Newhaven's new gym aims to give back to the community

Personal trainer Mr Barnes, set himself a goal to own his own gym before the age of 25, and he has done just that. 1 Force aims to give back to the community, particularly the youth, with free kids fun and fitness classes to help families with the costs of after school clubs and to keep children active. He aims to open another facility at the end of next year with the same values.

I spoke to Mr Barnes on his achievements so far, and how his gym gives back to the community.

Why did you choose to open up a new gym in the town?

I wanted to open a gym here in Newhaven because this is where I started out coaching initially. I got my personal training qualification just over 4 years ago, and quickly found a passion in helping others to transform their health. So much so that I set myself a goal of owning my own facility before I turned 25, and I managed to achieve this at the age of 24. My business developed quite quickly and over the 4 years I have helped over 200 people in a combination of indoor training, group classes and outdoor bootcamps. Working with this many people made me realise that a lot of people share a very similar problem, their confidence. Many of my clients, and I’m sure thousands of others in the local area, struggle with being in a large commercial gym which can often be busy and very intimidating. That’s why I wanted to open a private facility with a friendly atmosphere where the members got to know each other on a personal level and build a community.

What do you hope to achieve with this venture?

I would like to achieve a chain of gyms across the whole of Sussex with each one embodying the same values. Creating a friendly, non-intimidating personal training gym. I hope to make personal training affordable for all and help make fitness readily available for the younger generation with no barrier to entry.

You say your main aim is to give back to the community, particularly the youth of the town. How do you think your gym does this?

As soon as we opened we rolled out our free kids fun and fitness classes for primary school children with the main aim of helping parents who are struggling to afford after school clubs, while also making exercise fun for the kids. Further to this in the new year we will also be releasing a fundamentals class that’s free for secondary school children where they will be educated on different exercises and the importance of nutrition. The aim of this class will be to help them discover a new healthy hobby or at least leave them with further knowledge on how to live a healthy and active lifestyle.

Has this venture so far been achieving what you set out to do?

So far it has been going extremely well. We have signed just over half of our capacity in the first 6 weeks for our personal training memberships and our free kids classes are always booked up with almost all of the kids returning week after week.