Nikki Foley

I'm Nikki and my fitness journey began 35 years ago in a small health club in Blackpool. This gym was used in the main by notorious doormen who were managing entry to clubs and pubs in the 1980s and 1990s throughout Blackpool and the North-West.

Being the only female in the gym, the boys took great delight in teaching me the basics of weight training. I was only fifteen but hooked.
My university days in Manchester was where I discovered David Lloyd Leisure clubs. To say I was bowled over is an understatement, spending hours every evening there in my downtime.

It was a complete fitness playground, the one that I learned to relish and play in.

So many times, other women approached me whilst training to provide advice to gym users completely bewildered by the (i) fitness equipment an offer and/or (ii) predominantly male presence in the weights room.

I never declined anyone that support and over time found myself coaching other women, providing them with the confidence and knowledge needed to execute the exercises they wanted.

I found that coaching, leadership, and engagement came naturally to me.

It was not long before the club's health and fitness regional team noticed that I had a talent in coaching individuals. I was approached to ask if I would like to complete Level 2 and 3 personal training qualifications. I said YES!

I qualified with a new training organisation called NASM which has since become a world leading organisation in the fitness industry, sited in many. if not most, well respected health and fitness journals magazines which are sources of many layers of fitness information.

Despite passing both qualifications with glowing colours, my career took an alternative path after being offered the sales managers job at another club which turned out to be a disruption.  I have continued to study and have the following relevant qualifications; Levels 2 & 3 Personal Trainer / Gym Instructor; Level 3 Nutrition; Level 4 Obesity & Diabetes; Level 4 Lower Back Pain Management; GP Referral Specialisms; Mat Pilates Instructor; Reformer Pilates Instructor; Exercise & Fitness for Children; Enhanced DBS certification.

Over the years my career has taken many twists and turns, the most recent of which was qualifying as a social worker whilst at the same time meeting my future husband.

As a single mother of two small girls and moving to the countryside I found it increasingly more difficult to commit to the very irregular hours that social work required.

My soon-to-be husband, who was 25 stone when we met, had only recently shed 11 stone whilst new in our relationship.
I trained him 3-4 times a week and fed him a nutritious and healthy diet with the weight just falling off him. 

When we made the move to the countryside, accessing the gym we frequented was turning into a 3-hour trip time which, with managing career and our young daughters, was hard.

It was then that we discussed turning one of the existing stables into a makeshift gym. Knowing that there will be barriers to using the gym we discussed the possibility of building a new gym which would be more appealing to use on the possibility of taking a complete career change by offering our facility to local people on a 1-2-1 basis. And so, the rest is really history.

The gym was built, and the people came. Overtime, the 1-2-1s became 2-2-1s, 3-2-1s, 4-2-1s, 5-2-1s and so forth.
It was this that the business model was formed, and I became a weights-based class instructor offering something that other gyms do not offer. 

Exclusive – Inclusive – Rewarding!