Searching for a gym to join is a difficult task. Get it wrong, and you are stuck with a monthly membership you force yourself to use, with the added insult of not reaching your fitness goals. But, get it right and you start a virtuous cycle whereby you are motivated to go regularly, which builds up a new-found community of people you love being around, all leading to fitness progress like you never thought was possible.
Unfortunately these days, it is difficult to sort the bad from the good, and the good from the great. Gym adverts look and sound virtually the same, no matter the differences in actual offerings and member results.
As one of the Founders at Beyond Walls, I’ve thought deeply about what makes a gym EXCELLENT. And we have been incredibly thrilled to see the enthusiasm and response of our earliest members for what we have built. I thought it might be useful to try and articulate how and why we are different, both to be clear about what we want to preserve, but also for potential future members wanting to learn more about what we do.
Every now and again when I’m traveling or visiting friends, I’ll go along to different gyms just to see what the experience is all about. What amazes me are the plethora of ways gyms use to create “spoon full of sugar” experiences. In other words, what can we do to mask the fact that you are exercising so that you can get through it as mindlessly as possible? Solutions: camouflage it as dancing, use trampolines or other novel accessories, use peppy/beautiful fitness instructors to yell loudly over the music, darken the room and use nightclub-like lighting, and count down from 8 over and over until you get (mercifully) to that last round of reps. Mindless exercising might work in the short term, but once the novelty runs out, the motivation runs dry.
At Beyond Walls, we want to do the opposite. Our aim is to be mindful in every class about the stimulus and intent for the workout. One day, it might be a series of short, light, sprint-type intervals. Another day, the focus may be on going heavy on a strength movement with lots of rest between reps. We invite members to think about each session with respect to what they have done previously, and what they hope to accomplish that day. It’s not always about going faster or heavier; some days it may be about perfect technical execution of a squat to build a stronger foundation in the future. But the mindfulness is about making deliberate progress, focusing on technique, and trying new movements—perhaps getting your very first rope climb ever!
One of the things we take very seriously is making every single one of our classes accessible and inclusive. No matter where you are in your fitness journey, you should be able to show up and jump into one of our workouts, leaving at the end feeling like you got an excellent workout—whether you are an Olympic athlete or a grandmother.
However, we don’t do this by dumbing down the movements or catering to the lowest common denominator. To the contrary, we regularly feature high skills movements in our workouts, such as pull-ups, weightlifting, handstands, and rope climbs. BUT, everything we do can be scaled and adapted to every level with coaching at the heart of our approach.
You can’t get better at things you aren’t trying, and we believe everyone has the capacity to continue to improve and learn complex technical movements (when coached the right way!). The satisfaction and pride our members feel in kicking up to their first handstand or getting their first pull-up is amazing to see. What’s more, members stick around because they are motivated to learn the next skill, but also assured they will get the right coaching to achieve it.
By actively working on challenging, higher-level skills, we learn to become more resilient, build a stronger mindset, and wire our brains for greater neuroplasticity.
For most class-based gyms, either you completed a class (checked the box), or you didn’t come at all, and your presence (or absence!) is unlikely to be noticed by anyone.
One thing you’ll observe quite quickly after joining Beyond Walls is we measure everything. We use an InBody scanner to measure your body composition, and we do this every 12 weeks to see how you are making progress against your goals. We remind everyone to log their score for almost every workout, noting what weight and scaled variation of a movement they used, and how quickly or how many reps they were able to complete. We then repeat “benchmark” workouts so they can compare results over time.
We write down PBs (personal bests) on a community board to celebrate wins. We count class check-ins each month to see how consistent each member has been in showing up, and we reward everyone with 13 or more class check-ins each month with a themed sticker and a prize draw for merchandise. We celebrate milestones for overall check-ins with prizes for 100, 250, 500 sessions attended…and our seminars even count towards these check-ins as we recognise the importance of education in our wellbeing journey.
All of this is intentional. What you measure, you get more of…it’s an excellent form of low-pressure accountability. And the more you measure, the more signals of progress you can reference over time. It’s not just about losing fat, but it’s also about building muscle, getting stronger, and performing better over the long term.
We know the motivation to stick with goals is better when people around you are cheering you on. We also know that people show up to classes when they feel a sense of belonging. This is why we have been intentional to build a community at Beyond Walls, not just a collection of members.
Community is forged when people work hard together, side by side, sharing a barbell or working together in a partner workout. Community strengthens every time someone rings the PB bell and the rest of the class claps and hollers their congratulations. And friendships emerge over a coffee at the end of class when the conversations drift beyond the walls of the gym.
Our member’s area was specifically designed to invite people to linger before and after class, not rush them out. We want our space to feel safe, like a beacon of joy at the beginning or end of a long day. Whether you are an extrovert loving to chat or an introvert a bit more shy of interaction, we create moments for each person to be involved on their own terms and in their own time. It’s this community that truly differentiates a good gym from a great gym, and that will always be at the heart of Beyond Walls.
In the words of one of our members:
When I joined and you talked about the sense of community, I thought to myself ‘blah blah, whatever.’ But that is exactly what it is, and having not been a part of a gym like this before, I just didn’t realise what it was going to be like. I feel so much fitter and stronger than I did. It hasn’t been an easy 6 months for me, and whatever the stresses and strains in the rest of my life, whenever I’ve walked through the door into the gym, I’ve managed to forget about them for a while, and that has been a massive positive for me. I also think my family are all quite proud of me for getting so into Beyond Walls!
So many of our members who have joined lament that they didn’t come sooner. Once they personally experienced the community, the vibe, and the attention to details, they got it.
At Beyond Walls, we believe that fitness is more than just a routine—it's a transformative journey. We understand that everyone's fitness journey is unique, and at the same time, we understand deeply the common challenges that so many people face in getting and staying healthy.
We invite you to experience the difference and discover the joy of a great fitness community.
