Club 300 Glasgow South

Mandy’s been with us a year, so I asked her what had actually changed.

She said her knees stretch better, her clothes fit, she feels fitter, and she’s walking more than she used to.

I’ll be honest, ten years ago I’d have been a bit disappointed with that answer. I’d have wanted the number. Something I could put on a graph and point at.

You see, the number does exist. We’ve got it… She just didn’t reach for it, and I’ve noticed over the years that the ones who stay tend not to.

Because a number on a scale doesn’t dictate how you actually feel week to week.

Your knees do, every time you get up off the floor or come down the stairs first thing in the morning. Your clothes do, every single morning. And walking more isn’t a decision you make, it’s just what happens once moving about stops being a chore.

That’s the stuff that actually matters in your daily life.

So here’s my invite. September’s intake is open, the application’s in our bio, there’s no call… you fill in the short form and I’ll send you a video back the next working day.

Club 300 Personal Training Gym - Glasgow

Three years ago this week we tore up how Club 300 worked and started again. I’ve never really told the whole story of how we got to that point, so it’s in the slides… every date, as it happened.

Reading it back, the thing that stands out isn’t the break-in or the rates bill. It’s that nearly every one of those punches landed while the gym outwardly was doing great.

Classes booked out, folk loving it, the coaches loving it, and me in the office working out how we were going to pay for the privilege.

For years I thought a full gym was the finish line. It turns out a full gym on the wrong model is just a busier way of being stuck.

So in September 2023 we stopped trying to be a cheaper commercial gym with better coaching, and just became a coaching gym.

It worked from the first month, but it looked like it wasn’t working for the best part of two years, because the people leaving were easy to see and the people joining were slow. Nobody warns you about that part.

I’ll be honest, I don’t think I’m a particularly good businessman. What I’m good at is turning up the next day, and the next day and the next day.

Which it turns out is the majority of it.

This is the first September in five and a half years I’ve felt ahead of the curve rather than chasing my tail.

6 of the 7 months of this year have sold out, the team get their holidays, and I’ve finally reduced my days from 6 down to 5 on the gym floor.

Next stop is 300 members on the new model, which is the number we had on the old one… only this time on a model that can we love to run.

If you’ve been following along for a while, thanks. A fair few of you were in that car park, and you know who you are.

And if you’ve been thinking about starting for a while, September’s open. The application’s in the bio, there’s no call, and I’ll send you a video back myself.

You’ve just read what it took to build the place. Turning up three times a week is a good deal easier, I promise.

Club 300 Personal Training Gym - Glasgow

Everybody can do the first week. The first week is easy.

It’s the Tuesday three weeks in that gets people… Twelve hours at work, the kids need fed, the rain’s pi***ng down, and the session’s at seven... and nobody on this earth would blame you for staying in the car.

That’s the night that decides it…

Not the plan, not the equipment, not how much you paid.

So that’s the night we built the place around.

Club 300 Personal Training Gym - Glasgow

Angela had never used a piece of gym equipment in her life when she walked in here.

Not once… she’d never had the January membership that lapsed, no half-arsed induction, nothing at-all.

And she told us straight out that she didn’t think she’d enjoy it. Which, to be fair, is about the most honest thing anybody’s said to me at a first chat.

You see, the thing folk are actually scared of isn’t the gym… It’s standing at a machine you’ve never seen before, trying to work out which end you sit on, while you’re convinced the whole room’s watching. Twelve years I’ve been doing this and I still hear a version of that every single week.

So here’s what happened with Angela… and it’s simpler than you’d expect.

She booked in, she showed up, and there was a coach beside her every session who already knew the programme, knew the kit, and knew she’d never touched any of it. Nobody left her at a station with a wee laminated card. Nobody stood behind her with their arms folded either… we’re not that kind of place.

And somewhere in those first few weeks, the bit she was dreading just ran out of steam. The word she used for the place, once she’d settled in, was non-intimidating… I’ll take that.

She’s in the gym training as I’m typing this, by the way… 4 years on.

The line on the picture is hers, word for word. “It’s given me back my self-confidence and now I feel like myself again.” I didn’t tidy it up. I couldn’t have written it better if I’d tried, and believe me, I’ve tried.

So here’s my invite to you. If the reason you’ve not started is the fear… the not-knowing, and being watched while you don’t know… that’s not a you problem, its a problem with the traditional gym model. It’s exactly what a coach is for, and it’s exactly what Angela walked in with.

Our September intake’s open. The application page is in our bio, there’s no sales call, and I’ll reply with a video the next working day.

Club 300 Personal Training Gym - Glasgow

The day before the gyms reopened after the first lockdown I sat and wrote a plan for every client I had. Just under fifty of them, just under sixteen hours. And when I read them back I was struck by how similar they all were.

And that wasn’t laziness on my part, it was the penny dropping

I’d been coaching the same sort of person for years… people who were living with the same sort of lives.

A busy job, kids, a social life, maybe their own business… and they just wanted to look and feel better without fitness running their life. Same goal, same wee obstacles, same busy weeks.

So the first building blocks of Club 300 Coaching were born.

We stopped writing fifty plans and did something much better…

Everyone here follows one programme, your coach adjusts it to where you’re at, and the job on our side is the bit that actually matters… making you comfortable, catching you when life gets messy, and building a place you’d want to keep coming back to. You show up and put the work in. 

All we ask is that you lift the weights and eat the food. We handle the rest.

FYI September’s a great month to test that, by the way. We have this biggest unbroken run of weeks you’ll get all year.

And the last slide’s got a real question. If you’ve started a new plan more than once and ended up in the same place a couple of weeks, tell me in the comments how long it usually lasts. I’ll not judge… remember I once wrote fifty nearly-identical plans in one day.

Club 300 Personal Training Gym - Glasgow

I spent ten minutes this morning staring at the wall planner in the office.

We’re building the Autumn training block just now, so I’d a pen out to mark off what’s left of the year. Sixteen weeks between today and Christmas. One school holiday in October, and that was the only real interruption that I could find.

You see, in twelve years of coaching, nobody has ever walked in and told me they’re starting because it’s September. But every January, half of Glasgow piles into a gym on the back of a promise they made themselves after a few glasses of fizz on Hogmanay… and I get it. A new year feels like a clean page.

But if you asked me to pick the best stretch of the year to change how you look and feel though, it’s the one I was drawing a box round this morning. September through December.

Your post-summer routine is already back - the school run, work, normal weeks on repeat.

And that’s the boring stuff where progress can actually be made, and you’re standing at the start of sixteen of those boring weeks.

So here’s my invite… Our September intake opened today, and as I type this all eight spaces are still open. The application page is in our bio. There’s no sales call - you fill it in, and I’ll reply with a video the next working day.

And if you’re planning to wait for January anyway, no hard feelings. I’ll still be here… probably still staring at the planner. It’s possible I need to spend a little bit less time at work.

Club 300 Personal Training Gym - Glasgow

Space hoppers, sack races and blind obstacle courses…

And to finish it off… a proper game of rounders 🏏

Be honest… when did you last do a sports day?

Primary school, probably.

Want to know what I learned…

Nobody has grown up at all 😂

Grown adults going at it about whether they were out or not.

One of the best days we’ve had all year.