People like you, in their own words

Everyone on this page trains with us at the studio in Leith. Each of them agreed to be photographed during an ordinary session and to tell you, in their own words, how it felt to walk in and what it's like now.

You won't find before-and-after bodies here, or anyone who was already at home in a gym. These are the people most gyms were not built for, and this is how it went for them.

Getting strong after forty

Two people who picked up a barbell for the first time in their fifties, and what they'd been afraid of.

Fiona standing tall at the top of a deadlift, breathing out, with Rory beside her watching the bar

I sat in the car outside for ten minutes the first time, and I needn't have.

I'm fifty-four. I'd never lifted anything heavier than a suitcase on purpose, and I had a picture in my head of what a gym was: music, mirrors, people half my age. I nearly drove home.

Rory had seen the car. He came out to the door, said hello, and that was the worst of it over. The first session was mostly him finding out what I could already do, which turned out to be more than I thought. Nothing was heavy. Nothing was rushed.

Two years on I come on Thursday evenings. The bar has more on it than I'd have believed, and I'm still the only person in the room. I feel solid. That's the word I'd use.

Fiona, 54

with Rory

Her first session was free.£50 a session, or 10 for £450.

An older man doing a goblet squat with a kettlebell in a gym, with a male trainer watching him.

I thought lifting weights was for people who already looked like they lifted weights.

My daughter booked the first session for me, which tells you how likely I was to do it myself. I'm fifty-eight and I'd never been inside a gym in my life. I assumed I'd be shown up.

There was nobody to be shown up in front of. Ailsa asked what I did all day, what hurt and what didn't, and then we spent most of the hour on how to sit down and stand up properly, with a kettlebell held at my chest. I remember thinking, is that it? It was, and it was plenty.

I go on a Tuesday at half six, before work, when the harbour's still dark. I'm stronger than I was at forty, and I didn't have to become a different sort of person to get there.

Malcolm, 58

with Ailsa

His first session was free.£50 a session, or 10 for £450.

How we approach strength training after forty, in Ailsa and Rory's words.

Coming back after injury

A knee and a back. Both of them had been told to be careful, and both had taken that to mean do nothing.

Gavin stepping slowly up onto a low wooden box, with Rory crouched beside it watching his knee

I'd stopped kicking a ball about with the kids because I didn't trust the knee. That was the bit that got to me.

Five-a-side, a bad landing, and the knee was never quite right after. The physio did her job and signed me off, but I was forty-four with two kids and I'd gone from playing every Wednesday to standing at the side of the park with my hands in my pockets.

Rory asked what the physio had told me and what I was frightened of, and wrote both down. We spent weeks on things that look like nothing: step-ups onto a low box, sitting down slowly onto a bench, standing up again. He watched every rep. It wasn't glamorous and it was exactly what I needed.

I'm back in the park. I'm not back at five-a-side yet, and I might not be, but that's my choice now rather than the knee's.

Gavin, 44

with Rory

His first session was free.£50 a session, or 10 for £450.

Morag hinging forward with an empty barbell against her thighs, Ailsa beside her holding a flat hand near her back as a guide

For a year I'd lifted nothing heavier than the kettle. Ailsa handed me an empty bar and we started there.

I hurt my back pulling a suitcase off the carousel at the airport. Nothing dramatic, just a wrong twist, and then a year of being scared of my own spine. I bent my knees to pick up the post.

Ailsa didn't tell me not to worry. She asked exactly what I'd been told and what set it off, and then she showed me how to bend from the hips with an empty bar, over and over, until it was boring. Boring was the point. Every week a little more weight, never more than I was sure of.

I'm fifty-two and I carry two bags of shopping up the stair without thinking about my back at all. I'd forgotten what that was like.

Morag, 52

with Ailsa

Her first session was free.£50 a session, or 10 for £450.

We work with what your physio or GP has told you, never instead of it. More on coming back after injury or a baby.

A pair of hands rubbing chalk together over a tin bowl in a shaft of window light

After having a baby

Two mums who'd been told to take it slowly and hadn't been told what slowly meant.

