The Truth About Opening Your Own Gym

Yeah, we're just about to hit the gym now. We're about to arrive. It's all in the same area. It's actually just a few minutes down the road from Raw, but we wouldn't view this as like a direct competitor because it's actually a private gym. The guy's a good friend of mine and he mainly does like private training and group sessions, and it's a really cool gym. You guys, uh, will see it now. It's like perfect for like strength conditioning and cardio, which is what we're doing today. So one cool thing about doing these daily vlogs is it makes you like so much more productive. Like, you know, some days like today I'd maybe just chill out, I wouldn't train, but we're like, no, we gotta, we gotta get some cool stuff for the vlog. Let's go do some, some cardio and conditioning work. So, so that is one thing about YouTube, it actually makes you more outgoing and makes you do more. And you're not just doing it for the vlog, it's like, you know, you actually want to do it as well because you love creating content when you're a YouTuber. So right, let's go in. Yo, yo, what's up?

What's going on, guys?

That's a great title for the video. Yeah, how to burn 50 calories in 1 minute, the hardest way possible. There you go. Right, Savage, right, stick it down.

So we're going to set it to 30 calories. It's going to count down from 30. You just hammer it as much as you can.

3, 2, go! Go! Come on, push it! All in! All the way! Caffeine and coffee is like, it's a consistent feature on this channel. I don't think I could like do a successful cut without caffeine. I don't— well, I could, like, of course you could, but it makes things so much easier. It gives you energy, suppresses appetite, it almost replaces a meal. Oh, it does. If you have it in the morning, you have it in the morning, you can have— you can fast with coffee, like, that's it. And so even like a mental thing, it's like just drinking on something. Yeah, just having something, sipping on something, something ice and water. Like, energy drink, um, is a good placement for me as well. You know Christian's energy drink, 3D? Yeah, um, I always have one then in the morning. Like, oh, actually, I have a discount code for 3D Energy. It is now lips of 10. Link in the bio for that. He's selling out even more. He just keeps selling out. Christian's one of my best friends, okay? Like, seriously, we had this talk in like the last video how if I have a fucking bottle of Quell, yeah, people are like He's sponsored by Quell! It's crazy, like, the only sponsorships I actually have, like, contracts, are Alphalete, Ghost, and Boohoo. It's like, Boohoo Man is a short-term contract. That's it. So anything else, I'm just kind of like using on the go. It's important to keep the people that you've known just for ages before you've had an audience, um, keep them close. So it's like, you know, made a sick video for Mark's gym, but it's like You know, it's like, it's no problem to me because he's just an old friend. It's like, you know, I trust him completely. Let's say you're in like a deficit of 500 just through like calories, you know, just through diet. And then let's say you're in a deficit of 500 again, but it's like 250 through diet, 250 from cardio. You always just look a little bit crispier when you add in some cardio. So when people ask me, they're like, you know, should you, you know, how should you achieve your deficit? I'll always say it's down to personal preference first. You know, are you going to be better at reducing your energy intake from just calories or from just cardio? But I think most people are better when you just combine the two. I think that's like it, probably for most people, diet and exercise combined is the winner. You just end up looking that little bit better. So you might recognize Jules from the video I did, put it on the screen, when I took on Conor McGregor's training plan. So that's Conor's conditioning coach there.

McGregor fast.

Yeah, McGregor fast. Yes, that's crazy. We just ran into each other there talking about doing MMA fights against other YouTubers, talking about, you know, putting me through challenges. Because when I do, you know, I like to partake in the odd bit of MMA, and when I do put it on the channel, people are really interested in it because it's like, you know, you, you want to see people try different things. Like, you want to see a men's physique competitor, fitness model, try MMA. It's interesting, you know. So we're just talking there, and we're definitely gonna do loads more of that in 2019. I'm really in the mood for pineapple beef burger, but I'm like, bro, you're going to Miami in 2 days, like, you don't need it. Me and Mark have been friends for like years, like so long, since we're young whippersnappers. And Mark opened up his own gym last year.

Yeah, last— yeah, 6 months ago.

Yeah, 6 months. So Physical Culture. So we're going to go through a few questions, uh, for Mark about opening up your own gym. First question I got down here is, what is the first thing you do when you go about opening up your own gym?

Well, so obviously the years beforehand you're gonna have to get some experience in the industry.

Yeah.

Um, you might start working for someone. I started working for someone for free.

Yeah.

