How I started my own gym

Sarah is in the final countdown to opening doors on her new venture, as the Wellyx team caught up with her in a shopping mall in Oman.

For a woman about to open her doors to a whole new set of paying customers, Sarah Chaplin looks remarkably composed.

Apex Fitness Gym is due to launch in October, after many months of preparation.

But then, If there’s one thing that runs through Sarah Chaplin’s career, it’s a belief in herself and an ability to communicate self belief in others.

This gift was evident long before she got into physical training, when she was working in car sales, back in the 2000’s.

“The thing that gave me the biggest buzz was when a customer would walk into the showroom thinking some car on display was out of their reach,” says Chaplin.

“And I would just sit down with them, run the numbers, tickle a few margins and come up with a financial plan that secured a customer the car they always wanted – but never thought they could own.”

“Fantastically satisfying,” says Chaplin, “because the ability to give people self belief is an incredibly powerful thing”.

“My business partner Said has that quality too, maybe that’s what we have in common, and he’s also a business coach as well as a physical training one.”

Of course to give people self belief, you have to have a fair amount of it yourself and Chaplin certainly has that quality in spades.

“My first career was supposed to be the military, ” says Chaplin. But it didn’t work out. “One day while training for the two hundred meters I fell and injured my leg. They had to say goodbye to me, but I realized I could train my way back into health again. I guess that was my first moment of complete true self belief.“

There was to be another later on when she sustained another injury, this time to her neck and shoulders which also required extensive physical training and self belief to overcome.

The car finance business took Chaplin to Oman, but that fell through too when the financial regulations in Oman proved too cumbersome to operate the business model.

So Chaplin got herself a fitness qualification in the UK and started her first physical fitness venture in Oman. It involved training a group of people on the beach. There was a session in the morning, and a session in the evening done while the water lapped the beach.

“The sand makes everything harder because you’re running without the proper resistance. But people loved the extra level of challenge and there was always wading through water to add another level of physical workout.

“It was a great group and we would create new routines and challenges in a very fluid way. I would bring weights too and we would experiment with new ideas the whole time. And I remember one of our bootcamp group was this lovely baker guy who would bring us all fresh cakes for after the workout.”

From there Chaplin moved to a franchised gym in Muscat, and developed her training skills and ideas for her own venture.

At the franchised gym she met her future business partner, Said, who seemed a kindred spirit also very alert to the power of self belief.

Chaplin and Said suggested the franchised gym take on some of their new ideas, but being tied into a rigid way of doing things nothing much was about to change. The franchise was suffering from a mixture of issues, not least covid, and a lot of debt and a lack of ability to spot new trends and opportunities.

For Chaplin and Said those opportunities were very clear.

Gyms in Oman were somewhat male dominated affairs and while there were some women only gyms they lacked the proper equipment set to put them on a par with what the men had.

There were numerous other opportunities for a more modern approach but perhaps the most obvious was around schedule flexibility.

“You’ve got to cater for what people want to achieve in a particular session that day, and if you don’t they might just opt out and find another gym. It was quite common for people to have two gym memberships so they could accomplish their exercise routines because no one gym gave them the flexibility to do what they wanted to do.”

“Of course we’ve changed all that and have put schedule flexibility at the heart of the approach.”

“We also realized that in other gyms there is typically not a safe way to lift heavy weights because it all rests on the floor. We’ve got squat racks and olympic bars and olympic plates so it’s a safer way to work out.”

“Naturally we’ve got Wellyx helping us with all the booking because no one else can do the Paytab system, which is the Middle Eastern answer to Stripe. Wellyx has been incredibly can-do throughout the run up to our launch and that’s been a big help.”

Chaplin and Said are due to be fully up and running in a month’s time and the excitement is palpable.

“There’s so much to do, from the website and the marketing, working out the mission vision and values, Instagram app and everything has to be the same. Then there’s sorting out the licenses for the people we’re employing. I never imagined it would mean this much work.”

“We need one hundred and thirty five members to hit our targets and we’re about half way. But I’m sure we’ll do it.”

Getting the gym in launch-ready comes with its own challenges too.

Sarah’s gym, Apex fitness is situated in a shopping mall in Muscat and the only time the mall authorities allow work to be done is after closing hours. However the only time workmen are allowed to work is before and during opening hours. 

Such problems might drive anyone else to smash a 20kg kettlebell over their own heads. Sarah is keeping calm, and we’re sure if anyone can make it work Sarah can.

We’ll keep you posted.