What’s your indoor cycling story?

I first came across indoor cycling when I worked on cruise ships, as part of a career in musical theatre. I was having a tough time with body image – we were weighed every week on the ships – and indoor cycling was a godsend. It introduced me to a world of fun exercise where I wasn’t doing anything silly to lose weight.

I’d always hated sport, but when I left the ships I found my way to fitness. I did my group exercise and PT certifications, favouring group exercise for the way it energised me.

Indoor cycling was the first discipline I taught and it gave me that same sense of performing on-stage, but without the pressure. As a participant, I also loved the freedom I felt. You’re on your own bike, there’s no judgement, nobody’s really watching – it’s deeply introspective – yet it all takes place within a beautiful group atmosphere where you’re all moving together. I see that as a winning combination.

I spent 10 fantastic years at Virgin Active, both in the UK and Australia; did my Les Mills training, including RPM; and became Stages’ master trainer in Australia. That opened the doors to an international arena – presenting, conference speaking and so on.

Back then, I was very focused on power and metrics in indoor cycling. I believed you shouldn’t do anything on an indoor cycle that you wouldn’t do on an outdoor bike. But then Virgin Active Australia, eyeing boutique opportunities, sent me to New York to experience rhythm cycling. I immediately fell in love with the connection to the music and how the rockstar instructor made me feel.

That was 2017, when there wasn’t much rhythm cycling in Australia. I came back and created two boutique programmes for Virgin Active: rhythm-based Cycle Spirit and metrics-based Cycle Burn. These were launched at a standalone boutique studio in Sydney and subsequently also into its mainstream clubs.

What came next?

After 10 years of love for Virgin Active, I was ready for a change and started my own consultancy around the exercise experience; I’m passionate about creating experiences that evoke emotions and make people feel good.

I spent the next few years working with boutique studios, from conducting experience audits all the way through to creating signature programming, manuals and training. Then along came COVID, shortly after I’d moved to Queensland to be with my partner Kyle.

During lockdown, I co-founded a training company that helped instructors develop their freestyle skills, rather than always teaching pre-choreographed classes.

And then, as we emerged from lockdown, Kyle and I looked around and realised there was nothing close to boutique fitness on the Gold Coast. CrossFit and reformer pilates were everywhere, but no true boutique experiences.

For a long time I hadn’t wanted to be tied down by bricks and mortar, but COVID made me OK with being more settled. In 2021, I approached Dave Norman, who had got me onboard at Stages and who owned pilates studios on the Gold Coast. I met with him and his wife Roz, sharing my dream of a cycle studio that focused on feelings. Two hours later, they called to say “we’re in!”

“Our vision is to change the feeling of  fitness. We’ve set out to contribute positively to people’s mental health.”

It took us a year to find the right location, but in November 2022 we opened Therapy Fitness in Mermaid Waters, offering rhythm cycling, hot pilates-yoga fusion and a treadmill/weights class. Kyle and I own 50 per cent, Dave and Roz the other 50 per cent.

What’s the Therapy Fitness concept?

Our vision is to change the feeling of fitness. We’ve set out to create safe spaces where we can contribute positively to people’s mental health.

I don’t believe fitness should be about aesthetics, calorie burn or punishment. I don’t understand why so many gyms continue to sell movement for weight loss, setting people up with body image fears and then selling themselves as the solution. I’m so tired of that. Those weekly weigh-ins on the ship… they’re still one of my main triggers.

At Therapy Fitness, we focus on movement for mental health, which incidentally is where you’ll find the strongest evidence – far stronger than movement for weight loss.

What does ‘Therapy’ mean in practice?

We’ve created purposeful, immersive experiences across all our disciplines, tapping into as many senses as we can to help people be present in their bodies.

“Every class has its own mindful Therapy moment. People can choose the type of therapy they feel they need on any given day.”

Hearing is about music and cues: science shows that the more rhythmic the movement – the more immersed you are in the music and the beat – the more endorphins and feelgood hormones you release.

All our instructors undertake rigorous training and learn to use intrinsic cues. We’re very specific about the words we use. We don’t talk about weight loss or how people look, instead focusing on resilience, strength, feelings.

Sight is about studio design: a black box with nightclub lighting for RUNLIFT; a white box with candles and coloured, chakra-aligned lighting for our CONNECT studio; dark walls and white lighting for CYCLE where it’s yin and yang, HIIT and mindful.

We also ask people to leave their phones at the door and we don’t use any metrics in class. We wrap people in a room with no distraction to enhance the mental health piece.

Taste is about our smoothie bar – a real signature for us. These daily doses of goodness have a new positive affirmation written on the side each day. People actively wait to see what it says and it creates a buzz on social media, as well as a feelgood factor among our community.

Smell is about bespoke scented candles, incense and oils, while touch is about tactile experiences such as lavender-infused cold towels after class. We also work to remove any negative sensory experiences, such as damp cycle shoes or boxing gloves. We have antibacterial ozone cleaners to dry and sanitise them between each use.

