One intake of the beginners programme, twelve people, none of whom had been inside a gym before.
What we changed for this group was small and it has become how we run all of them. Everybody started on the same day, at the same hour, with the same coach for all twelve sessions. Nobody joined halfway. That one rule matters more than anything in the programme, because the reason people leave a gym in the first month is not the training, it is standing in a room full of people who know what they are doing.
The sessions themselves were unglamorous. Two weeks learning five movements properly with light weight. Two weeks adding load. Two weeks building the programme each person would carry on with, written down, with the days they would come.
Eleven of the twelve were still training with us six months later. Across every intake it runs at a bit over two thirds, against roughly a quarter for people who join on their own, which is the number that convinced us to keep running a programme that makes us very little money.
The twelfth moved to another island. She asked for her programme to be emailed and we sent it.
