What is Thrive Fitness Singapore and what does it represent?
Thrive Fitness is a personal training company based in Singapore.
We specialise in sustainable fat loss, strength training and helping clients with health promoting behaviours to impact their lives not just now but many years down the line.
What was the gap you guys identified in the industry and how does Thrive fulfil this?
Health. Everyone pays lip service to it but rarely are we seeing it playing out.
The fitness industry in general places a heavy emphasis on fat loss and in particular the pursuit of a six pack.
In my own experience in the many gyms I’ve worked at there was always this distinct lack of focus on the individual’s health. Instead, it’s about getting the results in the fastest way possible or just training them and getting them out the door as quickly as possible.
We wanted to be that change.
What differentiates you from competitors?
Our focus on health above all else.
Everything we discuss with clients revolves around health promoting behaviours whether that is addressing any sleep issues, energy levels, gaps in their exercise routines or poor nutrition choices.
Our goal is to truly have an impact on the client right now but also long-term and make them more resilient human beings!
How is Thrive impacting people’s lives and what keeps clients coming back?
We’re educating our clients on sustainable and practical solutions to the issues they come to us with. We’re regular people ourselves, we’re not obsessive gym rats whose lives revolve around the gym, instead the gym fits into our lives.
We also go deep with everyone we work with, trying to learn as much about them as we can so we can have the greatest impact.
We truly invest a piece of ourselves in each client.
How does Thrive measure client success, is it always physical?
Yes, there is always that physical component with many clients, whether that be seeing a visible change in the mirror, photos or measurements generally moving down.
But the real measure of success is watching a client take what we have worked together on and apply it in their own way. Sustaining their results long term.
The most rewarding aspect of our work is watching clients do a complete 180 on their previous habits and behaviours and overtime making strides in a new direction. That is a true transformation for us.
It takes time but it’s so worth the wait.
How has technology impacted the fitness landscape in the last few years and how does thrive make use of it?
We’ve seen a significant impact on the fitness landscape, especially so with wearable technology. We now have the ability to gain much more insights and data on our clients than ever before. This allows us to make far more educated decisions with regards to helping people, whereas in the past you would be guessing.
High activity levels are now gamified to a certain extent too and we’re seeing more and more people gravitate towards closing their rings or reaching high steps counts. So technology is largely having a positive impact on an individuals health and also results.
Of course, it is an area that some people need to exercise boundaries with as it can quite quickly become addictive with people obsessing over the data.
What are your top tips for running a successful fitness studio or advice to people looking at starting up?
I consider Thrive to be a startup of sorts so we’re very much in the early days but from my rather limited experience I’d have to say that finding talent is one of the most critical aspects.
My mission with Thrive was to make sure that clients got access to the best in the industry. I’m not sticking just anyone in front of my clients, you have to be extremely competent, relatable, passionate and educated to work at Thrive.
We work with some of the biggest movers and shakers across many industries. You have to bring your A-game otherwise you’re out of business.
My team are fantastic, smart and have terrible jokes but genuinely care for the people they work with and I’m incredibly fortunate to work alongside such great people.
What does the future hold for boutique fitness studios and how to adapt moving forward?
I believe the industry is slowly moving away from the rapid transformation gyms and more into the health and lifestyle space. There is robust research on the impact exercise and other wellness practices can have on people’s lives so I think boutique studios will likely go deeper into the personalisation aspects of health by teaming up with a variety of providers to give the client the utmost experience.
What will you do differently given the chance?
I would not spend money on fancy websites, SEO, design or any deeper branding exercises until the business has scaled enough. I have wasted too much time and money going down pointless roads. You can largely do it yourself these days with great website templates and design tools such as Squarespace and canva etc. Keep it lean as you can while growing and when you can afford it, research who will be doing the work for you THOROUGHLY.
What is Thrive’s underlying motto, and how’s this inspiring you and your community?
Helping people to THRIVE in all areas of their life now just now but decades from now. That means, helping build health, strength and therefore resilience for whatever life throws our way!