School Talk: UAE

Michael Logue and the Story Behind Athlete Gym

• Chris Shrubsole • Season 1 • Episode 69

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Want to know how a gym thrives without leaning on hype or high-skill circus moves? We sit down with Michael Logue, founder of Athlete Gyms, to unpack how a people-first culture, clear programming, and genuine hospitality can outperform big ad spends in a crowded Dubai market. Michael traces his path from Manchester to Dubai, the early days coaching across multiple studios, and the leap to opening Athlete after building a loyal community that existed before the space did.

We dig into what makes functional fitness actually functional: accessible movements, coached well, with progressions and regressions that meet you where you are. Michael breaks down their eight-week training cycles and testing that give both beginners and advanced athletes a shared framework without the ego traps. We tackle the shifting landscape from CrossFit to hybrid events like Hyrox, why some skills don’t serve most people, and how to keep training fun, safe, and purposeful. If you’ve ever felt wary of group classes, you’ll hear practical ways Athlete lowers the intimidation factor, from midweek intro-friendly sessions to coaches who prioritise names, cues, and first impressions.

A highlight is the kids programme: building movement literacy, coordination, and resilience early so young people see effort as the superpower that levels the field. Michael shares why broad exposure to sports matters, how body awareness prevents the bad patterns many adults carry, and why gymnastics can be a brilliant foundation even if children later choose football, netball, or running. We also share plans for Dubai 30x30, including a free Topgolf takeover to welcome newcomers who might never step into a studio, and we spotlight the wider culture of collaboration in Dubai—run clubs, gyms, and communities growing the pie instead of poaching members.

For coaches and founders eyeing Dubai, Michael’s advice is blunt and useful: don’t send a CV and wait. Show up, meet people, and contribute until your presence speaks for you. If you value coaching that cares and community that lasts, this conversation will give you clear steps and fresh motivation. Enjoyed the episode? Subscribe, leave a review, and share it with a friend who needs a nudge to try functional fitness.

SPEAKER_01:

So for us, community is huge. I think community is probably the biggest, the biggest factor for s for success for any gym. But as long as you're doing something that's kind of positively moving your body, it's how you engage with that new person, it's how you engage with that client that's been there for a year, it's how you engage with each and every person because that's what is going to build the business, that's where people are going to come back, that's why people are going to have a good experience and you know give good feedback to somebody else. It's all about that. And that's and that again comes from a natural, that's how you should be, anyway.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome back to the Dubai 3030 mini series, where we're celebrating movement here for the Dubai Fitness Challenge. Thank you so much for joining us for this mini series. Really hope you enjoy it and let's crack on with today's episode. Welcome back to another episode of School Talk. This week I'm joined by Michael Logue, the founder of Athlete Gyms. First of all, thank you for joining us. Thank you. And today we're going to talk about Athlete Gym, a bit about your story, and then we'll go from there. So, who are you? What do you do? What are you doing here? Go from there.

SPEAKER_01:

Um, who am I? Michael, so Michael Logue, uh from Manchester originally, moved to Dubai just over two and a half years ago. Uh came out as a sort of full-time coach, hadn't ever been a full-time coach before. Um, moved out, um, yeah, and then kind of just went from there really. Started working across gyms uh in Dubai, worked for F-45 originally, across their seven studios, worked for another gym, um and then found myself in a position whereby I'd built a community and then went and opened my own space, which is now athlete, um, and then kind of gone from there. That's very short and a short way of saying what what what I've where I've come from and where I am now, but yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And athlete, what was the the motivation behind that? And if you had the community and then thought you want a consistent place to have them together, kind of yeah, it was kind of it all kind of happened randomly.

SPEAKER_01:

There was no real, you know, originally when I moved out to Dubai, it was going to be kind of six months and we were probably gonna be leaving after that. Um so it wasn't really any long-term plan to be here as such. Uh, but I kind of yeah, just found myself with a community without a without a space, was renting spaces to sort of uh train them and stuff, and then got approach kind of for investment from a lot of different people, yeah. Um but ended up meeting sort of my business partner, Zomar and Faddy, through through that kind of and basically then went on to sort of uh find the find the location and open the gym from there, which was which has been great.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and biggest challenge you'd say along the way?

