International fitness app from Newcastle rebrands after major investment

A fitness business, using evolving technology to deliver global tuition in training, is going from strength to strength, five months after a major makeover.

Gym Plan (originally Gym Gurus) began as a website giving guidance on fitness, muscle-building and weight-loss, but after much support, investment has turned it into an app.

Since October 2017, the number of customers using the company’s app - who include US soldiers and truck drivers - has doubled.

They come from more than 10,000 cities in 200 countries, are aged between 18-80, and have now completed more than 200,000 workouts using training programmes provided by the team based at Campus North in Newcastle.

The company was launched in 2014 by Paul Slater - the former head of a design firm - and Dave Stidolph, his personal trainer and a highly qualified instructor.

They were joined a year later by Mark Hemmings, now chief technical officer, who brought expertise and experience in app platform development.

Dave said: “If you’re serious about training - and our customers have to be because it is intense training at times - you need to know what to do. We provide the expertise to guide them, but they have to walk the path themselves.

“Training can be a very lonely business. Our app and team can be a gym buddy for anybody, anywhere and anytime.”

Gym Plan delivers its customers an expertise in both intensive training and nutrition and offers the flexibility their lifestyles require. It also provides feedback, tips and encouragement through conversations via the app - whether the user lives in Afghanistan or Australia.

A further enhancement to the app, which will make it even more personal for each user, is about to be launched soon.

Gym Plan founders, Paul and Dave, and CTO Mark Hemmings, have been committed trainers since they were young. Dave worked in a number of jobs before becoming a professional personal trainer.

Dave added: “I started training Paul and he loved the style of training I was doing with him.

“He was looking for a business to start up and so was I. That’s where it started: the niche idea of a fitness-based app which could provide the sort of training I was providing Paul, but for a more global audience.”

Before teaming up with Dave, Paul had set up a successful design company – whose clients included Dräger, the Tyne Tunnel and Northumberland College. Mark uses his own app to help his training for rugby: “It gives me direction, rather than just walking into a gym and doing three sets of 10 on whatever equipment is free.

“Unlike other apps, Gym Plan adds character, variety and intensity to training. The best part of the job for all of us is hearing our customers’ success stories - which are brought about by a lot of hard work with help from our app.”

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