March 2012

 

Pat & Stephen McKinnon had just returned from living in America since 1997. Originally over there because of work they reached the retirement milestone and decided to stay there for a while to enjoy more of what America has to offer.

 

During the years living in the USA Pat had found a specialized form of exercise that was particularly suitable to both of us. It had many aspects to recommend it:

• strength development focused

• based on scientific medical research

• personal training with specialists

• quick - about 15 minutes

• quiet and private environment

• not a hot sweaty gym - Stephen could go straight off to work afterwards

 

The health benefits we both derived were massive and laid the foundation of an exercise regime that we plan to continue for the rest of our lives. We were so impressed by the training, and the trainers, that we actually supported their business through various phases, and got “paid” through studying to be qualified trainers ourselves.

 

When we decided to return home we knew that we had to continue with this workout, but we found that there was no gym in the UK that provided it. Happily by then we were well in with the USA training crowd so we decided to buy enough equipment to set up our own gym, come out of retirement and run a business when we settled back in the UK.

 

August 2012

 

Picking Newbury for our new home was a strange and bizarre story, but one we have not regretted for one second. Looking around commercial properties we found a place we thought would be suitable; in fact the previous tenant had run a gym so we thought it was a natural fit. Unhappily the previous tenant had not parted with the Landlord on good terms so he was a little reluctant to go with us - but good sense prevailed and we took over the lease in August 2012. For the rest of that year we organized the shipping of the equipment and got it installed, finalized our business plans, took deep breaths and determined to open in the new year.

 

January 2013

 

Even though we had both worked for many years there is something completely different, and very scary, about opening your own business: there is no-one to turn to if things go wrong, and the biggest cloud on the horizon (for all businesses) is revenue - so we had to find some clients! This quest was made more difficult for any number of reasons:

• strength focussed training wasn’t popular in those days, except for “body builders”

• we had no UK reputation to build on, and who cares about a USA reputation over here?

• we weren't conventional - cool, quiet, uncrowded; what kind of gym is THAT?

 

What we hadn’t taken into consideration was Pat - a complete tiger as far as beating the bushes and finding prospects for us. On the first week she almost literally dragged a passer by in and gave her the tour; she must have been fantastic at her job because that client is still with us!

 

So we were off and running, and within a few months we had what we thought was a good business; we were covering our costs and feeling pretty smug.

 

Christmas 2014 - the start of our Academic Publishing journey!

 

Although our business was running well, the general understanding about the benefits of strength training were still not really known in the UK. Then one quiet morning in mid-December Stephen came across an academic paper from Southampton Solent University relating to that subject. Never being a wall flower Stephen called up the author - James Fisher - with the opening line “I’ve got an early Christmas present for you” and the rest is, as they say, history. We went on to co-write two published academic papers on the workout we provide at Abstract Bodyworms. This did a great deal to improve our reputation in the industry, but not so much in our client base. But it was an unexpected surprise to become published authors, in the health industry, at 60!

 

Building the Business

 

What we thought of as busy days at the start soon became pleasant memories of peace and calm; for all sorts or reasons our training was proving very popular with the local community, so much so that we began to need more trainers (as we didn’t really want to come out of retirement). Happily Pat found a solution (her charm can be wonderful); Ian was retiring from the Police and was looking for some occupation. We liked him, he liked us, he trained up in double quick time, and he has been with us ever since. Other trainers have come and gone, but he is certainly a mainstay of Abstract Bodyworks Newbury (after us, of course!).

 

Surviving the Pandemic

 

What could have killed the business actually did us a favour. Obviously we were closed down for months on end, but happily our own financial conservatism, along with support from our Landlord, allowed us to emerge from the pandemic as a thriving business. We’ve lost a few clients, but a large percentage were eager to come back to us, which was very encouraging, and we took the opportunity of lockdown to rationalize our opening hours so as to make the business more sustainable.

 

So ten years, over 15,000 sessions, and scores of satisfied clients later, we’d like to thank Newbury for welcoming us, and allowing us to make (some of) you healthier and stronger. And we’d like to be doing this for another decade - well we’ll certainly be doing it for ourselves!