SPEAKER_01:

Touch wood. I've not I don't think I've had any big challenges to be honest. Um all in all, it's been pretty smooth sailing. Yeah. I'm gonna kick myself saying that, but it's been it's been pretty smooth sailing. Of course, there's been like little hiccups along the way, but overall, you know, just obviously your construction in terms of that side of things, that's always a bit of a bit of a nightmare. But even that, you know, we we found the location in I think uh we got the location in April and we opened in July. So even that from a time frame perspective was pretty quick. So it's all in all.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, construction here, anything can happen so quickly, yeah. That even I suppose if you use the renovations on this house, yeah, it takes two, three months, it's completely transformed, yeah, for sure. Yeah. And you've come into a market that there's gyms everywhere that you've got a real densely populated market. Why is Athlete different? What would you say? Why do you think it's been so successful?

SPEAKER_01:

I think uh I think a few things, I think in terms of like where the trend of fitness has kind of gone. I think fitness is fitness at the end of the day. You know, there's no real there's no massive differences between the gyms as such. Um I think what we're doing is just functional fitness, it's basic basic fitness really, but just done well. Um I think we're focused predominantly along sort of performance with sort of uh your everyday people, um, and kind of how we've you know put the sort of program together in terms of the sessions and stuff. It kind of works for your everyday person all the way up to sort of like your elite athlete. So, you know, we have kind of a massive, varied sort of level. Um, and I think to be fair, I think we just we we've just been very not lucky, but we've just built we've built a very nice community of people, like-minded individuals that all kind of after the same thing, and it's all just it's grown just very organically and naturally. Um we've not really done any any mass mass massive marketing into it. Um and I think just the way like there was when I even when I moved two years ago, there was a lot of CrossFit gyms, there wasn't many functional fitness gyms um as such, but now there's more and more of them, yeah. Um, or seems to be anyway, and yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you think there's a decline in CrossFit? I guess like I was I used to do all that CrossFit. Yeah. Slow as I got older, slowly moved away from it. I think that's from an injury perspective, an enjoyment perspective, yeah, all of it. But I think like you said there, it's still fitness, isn't it? It's just how it's defined or how it's branded specific to you.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly that, and I think to be fair, I think I think I think there's a big trend in terms of hierarchies and then these sort of hybrid functional fitness events at the minute, and that might be a a trend for a little bit and then that might go. Um, but I think at the minute it does seem to be like sort of massively trending as such. But CrossFit, is it dying?

SPEAKER_00:

To be fair, I think if you even attack CrossFitters, I think CrossFitters would say like uh it is dying a little bit because I think elite CrossFitters that are now doing high rocks events, yeah, training, kind of I guess hybrid between those two sports, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, exactly. And I think I think CrossFit is to be fair, CrossFit is just you know, I the reason why I never kind of got into it is it's just like the gymnastic side of things, it's just not something that excites me. I'm just very much like pure fitness, that's what excites me. I'm not too bothered about learning skills. I've like fair play to all of the athletes that do it because it's an incredible amount of time that you have to put into it, but I think for your everyday person as well, it's not necessarily beneficial for you to be doing hand-stand walks, hand-stand push-ups, and that's exactly why I stopped because you've gone from you'd see the workout, it's got muscle ups, rope climbs, and yeah, hand-stand walk in.

SPEAKER_00:

And you're like, one, um I can't do two of the three things, and then three, is it a would I rather do bench press? Yeah, just a bit like let's shift away from that. You said there about you've got serious athletes, everyday athletes. How do you create an environment where they're all training together?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so to be fair, so the way that it's structured, we work off sort of eight-week cycles, so we test at the start and test at the end. So whether it's myself or it's you know your everyday gym go who's kind of only been going to say F-45 and this has now come to us, or or whatever, they kind of we all get the same test at the start, so we're all working off our own numbers moving forward there. Um so that's why it is, and then obviously there's always sort of varied sort of um levels basically to all the workouts. Um, so it can literally be from your everyday beginner to somebody that is say more advanced. You know, I took part in a session this morning, um, and I probably take part in sort of the Monday to Thursday because that's where kind of we have like a structured program as such. Um, but yeah, just from those tests alone, it just allows people to work to sort of different levels. Yeah. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you think that whole fitness class thing can be overwhelming? I've been like the first time that I came to Athlete, you don't know who goes there in terms of what level you're at. Yeah, I'd say I don't know, six out of ten fitness, whatever it is, but you still compare yourself to other people. So breaking down those barriers, is that a difficulty or is it just Yeah?

