to drink. But if you want to have a few beers, I'll have a few beers 100%. Get to the week five, week 10. I'll have maybe two or three beers on a game of golf, have a laugh with the boys, finish up, go home to my wife. Continue my life. I won't go out to the pub till three in the morning. I won't gamble $2,000. I won't get up the next day and go, fuck, what have I done? I'll go out and enjoy being around the boys for three or four hours, having a few beers, having a game of golf, and then I'll go home. And then I'll see them again on Monday and I'll go back to training. And it's that sort of culture in the first round that just made this thing run. And we're in 2026 now, and I went through another similar phase earlier this year, not nowhere near like I did last year, but it was like, right, starting to realize more and more, my energy here, here, and here, my time and effort here, here and here needs to be adjusted. I want to take that and I want to put that into something so positive, like local blokes. I want to now put a proper brand on local blokes. It was the 100 kg, we called it Fat Club at the time. It was a laugh. Most of the boys there at the stage were wanting to lose weight. And it was not, it didn't have the branding or all the things that went with it. But at the same time this year, now that I've realized, you know, this is where I want to be, I'm very excited to be here. I've still got that touch of competitive boxing with the right people in a small dose there. But my my energy and my focus is on my members, my gym, and my local blokes. I've also, you know, we've branded it now. Local blokes got some cool hoodies done and things like that. But it's very important that we don't now polish it. I don't want to polish it. I don't want to make it this big polished thing that everybody's like, wow, like it's got it, you've got to do this, you've got to do this, you've got to do this, you've got to do this, you've got to be here, you've got to commit to that. No, you don't. Some cool hoodies. Um, some training shirts and some retro footy jerseys I'm doing. That's it. Simple. Cool gear for the boys to rep and run. They all love wearing the gym stuff in the last one. They all love their shirts. They're all the boys that have signed up are asking me what the shirts will look like this time. There'll be shirts, they'll be hoodies, and there'll be the retro footy jerseys. Just normal stuff. I don't want to make it this massive, big, polished thing. The podcast, just having a chat about it, having a laughing about it, telling some stories. And we're up and we're running and we're four weeks out from the next one and we're already half full. And I've just started promotion for it now. But again, it's there's more to it than just training. It's about making mates, good culture, holding each other accountable. The nutrition is there. If you follow the nutrition, you're gonna get the result. If you do the training, you're gonna get the result. If work and family need to take priority, that's life. It'll take priority. We'll still be here the next day. You know, you've got a few different things, hoodies and shirts and fun stuff. You've got a social golf day, week five, and a social golf day, week 10. Then we have a two weeks off in the school holiday where you can just do normal gym classes and train, and then we start again for another 10 weeks. It's a very, very simple concept. To get a result, you have to be, you know, somewhat committed. To get a result, you need to follow the majority of the nutrition. To get a result, you need to turn up the training. But it's not about making this place the be all and end all. Family and friends needs to come, sorry, family and work need to come first. But this should be an add-on, a benefit to your life. And I've been doing that more and more and more myself in my gym and things in my life. And it's it's changed my whole mindset. I feel fantastic. And I'm excited to get into this program with the boys. And our little touch footy days. Again, not something they have to commit to. Do you want to have to go to golf? No. Do you want to come to golf? Yes. Come. Run a couple of touch footy days. You know, go down the park on a Sunday morning, throw the ball around. You want to bring the kids down? Sweet. We'll have a barbecue, throw the ball around, have a laugh. Get you out of there by 9.30 in the morning, you've got your whole Sunday ahead of you. No hectic commitments, no wild, you must do this, you must do that. Allow the boys to build the culture, allow the culture to create the consistency and the want to be there, and just have these few little things that make it a good environment. Giving the boys somewhere that they feel like they want to be, that they belong, that isn't a men's help group, that isn't just fitness, that ties into their life, that is it a positive in their life, that makes them feel better at home for their family, their wife, their kids, their girlfriend, whatever it might be. And there's no contact, there's no sparring. That's another thing, too. I'm not I'm not putting head contact in there. There's sparring classes in the gym. If they want to move into that, come over and do some of that. But there's no physical contact to your head or heavy contact to your body. Both of the sessions, so two sessions a week run for local blokes, 7.45 p.m. Monday, Wednesday. We chose the late slot for a reason. Some people go, oh, that's late. It is late, but it's only twice a week. You can commit to it twice a week. The reason it's late is so you can get home and sort the kids out from school. You can take them to footy training or take them to netball or whatever you've got to do. You can get them home, you can get them fed. You can see your wife. You can come down to the gym for 90 minutes and get home at nine. Yeah, two nights a week, it's late. Get the gym to yourself, we can pump music, have a good time, you can do all your things, and then outside of that, you can come to any of the classes or you can log into your app and follow your additional strength sessions any time of the day you want in the gym. The two sessions are extremely important: Monday, Wednesday. They're so important. That's where the culture's created, that's where the makeship's created, that's what creates cis consistency, and that's what's going to make you want to come back. So, you know, we're getting close, we're four weeks out. Um, this thing that by chance started with me wanting to go and lose weight and have another fight just to put myself in a better headspace turned into this accidental program that just exploded. The best results we've ever seen, the best consistency and retention we've ever seen, the best culture we've ever seen. Um, you know, and we're we're here now. We've branded it, we've set it up, we're ready to go. And like I said, I'm only gonna say it one more time. It's not a self-help group. You're not coming in here to have to talk about your problems. The boys are pretty cool. If you want to have a chat, they'll be there to have a chat. If you don't, you don't. You don't have to obsess over fitness. And the last thing that I'm gonna sort of touch on with that is gym culture in 2026. I'm a 36-year-old man now. I do not fit the modern day fashion and aesthetics of the fitness industry. I have no desire to, it's just not where I want to be. There's nothing wrong with it. There's so many gyms that are very modern in the way that it operates and the gym mindset and the different sort of training. Fantastic. This is just normal blokes turning up, training, feeling better, having a laugh, doing their thing. This is not a modern day um photo shoot fitness, fitness culture thing. This is just a bunch of blokes having a crack, having a laugh, getting a bit stronger, getting fitter. If you want to lose a bit of weight, you will lose weight if you follow the program, playing a bit of golf, maybe throwing the footy around, and creating some mates. And that in itself, that consistency, that belonging, that culture, will give you all the benefits and all the results that you need. I'm just on 30 minutes. I'm gonna wrap it up. That's the first one done. If you made it through, I appreciate ya. If you didn't, you won't even be hearing me say this, but thank you. The registration's now open. The link is sorry, the registration's open. Uh all you've got to do is go to our website, which is www.legacygym.net. As soon as you click the home page, you'll see that the registration's there. Go on, there's heaps of information, everything that's involved, the costs, the nights, the events. Have a read, register, and uh I'm looking forward to seeing all you boys at the back end of July. Let's do it.