I hadn't done anything for my own body in a year. In the first session Ailsa mostly asked me how I was sleeping.

My son was nine months old and I couldn't lift the pram into the boot without my back complaining. I'd had the nod from my check-up to start exercising again, and no idea at all what was sensible. I'd never been in a gym and I wasn't going to start in one full of twenty-year-olds.

Ailsa asked how I was sleeping, how I was feeling, what I was carrying around all day. She told me plainly which things we'd leave for a few more weeks and why, which nobody else had. Then she handed me a kettlebell I could carry comfortably and we walked the length of the room with it, talking.

Now I lift the pram, the shopping and the boy without thinking about it. Mostly, though, it's an hour a week that's mine.

Priya

with Ailsa

Her first session was free.£50 a session, or 10 for £450.

Priya walking the length of the studio with a kettlebell in one hand, talking to Ailsa who walks beside her

The first few weeks felt almost too easy. Ailsa explained why every time, and she was right every time.

My daughter was five months old when I came. I'd been active before her and I'd lost all confidence in what my body would do. Everybody said take it slowly. Nobody said what slowly was.

Ailsa did. We started with breathing, carrying and getting up off the floor well, which is most of what you do with a baby anyway. It felt gentle to the point of being easy, and she told me each week what we were building towards and when. Then one day there was a bar in my hands and it felt completely ordinary.

She's a year old now. I carry the car seat up three flights without stopping, and I know what my body will do again. That mattered more than I expected.

Hannah, 38

with Ailsa

Her first session was free.£50 a session, or 10 for £450.

If you're wondering what's sensible yet, Ailsa will go through it with you in your free first session. More on coming back after a baby.

Never liked gyms

Two people who'd spent years deciding gyms weren't for them, and what made this one different.

Claire sitting on the end of a bench between sets, laughing, with Ailsa leaning against the rack beside her

I joined a gym three Januaries running. Here, there's nobody to look like you know what you're doing for.

Each time I joined, I went twice and paid for a year of not going. The rooms were loud and everyone else seemed to have a plan. I'm forty-seven and I'd quietly concluded that exercise was for other people.

This is a warehouse unit with a rack, a few bars and a window onto the water. Ailsa showed me how to hold the bar and where to put my feet, let me get it wrong without making anything of it, and we laughed a fair bit. It's the only exercise I've ever kept up, and I think it's because nobody's watching.

Claire, 47

with Ailsa

Her first session was free.£50 a session, or 10 for £450.

Tom walking across the studio with a kettlebell in each hand, Rory a pace behind him saying something

It's a room with a door that shuts. Honestly, that was most of it for me.

I'd been in gyms, and I'd felt looked at in every one of them. By fifty I'd stopped going anywhere near one. A pal who trains here told me there'd be nobody else in the room, and I didn't believe him until I came.

It's true. You walk in, the door shuts, and it's you and Rory and a lot of quiet. He doesn't do pep talks. He tells you what we're doing and why, stands beside you while you do it, and says "good" when it is. I've been coming on Saturday mornings for a year and a half.

Tom, 50

with Rory

His first session was free.£50 a session, or 10 for £450.

If you'd like to know exactly what happens when you walk in, read what a session is actually like.

The studio's wooden door standing slightly open onto a cobbled lane, daylight across the floor and a row of kettlebells along the wall

Their first session was free, and so is yours

Fiona, Malcolm, Gavin, Morag, Priya, Hannah, Claire and Tom all walked in for the first time without paying anything and without promising anything. Most of them were nervous. All of them say it was fine.

Yours works the same way. An hour in the room with Ailsa or Rory, lifting things that feel manageable, finding out whether this suits you. If it doesn't, that's the end of it. If it does, the prices are here, and they don't change.

5.0 from 74 reviews. You can also ring 01632 960 093, or read about Ailsa and Rory first.

First session: Free, no commitment
One-to-one: £50 a session, or 10 for £450
Training in pairs: £35 each per session

Book your free first session

£50 a session after that, or 10 for £450.