SPEAKER_01:

I think I think massively. I think you know, even if you look like socials alone, I think you look on socials and say, for example, you see a video of a weekend class where there's loads of blokes with the tops off, you know, it's you know, it's it's probably pretty, pretty intimidating. But I think that's it, it's kind of important to kind of get that message across that you know, whatever level you are at, that you can uh you can come to a class, you can still enjoy it. I always say to people, like, for example, people sometimes bring their friends on a Saturday and Sunday, and I'm always like, ease them in with like a midweek class, don't be bringing them on a Saturday, because it's quite overwhelming because you've got so many people there and so many people pushing hard. Whereas obviously, if you are a beginner, you do need a little bit more attention, you do need that a l a little bit more of that. So I always recommend people whenever they bring their friends who have never been to the gym before on a Saturday, I'm like, you cruel, cruel person.

SPEAKER_00:

Um but yeah, I think people shouting at each other, dripping sweat on each other, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's a small and it's a small space, so it's it's very yeah, everyone is very all over each other, really. But yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And in terms of you've got the adult classes as well, but that you've got a kids programme. Yeah. Talk to us a bit about the kids program.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so we brought in a kids programme, it's something that kind of we had always wanted to do. Um because also I think for I think you've got so much stuff that kind of you've got your kids playing football, all different sports, so something to kind of complement that, and you know, I think there's not really there's not really much of that in sort of Dubai. Um so it was something that we thought would complement kind of kids' sports and stuff like that, and something that we could kind of incorporate in and around the program um with the adults and stuff. So it's been it's been really good. We have we have Tiana who's specializing kids um classes, so she worked in Abu Dhabi and and and moved and worked for us. Um and she's incredible. Like if you ever see her interact with kids, like she has like some sort of magic spell that she can work on kids because they actually pay attention to her, they don't pay attention to me. So you're not uh not a fan of the kids' classes? I'm a fan of I I'm a fan. I actually took one last week while Tiana was away and it was good, but um yeah, she's she's a different level.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and then like you said, there's the it's supplement in other sports they do. Some kids just aren't into sport. So we were talking about this last night. The kids were like, Oh, I don't understand what kids do if they don't do sport. Yeah, but that's only because our kids are exposed to it from a young age. Yeah. So talk to us about why it's so important, do you think, to expose kids to could be sport, could be fitness, just that whole business world.

SPEAKER_01:

I think I think to I think to be fair, a big thing about it is is that what I always say to people is you know, even from a from an adult perspective to a kid's perspective, if you go and do Pilates or you come to us, as long as you're doing something that's kind of positively moving your body, not all of us are gonna have the same likes and likes, you know, and we're not all gonna want to do hierarchs, we're not all gonna want to do these events. Some people literally will happily go do Pilates, yoga, and get the steps in. Like, fair. I think if each each person is different, I think one thing with fitness is you know, if you're not particularly, as a child, you're not particularly skilled footballer, you're not particularly skilled rugby player or or whatever sport you do, you know, fitness is the only thing that actually matters is the amount of effort you put in. You can be as fit as you want to be, but it's all just due to the amount of effort you put into that. Um, and I think it's just a good thing to instill within kids. I think you know, my background of you know, running when I was a kid, and that's what's kind of made me sort of as probably fit as I am now, but also mentally as sort of resilient as I am now. Um, so I think fitness in terms of just getting into that at an early stage, like I would have loved to have been doing what these kids are doing, like going on the ski, like learning how to row, like all these little things. Like, you know, you get adults that come in now and like their movement patterns, their body awareness is so so poor, really, and it's because they probably, you know, they've just come into it at such a late stage, and obviously at that stage it's very hard to get out of those bad habits that you've created. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, it's interesting because we've heard people talk about kids' fitness before, and you've got P teachers say kids come to school and they they can't jump, they're so underskilled. Yeah. Whereas you've got some kids that are exposed to so much at this age as well. So I'd say, like, from your perspective, how would you get a parent to convince the kid that exercise is not a chore? They're not doing it because they feel like they have to. How do you promote that love of it?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think I think to be fair, I think if I obviously don't have kids, but I think if I did have kids, I think I would try and expose them to absolutely everything.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, across the board. And because you know, something will stick. You know, I I I I remember as a as a kid I was exposed to everything. I went and played cricket, I went and played golf, hated them, got all the gear. Yeah, I got I got all the gear. I just don't have the pa I like I don't have the patience for it, I didn't have the desire for it. Like I much prefer sort of arduous, like a bit of a a sport where you can you know controlled aggression sort of thing. Um so yeah, I think being exposed to all sports and kind of finding what fits you, because obviously, again, everyone is is different in that sense. Obviously, they think there's things that if I were to promote to my kids, I I know what I would want them more specifically to do. But that's only from a very like perspective of I think that would be great for them later down the line. Like a selfish interest.