Are your programmes therapeutic?

Every class has its own style of mindful Therapy moment, the idea being that people can choose the type of therapy they feel they need on any given day.

In CYCLE, we always have a positive message for the day and a track to contemplate it. Sometimes people cry, but mostly it’s about joy, expression and community. Some days we even sing along to the music together.

In RUNLIFT it’s about accelerating away, leaving behind whatever’s holding you back. It’s about being strong and resilient.

In CONNECT Yang, our high-intensity pilates fusion class, there’s a release track with slow burpees-to-the-beat where everyone lets out a coordinated exhale – ‘ha!’ – each time they stand up. It’s an incredibly powerful, mindful release of frustration.

“We’ve created strong brand values and have been unwavering in reinforcing them. We ooze our beliefs through every pore.”

CONNECT Yin is a slow, deep, restorative class that’s also highly mindful. And we’ve recently launched breathwork and sound healing, too, which are proving very popular across a wide range of audiences. If COVID did one good thing, it was teaching more people the importance of self-care.

How has your ‘therapy’ been received?

People on the Gold Coast are quite focused on aesthetics, so we were nervous about launching our concept, but it’s been very well received. We have around 100 people coming through for each round of classes and most do at least two disciplines, often three.

I think it’s helped that we’ve created strong brand values and been unwavering in reinforcing them. We ooze our beliefs through every pore and we aren’t distracted from them. Just as one example: we won’t ever show calorie burn on social media. If we share posts, we black out any reference to calories.

This strength of brand and ethos will be so important if we expand to other locations.

“I’m a big advocate of the KISS  principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid. The best classes I’ve been to, the coach has  brought everyone together as a tribe.”

Will you expand Therapy Fitness?

We already run a lot of community events, sharing our passion with the wider Gold Coast public as well as giving our Therapy community a chance to come together and connect.

The whole point of immersive classes is that you don’t chat all the way through, which means we have to create other community-building opportunities. That happens in-club – special events with wine or prosecco after class, for example – but also in a wide range of external scenarios, including cycle classes on the rooftop of the casino, on a yacht and on the beach. Some are free, some are ticketed, some are in collaboration with brands such as Lululemon, but we do it as often as possible to give people a chance to catch up.

But yes, we are also looking to open more studios. Our message is so important and is having such a positive impact that we want to extend it. We’ll initially look within Queensland for reasons of continuity – we won’t be franchising as we’d rather grow slowly and know every instructor is teaching with the same ethos – but I’m a dreamer. Why not look worldwide if we can do it without diluting the brand?

What’s the key to indoor cycling success?

We have 37 bikes and could easily have filled more. This success comes down to our instructors. It always does with indoor cycling.

“It’s easy to look at full-capacity attendance and think the instructor is doing brilliantly. But are the people in the back row different in every class?”

One of the most important things is to be inclusive, coaching the whole room and not just the front row. The front row are your die-hards. They’ll keep coming whatever you do, so there’s no point focusing your delivery on them. You need to think of the middle row – the people who want to be involved, but who will be put off by show-off choreography and aggressive motivation – and the back-row beginners and introverts.

It’s very easy for a gym or studio to look at full-capacity attendance figures and think the instructor is doing brilliantly. But are the people in the back row different in every class? Are the people in the middle row really enjoying themselves? Are your apparently most popular instructors actually contributing to churn?

My view: It’s perfectly possible to make a class accessible to all and still be really good for the front row. It’s possible to do rhythm cycling really effectively and also safely.

In fact, even advanced riders will be in their minds if the choreography is too complex, thinking about what they’re doing rather than being present in their bodies. It takes away the whole purpose of rhythmic, immersive fitness.

So, I’m a big advocate of the KISS principle – Keep It Simple, Stupid. The best classes I’ve been to, the coach has brought everyone together as a tribe, letting them see how cool it feels when they all move together in that mirror. You need to create an inclusivity, a unity within the team, and that doesn’t work if you’re doing crazy choreography.

Any other indoor cycling advice?

It would be really lovely if the two worlds of rhythm cycling and traditional indoor cycling could get along. I believe each can learn from the other.

Take it from me: I used to be blinkered entirely, convinced rhythm cycling was the wrong way to go. But sometimes – and this is a life message, really – it’s beautiful to take the blinkers off and look outside the box. Take a wider, more open perspective because there’s so much to be learned.

Rhythm cycling isn’t going anywhere and that’s a good thing, because it’s brought so many more people to indoor cycling. I honestly think it’s a life-changing programme. You just need to experience it in a great studio with a great instructor.

We’ve now got so many more people riding across the world that it would be great if we could all just get along and appreciate the bike for what it is, no matter what modality you’re teaching on it. There will always be people doing crazy choreography at one extreme, dull classes at the other. Hopefully we can learn from each other and meet somewhere in the middle where it’s fun, effective and always an amazing class.