fit20 Interview

This week we interviewed Duncan Attwood from fit20, a strength training exercise company. Exercise and wellness has been in the forefront of the public eye for several years now, there are several methods that are popular, however how effective are they?

Duncan has been in the training industry for 20 years and he explains why he chose Fit20 as his path forward.

Tell me a little bit about yourself.

I got into training from quite a young age. When I was a child I was overweight, my parents were traditional in that I was told to eat everything that was on my plate, however was never pushed into exercising to counter the amount that I was eating.

As a child I also had asthma and several other health issues and because of these health issues, I was on a lot of medication.

Due to my health, I wanted to be a doctor as I thought this would be the best way to help myself and also others. However my opinion changed by chance when I had the opportunity to go kayaking.

I enjoyed it and was actually very good, I was fortunate enough to be trained by Olympic coaches and as I carried on with kayaking, I noticed that not only my physique changed, but more importantly my health conditions disappeared. My asthma went and I no longer needed my inhaler. I realised that his came about from the exercise I was doing and this was when my perspective changed. I discovered that your health could be managed through fitness hence why I went down the fitness route.

I took a degree in sports science then progressed to do a masters in sports science and ended up in the fitness industry working with the big gyms such as David Lloyd, various golf clubs etc.

Why did you choose fit20?

Throughout my career, I noticed that some people even though they were training hard, weren’t getting the same results as others who were training at the same level.

This is usually because when it comes to exercising, we are left to figure out what to do.

An analogy I like to use is when your car needs an MOT, you take it to the garage; the mechanics know what they are doing, and as they are the experts and you leave them to it.

Imagine that your body is a vehicle, it moves around you and the muscles are the engine that moves you around. If you go to a traditional gym, it would be the equivalent of you taking your car to a garage for an MOT and the mechanic says to you, here are the tools and all the parts you need, crack on and do it yourself.

You might get results, you might not. Alternatively you could get a personal trainer who understands the mechanisms of exercise and helps you tune up your body with you. At Fit20, this is exactly what we do. We look at the science behind effective training so that we can make sure that you are getting the results you want.

Tell me a bit more about fit20.

Fit20 is a franchise that started out in Holland. In Holland they have over 130 studios, it’s a well-known brand and they are doing extremely well.

The company has expanded into 10 different countries and recently came to the UK.

You have a phrase “We improve your health by adding strength to your life.” Can you clarify what this means?

What this means is that our way of training is focused around you getting stronger.

What most people don’t realise is that your muscles are the gateway into your body for numerous health benefits. We have clients that have dropped their blood pressure – one member has dropped his blood pressure by 20% and his doctor attributes it to the activity and training we’ve been doing with them.

It helps people with COPD - chronic obstructive pulmonary disease which is a group of lung conditions that make it difficult to empty air out of the lungs because the airways have become narrowed.

Don’t get me wrong – we can’t cure COPD with exercise; however what we have found is that those suffering from COPD are able to breathe easier after training with us. The reason for this is that by doing strength training and building up your muscles, the muscles become better at using the oxygen that they have. So although an individuals lungs and lung capacity remain the same and have limited capacity to intake oxygen, due to their body being more efficient at utilising that little oxygen, they find that they are able to perform activities more easily. One of my members with COPD judged the effectiveness of his training by seeing how far he could walk before needing to stop and take a breathing break. Prior to fit20, he would walk to his pub and halfway there would need to stop and recover his breath. As he progressed in his training, he found that he could walk further without needing to stop. He can now quite easily walk to the pub and back again without needing to pause for a break once.

What do you think are the main reasons people come to you?

Most people come to us to improve their physique. They want to tone up, lose weight, get better defined muscles etc. However, we look at the other health benefits associated with strength training.

Could you explain a bit more about other the health benefits?

Well a big one that has helped our members is back ache.

Visualise your spine and then visualise the muscles supporting your spine. If the muscles aren’t balanced, you end up having weak spots in your back and it pulls you out of alignment. Quite often the misalignment comes from bad posture, poor lifting techniques, slouching on the sofa, sitting at your desk for hours on end.

Your back obviously isn’t designed to have the muscles lock or for your spine to be misaligned. We focus on building up the muscles in your back so that it is best able to support your spine and more often than not, this type of training has meant that the back pain goes away.

You do that in one session a week for 20 minutes?

Yes! Don’t get me wrong, it may only be 20 minutes a week, however it is intense training. We do a full body workout that gets you really sweating until you hit muscle failure.

The beauty of strength training is that unlike cardio where you burn calories whilst doing the exercise, strength training means that you are burning calories up to 24 hours after having done the work.

With the exercise being such a short period, it means that people are more likely to stick with it. Again another analogy (in case you haven’t noticed I do like my analogies), is think of it as brushing your teeth. No one wakes up excited and looking forward to brushing their teeth. However we know the consequences if we don’t do this, so even though brushing your teeth is a chore - as it’s such a minor inconvenience, we don’t mind doing it and this makes the activity more sustainable in the long term.