SPEAKER_00:

I want my kids to play netball football, probably a little bit of running as well. But that's just because I enjoy those things, yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

I I would I always think I wish I could have done well, I did so I did running, so that was my thing, but I wish I'd maybe done gymnastics.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Because and the only reason being is because I feel like it's such a good base level and like such a good way of understanding your body, body awareness, all that sort of stuff. So, you know, I'm not saying I'm not saying if I have kids that all they'll be doing is is is running in gymnastics, but I think I would I would definitely try and expose them to that, and if they liked it, they liked it. If they didn't, they didn't.

SPEAKER_00:

I read something that a dad had had kids that were all grown up, and he said, I made my kids do gymnastics up until 12. They were exposed to everything else than that, but gymnastics was the only thing that kept them up. And then when they got to 12, then they got to pick what sport they enjoyed most. Yeah. Because you don't know until you know, do you? Yeah. So if you've never done I don't know, shooting, but you love it, and it's then you just expose them to it. Yeah, it's what it is, yeah. Um Dubai 3030. This episode is going out during Dubai 3030. Um fitness movements like that, I think, my perspective, they're a great way just to get people moving, just to encourage it, to give more awareness of it. Um, you doing anything specific for it, for athlete?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, we've actually got an event which we've not announced yet, but we've got an event that we're gonna be doing with Top Golf. Um, so we're gonna be doing a free event with them at Top Golf, um, which will be super cool. Um, and yeah, we've got little little other bits and pieces, but that's kind of the main one that we're doing. Um but yeah, it's it's it's a super cool thing. Um the event at Top Golf will be good fun because we're just gonna take over basically in the morning the whole area. Um in the bays or on the actual grass itself? In the actual grass on the actual grass as well. Um so that'll be cool. But as a as a as a thing, it's yeah, it's cool because I don't think many other countries kind of have this where you have a full month of just fitness, which is put across all over.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, yeah, if you go on to Kite Beach, absolutely huge the spread. Yeah, like when I first moved here, there was little bits and schools would do a little bit, but now it's full on closing Shakeside Road to get hundreds of thousands of people running down it to end the class, how how far it's come, yeah. And you said there earlier about the community and people. Well, how important is that, would you say, not just athlete, but to fitness to all of it?

SPEAKER_01:

I think it's massive, especially in the UAE. I think we're all we're all away from home, technically, for the most part. Um so having that, you know, and I think also as well, I always think, you know, how do you actually meet people if you're if you're working in a you're either gonna meet people through your work or if especially if you're in a relationship, if you're in a relationship, you're gonna meet people through your work, but you're not gonna go to a pub by yourself and go up to a random bunch of guys and be like, hello mate, you're all right, probably not gonna sit through that, are you? So having something where you can go to sort of a gym or you know, the amount of the amount of members that we kind of have who have moved over to Dubai and have come to the gym and now have got lifelong friends and are doing stuff with these people on the weekend and all that sort of stuff. And I think so, yeah, we're very community driven. I think without the community, we wouldn't you we wouldn't nearly be doing as well as we are, you know, even going to training this morning that everybody in that space in the class that I did, everyone knows each other, everyone's sitting there having a coffee beforehand and then having a coffee afterwards and chatting and getting on, and I think that makes you know the whole experience that much better. Um so for us community is huge, and I think to be fair, I think looking across all the gyms in Dubai, I think community is probably the biggest the biggest factor for s for success for any gym basically.

