The quiet corner, First Steps, a free week and an induction: how half our members started
Beginners
If you have never been in a gym, or not for twenty years: a free week with no card details, an induction with a trainer, the quiet corner with no racks and no mirrors, First Steps classes three times a week, and a written programme that starts where you are. Half the people here started this way.
The hardest part of a gym is the door, and we have tried to make the door easy: a free week with no card, a trainer who meets you at the desk for your first visit, and a corner of the floor built so that nobody who does not want to be looked at is looked at. From there it is one small thing at a time, written down.
Day one: book the free week on this website and come in at any time the desk is staffed. A trainer meets you, shows you the floor, and does the induction: an hour, the kit you will actually use, and a programme for the first eight weeks written on paper and in the app. You can do the whole programme in the quiet corner if you like; it has mats, kettlebells, bands and light dumbbells and no mirrors. First Steps, the beginners' class, is three times a week and free in your trial week, with eight people and a coach who explains everything twice.
After the week, if you join, most beginners pick off-peak at £24 because the floor is quietest when they want it. Every eight weeks a trainer rewrites your programme for free, which is where the progress comes from; and when you want to try a rack or a class, a trainer walks you across. There is no pressure to, and some members stay in the quiet corner for years and are perfectly happy. Jan, who is fifty-nine, runs First Steps and most of the inductions, because she remembers her own first day.
What is included
- A free week, no card details
- An induction with a trainer on day one
- The quiet corner, no racks, no mirrors
- First Steps classes three times a week
- A written programme every eight weeks
- A trainer to walk you across when you are ready
What it costs
The free week costs nothing and takes no card details. After that, off-peak at £24 a month is where most beginners start, with the induction and the programme included. The membership page has the three memberships side by side, personal training prices and every extra. No contract, no joining fee.
Questions about beginners
I am overweight and self-conscious. Is this really for me?
Yes, and you will not be the only one. The quiet corner and First Steps exist for this. Jan will do your induction if you ask, and nobody on the floor will look twice, partly because there are no mirrors to look in.
I am seventy. Is there anything for me?
Plenty. Mobility, Yoga, First Steps and the off-peak floor are mostly over-fifties in the daytime, and Jan runs a Thursday morning strength session for the over-sixties that has a waiting list.
A free week. All of it. No card details.
Seven days of the floor, every class on the timetable and an induction with a trainer, booked with a name and an email. Join afterwards at the website price with no joining fee, or do not, and nobody rings you. About six in ten people join.