The Forge GymMerthyr Tydfil · est. 2016Merthyr

Trainers

Four trainers, employed, one price.

Lowri, Gav, Jan and Kai are on the payroll, not renting floor space, so nobody needs to sell you a block to pay their rent. Each page says what they are good at and who they usually work with; the price is £35 an hour whoever you pick, and a block moves between them if the first match is wrong.

Lowri Thomas, a Welsh woman in her early thirties with dark hair in a high ponytail, in a black gym polo shirt, standing in front of a squat rackStrength and the barbell lifts

Lowri Thomas

Level 3 PT, British Powerlifting coach. Here since 2016

22 clients a week; coaches by numbers and video

Opened the gym with Gav in 2016 and runs the Forge Strength classes and the platforms. Lowri competed in powerlifting for six years and coaches the three lifts from the floor up, with a phone video of every heavy set and a number for next week. Half her clients are women who came in for weight loss and stayed for the deadlift.

  • Squat, bench, deadlift technique
  • Strength for women
  • Powerlifting beginners
  • Forge Strength classes
Train with Lowri
Gav Price, a stocky man in his mid-forties with a shaved head and a greying beard in a black gym polo shirt, arms folded by a dumbbell rackWeight loss and the over-forties

Gav Price

Level 3 PT, Level 4 obesity and diabetes. Here since 2016

20 clients a week; plain, patient, keeps a food diary with you

Co-founder, former steelworker, lost seven stone in his thirties and became a trainer because of it. Gav takes the people who have been told by a GP to do something, the over-forties who have not exercised since school, and anyone who wants the honest version of weight loss: the food diary, the walking, and two sessions a week they can keep up for a year.

  • Losing weight without living in the gym
  • Blood pressure, type 2 and the GP's letter
  • Men over forty starting from nothing
  • Circuits classes
Train with Gav
Jan Rowlands, a woman in her late fifties with short silver hair in a black gym polo shirt, standing in a bright studio with a row of kettlebellsMobility, rehabilitation and the over-sixties

Jan Rowlands

Level 3 PT, Level 4 lower back pain, yoga 200hr. Here since 2018

18 clients a week; gentle, exact, remembers your first day

Joined at fifty-one after a career in nursing and a back injury that a gym fixed. Jan runs First Steps, most of the inductions, the Mobility and Yoga classes and the Thursday over-sixties strength session, and works with two physios in town on rehabilitation plans. She is the reason half the daytime members are here.

  • Back, hip and knee rehab with your physio
  • Strength after sixty
  • First Steps and inductions
  • Mobility and Yoga classes
Train with Jan
Kai Morgan, a young mixed-heritage man in his mid-twenties with short curly hair in a black gym polo shirt, holding boxing pads by a heavy bagBoxing, conditioning and the under-twenty-fives

Kai Morgan

Level 3 PT, England Boxing coach. Here since 2021

24 clients a week; loud, encouraging, counts every rep

Boxed for the town club from eleven, coached from eighteen, joined the Forge at twenty-one. Kai runs Boxing Fitness, Saturday Conditioning and the one-to-one boxing, and does the conditioning for most of the rugby and football players who train here. The busiest trainer in the building and the loudest, in the right way.

  • Boxing technique, no contact
  • Conditioning for rugby and football
  • Teenagers with a parent's consent
  • Boxing Fitness and Saturday Conditioning
Train with Kai
  • 1,150members, no contract
  • 42classes a week
  • 9years in the Pattern Shop
  • 4.9average rating

Qualifications

What stands behind the four of them.

Level 3, and the specialisms

All four hold the Level 3 personal training qualification. Gav holds Level 4 in obesity and diabetes, Jan Level 4 in lower back pain and a 200-hour yoga certificate, Lowri a British Powerlifting coaching award, Kai an England Boxing coaching qualification.

Employed, insured, DBS checked

Salaried by the gym, insured through it, enhanced DBS checked every three years because teenagers train here, and first-aid trained with a defibrillator at the desk and another on the floor.

No commission on anything

No supplements sold, no commission on blocks, no target for sessions. The trainers are paid the same whether you buy one hour or forty, which is why the advice is about what you need.

One programme method

Every member\'s eight-week programme is written the same way by whichever trainer does it, so if your usual trainer is away the next one picks it up exactly, and your PT block moves between them without losing a session.

A personal trainer in a black polo shirt coaching a man in his fifties through a kettlebell deadlift in a gym with hands-on correction

The first session

An hour of questions, a few movements, and an honest number.

What you want, what you have done before, what hurts, what the week looks like. Then a few movements to see how you move. From that you get a plan with a number of sessions that is honest, which for most people is one a week for six to twelve weeks and then a programme to carry on alone with a check-in a month later. Some people keep a weekly session for years because they like it. Most do not need to, and the trainer will say so, because nothing here depends on you buying another block.

Personal training, prices and how it works

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.

Book the free weekMemberships