SPEAKER_00:

Um yeah, yeah, I think everything that's been on this podcast is all people related, no matter what your industry is or what you're trying to service you're trying to provide, if you don't have the people skills and the community skills, realistically you're not successful. Yeah. If you go into like a hostile environment, people aren't gonna go back to the gym. Yeah. It's funny you said about walking up to strangers in the pub. So like here's probably the only country in the world you could do that. Yeah. Whereas I would never do that in London. Yeah. Because you've got your group of mates, like, oh nah. I don't want to you couldn't ask someone, do you want to play golf this weekend? Yeah. I feel like they think you're coming on to them. But here, because everyone has moved here, like it's not their home. People are a little bit more open-minded that way. Yeah. I mean, I never have done that, but I said the gym is an easier way to do that. I might try now so you let you know how. Exactly, yeah. Um, and in terms of obviously your journey from being in Dubai has moved quite quickly. Yeah. From coming moving here to owning a gym to things like that. What would you say is that's the first two and a half years? What's going to happen in the next two and a half years? Yeah, good question. Very good question.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh the first two and a half years has been, yeah, it's been absolutely mad to be fair. Even from, as I said, like it wasn't the uh plan wasn't to stay here long term, it was always going to be kind of an initial see how it goes and then move. You know, I I even I didn't even want to move to Dubai, I had no ambition to ever live here. I thought Dubai Had you been here before you moved here? No, I'd never really been here before. Didn't want to come. It was kick, it was kicking and screaming coming. Um but yeah, moved out and it's kind of obviously all gone sort of one way. I think in terms of now I've kind of built built a bit of a name for myself. Um so it's trying to kind of obviously just keep that momentum moving forward. I think also we've got a good great product in terms of athlete uh and what we offer, and also it's just about trying to now do things that are bigger and better for the community and building that out and trying to reach and expose that to more people. And that's not even from a you know a financial perspective, it's it's something that I just kind of believe. I've got something kind of so good, and the fact that we have such an amazing community of of people, I want to kind of offer that to more people, and you know, obviously where we are at the minute, we're in our coups, which is a great location, but also in terms of you know, it's not in sort of especially with the traffic nowadays, it's not the best location for, for example, for an evening, yeah, because you know, you just it's not a residential area, people for the most part go to gyms for convenience. So the idea now will be to we're gonna do a lot of events this year, um, which will be you know community engagement, all that sort of sort of piece, and then we're gonna look to sort of build out hopefully some competitions, and then we're gonna basically at some point hopefully we'll you know look look later down the line to open open more locations, yeah. Um, which is exciting. Um, but yeah, for me it's just I want to expose what we have to as many people as possible and build that out um and kind of just give people what I believe is a great product and is also gonna sort of add value to their lives. So um I think that's the big thing. I think continuing on what we've what we've already created, but building on from that and adding just more and more value to our current customers and future customers, basically.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, we spoke briefly before this. At what stage is Athlete successful because of you? Michael Lowe as a brand, or is it successful because of Athlete itself?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh good one. Um I think initially it was maybe successful because of me and my name, because originally it was just myself and then and then Bree came on board. But I think now, like I think I've got a lot of very good coaches, um, and I've kind of taken a step back now because what I don't want it to be is I I never wanted it to be about me, I wanted it to be about Athlete, about the brand, about what we stand for. Um so I think moving forward, I think it's slowly going away from me now, and I think it's good to a certain extent, you know. Like I think we spoke about it just before. If people are coming into the gym and they don't have no idea who I am, that's like that's great because that's that's probably where we want to be more of. Um, and I think it is move. I have I've had a couple of times where people have no idea who I am, and I'm like, oh really, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um but no, it must be a good thing because you've come because of the community, because of the gym, not because of you. So like you said, if you can move away from that, it must be a you must look back and look at it from afar and think, I'm so proud of this.