Then I, then I got employed by them. Then I saw, well, I want to do certain things a little bit different. I have a vision of how I want things done. So I bit the bullet and went out on my own. Um, and then you just have to slowly build up a client base. You can't just go from— if you have a big chunk of cash and go open a place and expect people to come, you can't just build it and think they'll come. Yeah, it's not really true. You have to kind of build from the ground up, build like, you know, a loyal following, a loyal base of clients, and then slowly build momentum. And you're going to take risks. So at the start, I would have taken a few risks that I thought would have been big, but then you kind of build on them as the years go on and you learn to take bigger and bigger risks. And like, the final one for me was actually signing the lease for the commercial unit that I have. Yeah, you know.

Yeah, I love what you said about, you know, starting off, you're doing it for free. Like when I was doing, you know, online training and I was doing public speaking, all for free. Yeah, did it all for free to build up that clientele, to build up that audience.

So yeah, you can't just expect—

you can't just— yeah, you can't just go straight to the top. No, can't just— I'm opening up a gym and it's just gonna be full members. Now you gotta like build up that clientele. Awesome. Okay, next question: difficulties you encounter along the way.

Well, the biggest difficulty was, okay, I started personal training in Sandiford. I've been subletting off other gyms. I wanted to stay in Sandiford. Yeah, actually finding a place was the hardest thing I've done. I've probably inquired to, you know, a few hundred units. I was young, so they didn't really think, you know, I was like 24, 25, they didn't really think I was serious. You know, I'm a personal trainer, I'm 24, they're knocking it like, who does this guy think he is? Yeah, you know, but then, you know, you actually send them, you know, whatever, business plans and bank statements, and then they give you a little bit more respect, I suppose. If I was I was 10 years older, they'd be a little bit easier on me.

Yeah.

You know, so you just kind of— and you can't just email them, you have to call them or meet them in person and try to make an impression. That's when you're actually trying to get a unit, because, you know, people are going to respond to— they're going to respond to people.

Yeah.

Not so much just, you know, what you've done in the past.

That's it. And like, um, in an age where we're so like digital, so social media orientated, email— sometimes nothing beats just meeting someone face to face and showing them, be like, I'm about this life.

I was rejected to my— to the unit I have now. I was rejected originally, but I just kept kind of knocking on the door, knocking on the door, and then eventually got a yes.

Yeah, there you go, they gave in. Okay, so third question: what is it really like having your own gym? So now I am obviously business partners with Raw, but for you yourself, you have to like run the whole thing. So, you know, we have a huge amount of staff in Raw, so with you, um, you know, how do you find it So many people think, oh, I just get to go to the gym all day.

Yeah, it's like a playground.

Yeah, it's like a playground. So yeah, yeah, what's it like having to train so many people every day?

So, you know, it is a business at the end of the day. It's not just a playground. You know, if you're in it, you know, you enjoy lifting, you think you're gonna open the gym, you think it's gonna be all fun. You've got big bills to pay, you've got a lot of rent to pay. So you have to really treat it like a business. It's brilliant, I love it. But you're gonna have to get used to early mornings, late nights. It's not sociable hours. Um, you're gonna have to kind of put in the graft, and that's what I'm doing.

And yeah, and it's like your own training. Yeah, probably take a step back.

Yeah, 100%. I train 3 days a week at the moment. Yeah, people think, oh, you own your own gym, you're going to be training all the time. Yeah, no, it's like the majority of, you know, I'm training people.

How much time does this take start to finish to open up your own private facility, from like the moment you start looking for a premises to the moment you're like done?

Okay. Start looking. Yeah, um, you could get lucky and you find somewhere within a few months. I was looking for probably 15 months. Then you have to go to signing the commercial lease, all the legal stuff, planning permission. You know, that could be anywhere like, you know, say 3 to 6 months.

Yeah.

And then once you have it, everything, getting the setup— the whole setup was done within under, under a month. So, you know, installing showers, change rooms, all that stuff, and fitting the place out. That's like, that's relatively quick. Okay, it's all the other stuff that, you know, you can't really, you can't really push it any faster.

What would you tell yourself when starting out opening up your own private facility? What would be your like piece of advice?

Let's go for the risks. I'd take the risks, um, sooner rather than later. If you're thinking about it, you should just go for it. Yeah, you're probably gonna fail with a lot of stuff. We just have to take the risk, you know. If you're, you're young, the time's gonna pass anyway, and you just learn from mistakes. So it's better off to, you know, make a mistake, learn from it, and then kind of course correct as you go along. Don't procrastinate too much with stuff. Um, yeah, yeah, procrastination's a killer, isn't it?

Killer, killer. Yeah, that's awesome. But here, I'm gonna link all Mark's stuff down in the description box. You know, friend of mine. And now, before we actually get ravenous and get, get hungry or hangry, we're gonna dig into this food. Hope you enjoyed today's vlog. Hope you found it beneficial. See you guys tomorrow. Thank you so much, Rob Lipsett.