What is Squad?
Head Coach Kieran Wake answers this one...
"It started as a Bootcamp but really it has outgrown that title and become more of a fitness community. Our training methods and results have made us the go to place to train in our area. We stand by our motto of #morethanagym". Squad is great due to its amazing members and that is what makes it unique, here is our story...
Before Squad was born, in June 2017, I was coaching two separate small group training programmes. One of these was the Male Friday F**K up, appropriately titled due to its difficulty. It was however basically a bunch of male friends and clients who got together on a Friday night to have some banter and train hard. The other programme catered for females and started out as my Mum, sister, sister-in-law and a few of their friends, it soon grew to about 10 loyal women participants who shared three sessions a week, many of whom are still members now. These loyal members are nicknamed ‘the originals’.
After a very successful male vs female challenge it was apparent that males and females aren’t that different in a gym environment and it was fun training in a large group. The demand for sessions grew and it came to a point where I was working too much. I had 15-20 1-1 clients and in every spare hour was trying to do more and more group sessions to meet the demand. I had a lightbulb moment one Sunday sat on one of my mates sofas who came to the Friday F***k up sessions, we chatted about creating a group training/bootcamp style training model, he even created a logo after we came up with a name ‘Squad’ and it’s the same logo we have today. I asked clients what they thought and the rest is history. I wanted sessions to be varied with a focus on strength and conditioning. The environment needed to be suitable for beginners and regular gym goers to master all the main lifts and train in a much more exciting environment than a gym and I feel we have achieved this.
Stronger, fitter and definitely more confident.
We launched on 1st June 2017 with 21 members the ‘original 21’ and we had 6 sessions a week to start with, they were packed and the atmosphere was incredible. A few year on, plenty of amazing before and after transformations, a number of challenges and a lot of great social nights out, our membership and timetable has trebled and we have even added a member of staff Tom who’s passion and energy makes sure every session is expectational. Through all the growth and success Squad functions on the same principles as it did when it first started.
That is what it will always be and the more people we can help the better.