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. And they are, and like we've got, as I said, like the the athletes and coaches that we have now are all insane in their own right. Like, you know, they're all incredible athletes. So people are coming because they've heard of these people now and not not because of me. Um but yeah, I think for from a business perspective, it needs to be that it's about athlete and it's not about me. Yeah because you know there's no there's no growth, growth in it if it's if it's all about me and I'm I'm the one man marching band because I can't do it all. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and you've got you said there about the community and adding value. So there's obviously we said about there being lots of competition and different gyms and stuff, but I feel like in the fitness space, people are very at ease with that. So obviously you try and that's why you did an event with the hybrid run club this weekend, and you kind of try and bring each other up as opposed to snatch each other's members and things like that. Yeah. I think from a I guess an outsider perspective, looking at these different gyms and communities, you try and encourage people are encouraging to bring them together as opposed to moving apart. Whereas you compare it to schools, kids are like, no, we want bums on seats, we want those kids in our school, no matter where we take them from. So I think that fitness community side of it is fantastic, it's really good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I think you know, if you look I always look at, you know, on a weekend we're super busy, and I sometimes look around at other gyms, you know, like the den projects, like all these sorts of places, you know, they're busy. There's there's there's so and the biggest the biggest thing for us is not stealing each other's clients at the end of the day. For for me anyway, personally, it's all about exposure to the people that are intimidated to fitness, that don't see that they could possibly come to an athlete class to go to any other gym class. If we can expose ourselves to those people and get those people to enjoy fitness, because for the most part, the reason why people don't enjoy stuff initially is because they don't feel that they can do it, they're intimidated by it, and they feel that you know they're going to be out of place. If we can if we can offer an environment whereby that is, you know, welcoming and they can come in, they can feel at ease, they don't, you know, they're not worried about other people having their tops off, they can just be comfortable in their own skin and just get out get along and have a good workout, then that's that's the sort of you know market work we need to sort of expose ourselves to and push towards. And that's one thing that I, you know, I had a meeting with all the coaches yesterday, and out of everything that I want them to take take away from the meetings that I harp on about every single week, is all about you know how you are with people, it's how you engage with that new person, it's how you engage with that client that's been there for a year, it's how you engage with each and every person because that's what is going to build the business, that's where people are gonna come back, that's why people are gonna have a good experience and you know give good feedback to somebody else. It's all about that. And that's and that again comes from a natural that's how you should be anyway. And it's not something I to be fair, luckily, it's not something I do really have to tell them too much about, but it's something I always you continually you know say if you're there for two hours a day and you're doing two classes, you can work in those two classes, you have a few new people, make sure that they feel like it's that second home, like they feel super welcome and super invited in. Um so yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Because yeah, first impressions, I know some people say they don't matter, but for me they're absolutely everything. Yeah, and it doesn't take much to hi, how you do it. My name's Chris, welcome to the class. And just all of a sudden they're like, oh, okay, they've taken they know I'm new, I've taken the time to do that. Yeah, but little things go such a long way, yeah, for sure. Yeah, 100%. Um if you were gonna give one piece of advice to someone starting a fitness business in Dubai, what would it be? What would it be?