To give you an idea, the 2nd person I ever signed up, is still with me. The first is only not with me as he’s gone traveling around the world. Most of my long term members are dedicated and ensure that they don’t miss a session.

Who do you think this type of exercise is suitable for?

To be honest, I know this may sound clichéd but I do feel that it is suitable for everyone. Our marketing is usually aimed at people between 40-65. The reason being is that after the age of 30/35, your growth hormone naturally declines; it’s a normal part of aging. If you do nothing about it, you start to lose muscle mass and ultimately bone density as well. People tend to find that past 40, they find themselves more sluggish and don’t understand what’s going on with their body, it seems as if it’s not performing as well as they would like it to.

With our style of training, we give you back that strength and then some. We have a lot of data compiled over the years from our members and how they have performed and the analysis backs up the work that we do.

We chart your progress quite thoroughly and we use this data to show that regardless of what your physical fitness levels are when starting training with us, you will get 30-50% stronger in the first year.

30 – 50% stronger in your first year is impressive! Is this service only available in Exeter?

We are based in Exeter, near the Met Office, in the building that has a Starbucks.

A lot of our clients are locally based; however we also have clients that come in from much further afield. Some of them need to be in Exeter on a regular basis and because our exercise is so short, they maximise their time there by training with us on that day. Others will tie it in with a shopping trip to Exeter.

Are you looking to expand the business at all?

It is on the agenda to expand, I was hoping to do it last year but covid put paid to that for the time being.

I’ve been thinking of opening up another branch and in my head I had a certain number of members that I wanted to confirm for the new branch before I went ahead. I’m currently 3 members away from reaching that goal.

I’m looking at opening up a new branch in the Torbay region. I’ve already been approached by several individuals in that area who felt Exeter was that little bit too far away to travel to and I know a lot of people within the region from networking.

I felt that it was a good location and once Torbay is up and running, I’ll probably look at expanding into Plymouth.

At the moment Torbay makes sense as the two locations are fairly close geographically which means that I can share my resources between the two branches.

One thing that I will probably do differently this time though is have it in an area with higher footfall. With the site in Exeter, we aren’t on the beaten track and we can’t even be seen from the roadside. I want to change that with the new site and pick up more passing trade.

The only thing that will slow it down is cash flow. With covid, we’ve been hit quite hard over the last year, although I can’t foresee this being a problem and at the moment I’m just looking. I do think that the cash flow will pick back up now that we’re open again.

What strategy did you use to grow your business?

To be honest, we’ve grown from mostly marketing and word of mouth. I do Facebook advertising as well as traditional leaflet drops and featuring in a magazine. Surprisingly to me I’ve also gained a lot from networking.

When I started out, one of the very senior individuals in the company advised me to network. He is very well connected himself and told me that it would help me grow my business.

I’ve never really pictured myself as being the type of person that would enjoy networking, however I stand corrected. It works extremely well and I thoroughly enjoy it.

A few people I know through networking have mentioned that they attend your training and pay for it via BBX, how are you finding being a BBX member?

I have several BBX members that attend my training session and they are doing really well. As with any member, I gave them a free session. I do this for any new member as our method of training is so different.

Having BBX members attend training is interesting as it means that I now have a significant amount of BBX in my account. In all honesty with everything else that I've had going on, I don’t feel as if I’ve used it to its maximum capacity. I know several people that use it for a number of different things and can see how it would be of benefit, I just haven't allocated the time to fully utilise it to its full capabilities.

I have used it for printing the leaflets I use for my leaflet drop and I’m currently considering outsourcing more of my social media out. Hiring someone on BBX sounds like its a good option as I can then conserve my cash flow.

Aside from the business uses, a few things that I have used BBX for have been more along the fun and lifestyle aspects. I’ve taken my daughter out to a shooting range, got a segue way and bought some cleaning products!

So how is business now?

Business is going well, we’re not completely maxed out, however I am comfortable with the current position the business is in considering there is a global pandemic still happening.

When we first came out of lockdown, I lost 40%5 of my members. I wasn’t overly worried as the company is profitable and it only took me 2 months to recoup the loss of those members. The following month we had more members that we ever had prior…..and then we had a second lockdown. Now that it looks like we may come out of lockdown completely, I’m looking forward to getting the next site up and running!

With business looking on the up, what advice would you give for people looking to improve their overall fitness?

Do something about it. A hear a lot of people say they want to be fitter but do nothing towards that goal.

My second piece of advice would be to make sure that whatever exercise you choose that it’s effective. If you pick an activity that isn’t getting you the benefits you want, you’ll get disheartened and quit.

Finally, make sure you enjoy what you do.