It has been one year since we opened the doors at Hygieia Strength & Conditioning Buona Vista.

Looking back, more than anything, I feel grateful. Grateful for the trust our clients have placed in us, and grateful for the opportunity to make a living from something I’ve loved for a long time: barbell training.

A year isn’t a very long time, but looking around the gym now, there are small reminders everywhere of how much has changed.

Because I’m in the gym every day, those gradual changes are easy for me to miss. Often, it’s the clients who point them out and make me realise just how much the gym has grown. And in the day-to-day rush of coaching, admin work, and daily operations, it’s easy to forget to stop and properly say thank you.

So this piece is partly a chance for me to do that: to look back at our first year and, more importantly, to thank the clients, friends, and team members who have trusted us and supported us along the way.

If I haven’t always taken the time to say it, I hope this makes clear how much I appreciate everyone who has helped make this first year possible.

Small signs of growth

Some of the clearest signs of growth are actually very ordinary things around the gym.

Our PR board started completely empty when Mae helped me put it up in November 2025. Ario helped print all the markers and numbers, and slowly, names started appearing.

Some wrote their first-ever PRs on the board, while others reluctantly put up their current training weights because they had not yet worked back to their old bests. Either way, I always watch proudly when I see a number eventually get erased and replaced with something heavier.

The photo wall has filled up in much the same way. It contains almost everyone who has trained here, although we are still missing some newer clients – and a few who insist that we take their photo only after they get stronger.

Even the shoe rack tells the same story. We started with one set of shelves and eventually had to rearrange part of the gym to make room for another. We keep a limited selection of communal lifting shoes for clients to use, but seeing more personal pairs appear still makes me happy. Buying your own lifting shoes is a small thing, but perhaps it means you have decided that this lifting thing is something you plan to keep doing.

Who trains here?

If you look at the photo wall, you might notice a pattern that is not quite what people usually expect from a barbell gym.

Our median age is around 49, and roughly three-quarters are over 40. Around 59% of our clients are women and 41% are men.

Naturally, I would like to think Ario’s and my handsomeness have something to do with the female majority, although there are probably more reasonable explanations.

The older age profile, on the other hand, is nothing particularly new for Hygieia. Even at Haig Road, some people in the local powerlifting community jokingly called us the “Masters gym” — Masters being the competition category for lifters over 40.

It is a label we have always been quite happy to wear.

But I think there is also a simple reason why that has continued at Buona Vista: people bring people.

Terry was the first person to train at our Buona Vista gym. He was also one of around 30 clients who moved over from Haig Road and became the founding members of this gym.

I am particularly grateful to this group. They already had an awesome gym at Haig Road, yet they were willing to follow us to a new location and put their trust in something that was only just getting started.

Without them, those first few months would have been much harder.

They were also among the first people to recommend us to their friends and families. That has continued throughout the year, to the point where well over half of the people we coach now have at least one family member training with us too.

And that has brought several generations into the gym.

Our youngest client, Lucas, is 16 and trains with his dad, Emmanuel.

At the other end is Shirley, who turns 80 this year and still enjoys playing golf. Shirley was brought to us by her daughter Stacey, who had herself been inspired by Joanna bringing her 79-year-old mother, Judy, to our group class.

Stacey then brought her daughter Rebecca as well – giving us three generations of women from the same family lifting with us.

I think this is one of the nicest things to have come out of the first year. Someone trusting us with their own training already means a lot. Trusting us enough to bring their parents, children, partners, or friends means even more.

It also reinforces something we have always believed: barbell training is for everyone! And as we get older, strength only becomes more important.

Ario

Ario’s story with Hygieia actually started long before Buona Vista.

He first met Shaun in 2018 when he attended one of Shaun’s barbell clinics. Years later, while we were looking at potential locations for the new gym, we bumped into him again. By coincidence, he was working for a company in the same building.

After we opened, we were looking for someone to join me as an apprentice – similar to how I started as Shaun’s apprentice back in 2017. We put the opportunity in our newsletter, and Ario responded.

At the time, he was considering leaving the industry he had worked in for many years. He had been lifting for a long time and already held an NCSF personal training certification, but he had very little actual coaching experience.

So he started following me around on weekdays.

He watched sessions, learned the day-to-day work and, more importantly, tried to figure out whether coaching was something he could genuinely see himself doing and enjoying for the long term.

That probably describes Ario quite well. He is calm and measured. He wanted to see the job up close before deciding whether this was the path he wanted.

Eventually, he decided that it was.

He tendered his resignation in January 2026 and joined us full-time in February.

Changing careers after decades in another profession is not an easy decision. I am grateful he chose to take this difficult path with us (and that his family gave their blessings), because I honestly do not know how I would have managed this year on my own without him.

For those who know Ario, he is a big man of relatively few words. He probably looked intimidating to some people at first. He is definitely not the bubbly, endlessly cheerful personal trainer stereotype.

But perhaps his engineering background is exactly why he coaches the way he does. He is sharp, observant, and concise. Sometimes he spots things I miss.

By the time this article is published, Ario will be about a week away from flying to Texas for his Starting Strength Coach seminar and examination. He first needs to pass the practical portion before moving on to the oral board, where his theoretical understanding will be tested.

Of course, we hope he performs well and comes home with the outcome he wants. But regardless of what happens that weekend, I am already proud of how far he has come.

Today, Ario is coaching close to 20 clients of his own. The simplest way I can explain how much I trust him is this: I would happily put my own mum under his care.

And as more people come through our doors, I hope more of you will get to know him and feel just as comfortable referring someone you care about to him as you would to me.

The people behind us

Of course, Buona Vista does not exist on its own.

Shaun has been my boss, mentor and the person who gave me the opportunity to open this gym in the first place.

He has been a very good influence on me over the years – other than introducing me to cigars and poisoning me into believing expensive motorcycles are a reasonable thing to buy.

Our personalities probably complement each other quite well. Shaun is structured and systematic, which is a useful buffer against my tendency to be rather random.

So Shaun, thank you for trusting me with this, and thank you for continuing to tolerate me.

Ellie has always been one of the best team players we could ask for. The nicely coated wooden platforms you see at Buona Vista are there largely because of the work she put into them.

And to both Shaun and Ellie, thank you especially for stepping in at very short notice when my youngest daughter was born. Knowing that the gym would keep running while I could be with my family meant a lot.

Lastly, my own family.

My wife Isabela, and my daughters Maia and now Isla, are my greatest supporters and a huge part of the reason I continue doing what I do.

Running a gym means early mornings, long days, weekends and plenty of time away from home. They live with that reality more than anyone.

Words will never properly describe the love and support I receive from them, but I hope they know how grateful I am, and how much of what I do is ultimately for them too.

Looking ahead

As I look toward our second year, I don’t have any grand plans.

One thing I would like to do is create more opportunities for everyone to get together outside their normal sessions – lift, eat some food and spend time together at the gym. Something like the lifting meets and BBQs we have enjoyed over the years at Haig Road.

Beyond that, I just want us to keep improving the things we already do: coach well, make small changes where needed, and keep creating a gym that people enjoy coming back to.

Thank you again to everyone who has supported us through the first year. I’m looking forward to seeing what the next one brings.