SPEAKER_01:

I always say to anybody that's moving over to Dubai, don't if you're especially if you're in fitness, do not send your CV to anyone. Nobody will look at it. Like I personally wouldn't look at a C V if it was sent to me, like unless I had already known who who you were. Yeah, you know, the biggest thing I think the biggest thing I did when I first moved over was I went to as many gyms as possible. I spent the first like three weeks sunbathing a little bit and going to like loads of gym classes, going exposing myself to as many people as possible, getting front facing, you know, having those conversations, introducing myself. Um, that's the biggest thing. I think and I think from there, you know, I I don't the the fitness market is is saturated here. You know, it's hard to stand out. I think you know, you you will you you potentially could struggle, but I think it's as you say, it's about those personal relationships, building those and you know, getting in front of people. I am more of a fan and way more likely to hire somebody, or you know, if people come in, they just are there. For example, Dave, David Kelly, one of our coaches, he spent well, and I don't think he did this just for the job, but he I think he liked training it, training athlete. But he basically moved to moved to Dubai, ended up getting a job somewhere else, but trained at athlete for for the entire time he was here. And then eventually I was just like doesn't show much about the place he was working in. Well, to no, to be fair, I think it was just I think he just really enjoyed what we had to offer, yeah, and it was kind of what he had done back home. Um, and it that was kind of like you know, he he showed interest, he he was always there, you know. We had conversations continually because he was always there and built that kind of relationship, so it was quite an easy, easy fit. Um, so I think yeah, I think the biggest advice would be get front facing, you know, build something, you know, even as you talked about the hybrid run club, those boys they've done an incredible job. They're all they've all got full-time jobs, some of them are teachers, some of this, and you know, they've built a community of like-minded individuals that are all kind of striving after the same thing, you know, just be that little bit better, and like kudos to those boys because they've they've they've done something really incredible over such a short space of time and built something. Um, and that's kind of what you need to do, you know, like just be your authentic self, unless you are not a good person, then don't but be your authentic self and you know that will shine through because you know what those boys are doing, they're not offering something, they're not there's no real difference between their track night and somebody else's track night, but it's the it's the how they are as people, how they engage with people, how they make people feel, and that's why that's done so well. You know, you've got everyone going there, you've you know that none of them are even co none of them are full-time coaches. You've got but you've got full-time coaches from other gyms going to track night. I've been to track night. Oh, yeah and it yeah, and it's really, really good, really, really well put together and really just nice nice community. So, yeah, I think just uh be your authentic self.

SPEAKER_00:

But I think that authentic self there, if you're not authentic, you get found out so quickly as well that you can tell if people are in it for I guess the wrong reasons. If you're not your heart's not in it, that shines through because then you're not like you said there, you don't feel obliged to go and speak to someone and say welcome. That's just your personality. Yeah. So if that's you feel that that's a chore, then people will stop coming, you'll get found out, and then it'll be no good anyway. Yeah, and I think that's not fit to not not just fitness, that's everything. Yeah, if you're a teacher, welcome a kid in the classroom, you know, here we go again. Yeah. I can say that I don't teach anymore, so easy enough. Um but yeah, I appreciate your time coming on the show. No, thank you for having me. Yeah, really, really good. Um, I'll put all of athletes' information. If you want to go and experience a class, as you said, don't go on a Saturday, keep yourself in to a different day of the week. Yeah, I've not actually done a Saturday class yet. Have you no? No, I've only done midweek and Sundays. Yes, Saturdays are Saturdays are good. Explain what is a typical Saturday workout.

SPEAKER_01:

Saturday is send it Saturdays, so there's some element of it where it is basically just full throttle, all out as hard as you can. Yeah. Um, so it's probably one of the more exciting classes because there is that element of just going as hard as you can over a short space of time, um, which is why people probably absolutely love it. But yeah, it's good.

SPEAKER_00:

And then I should have asked this earlier on functional fitness, what is functional fitness? So we spoke a bit about CrossFit and all that. Explain to somebody who is potentially that customer that you want to get into the gym, who doesn't know what functional fitness is but wants to get involved.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, in simple terms, it's basically easily accessible movements. So there's going to be there's going to be nothing that's going to be particularly complicated when you come to a gym class. You know, there's going to be, as we talked about earlier, there's not really any hands on wall. Walks, muscle ups or anything like that. It's you know accessible movements that everyone can do. And you know, there's always going to be a regression or a progression for those exercises. So, you know, depending on your ability, you'll there will be something that will suit you. You know, whether you can't back squat for whatever reason, you could do a goblet squat, or you could we you know you could even just do an air squat, you know. Um so there's always gonna be that kind of it's but it's basically in in very simple terms, it's just easily accessible movements for your everyday person.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and those movements are coached as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah, that's the big thing that I think some people worry about main gyms, is to go in there, deering headlights, not knowing what's going on. Yeah, yeah, arguing for a squat rack and none of there's none of that.

SPEAKER_01:

There was a coach there to look after you and make sure you're alright.

SPEAKER_00:

Perfect. Okay, well, yeah, thanks again for coming on the podcast. Thank you. Really appreciate it. Um, as always, if you find this episode interesting or you think someone might learn from it, or you think someone might want to go to athlete, share it with them, and we continue to grow. My name is Chris Rob Sol. This has been School Talk. Bye for now. There we go.