The Fitness Business

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Level Up Fitness Emphasising the human touch

First established three years back, in October 2009, Level Up Fitness is the passion project for executive director, Kenny Sia.

Having lived in Australia for eight years prior to returning to his hometown of Kuching, Sia was very much adapting to the lifestyle there, whereby exercising was a large part of the culture.

Upon his return, Sia discovered that there was virtually no exercising culture here.

“It was not that there weren’t any gyms in Kuching, but the ones in existence were very specific, there was one targeted at bodybuilders and another very high-end one that costs thousands just to sign up.

That was even more expensive than the gyms I frequented in Perth, even with the currency conversion,” Sia said.

When asked of the drive behind opening up the fitness centre, Sia noted that it was in large part due to his late father.

Growing up, Sia always thought he would eventually be involved in the family business, however, he found that his passion lay elsewhere.

“People here make a lot of excuses in not exercising, which meant nothing to me until my father passed away.

He was a workaholic who would work long hours, to the point where he neglected to take care of himself,” Sia explained, adding that his father’s passing affected him deeply.

Having spotted a void in the market whereby there were no gyms catering to the masses, Sia went on to start up Level Up Fitness, which he highlighted was no easy feat at all.

Nevertheless, it was a field of interest which he believed was something Kuching did not have back then and he created something new here.

The human touch

Level Up Fitness is a comprehensive fitness facility with dedicated areas for certain aspects of training such as its dedicated cardio area, dedicated functional training area, a group cycling studio as well as group fitness studios for high-impact (Body Combat, Body Pump classes) and low-impact (Yoga, Pilates and various dances) group classes.

These areas are specially designed for specific activities and equipped with the appropriate facilities to add to the convenience of members.

While the equipments in Level Up Fitness are reasonably top of the tier, having the essential equipments being imported from the US, with brands such as Cybex, LifeFitness and Hammer Strength completing its arsenal, Sia believed that the people who work there ‘makes the gym’.

According to Sia, the people at Level Up Fitness make all the difference.

While another gym might open up somewhere along the road, equipped with the latest and most updated equipments and facilities, Sia noted what differentiates the fitness centre was the people.

He noted that some 80 per cent of the trainers in Level Up Fitness were internationally certified.

Sia went on to highlight the importance of being certified to international standards for the company to aim to operate at a world class level.

“For example, our fitness instructors must undergo a training process after which they would have to film one of their classes within a year.

The video has to be sent to Australia whereby a body would judge if they are fit to continue conducting classes,” explained Sia.

For the relatively inexperienced staff, Sia and his team of senior staff would be the ones training them up to standard and subsequently get them fit to be certified.

Facing obstacles

One of the biggest obstacles faced by Level Up Fitness in its early days was people, or human resources.

Sia pointed out that fitness instructors were not something that parents usually envision their children to be.

“Working in the fitness industry is not typically seen as a viable job,” Sia said.

“Parents usually want their kids to be doctors, lawyers, engineers.

We rarely hear anyone encouraging their kids to be a fitness instructor.” To add insult to injury, there is a lack of schools or courses to train people up in this field as sport sciences or similar subjects are not offered in most of the tertiary educational institutes in the state.

Sia went on to develop his own solution to the problem, with a proper and comprehensive syllabus for Level Up Fitness staff in all departments.

“We have our own staff training programme, from those manning the front desk, to the sales department, not forgetting the fitness staff.

We take professional courses offered overseas and pass it on to our people here.

While these courses use a lot of complicated jargon which we might not see very often, we digest what was learned and then teach them to our staff in a manner which we can easily understand.

This simplifies the teaching and learning process,” Sia explained.

Through this method, Level Up Fitness has since managed to train a group of instructors with no fitness background to be able to teach others today.

The understanding for people to pay a membership fee to join a club and use its facilities is also foreign to a lot of locals, according to Sia, who also noted that females are often repulsed to join a gym for fear of gaining a muscular body as a result, having the perception that working out in gyms would lead to a bodybuilder’s physique.

“We have a long way to go in terms of educating people of the exercising culture as well as proper gym etiquette.” However, signs of progress are showing as more and more fitness centres are popping up around town.

When asked on his opinion, Sia believed that fitness was the latest trend in town, having spread from the bigger cities.

He highlighted that it could be dangerous that many were interested in opening up fitness centres simply because it was a ‘fashionable’ thing to do at this juncture.

This was mainly because the fitness industry in Malaysia was not regulated currently.

“Self-regulation is important and we do that here.

It would be dangerous if trainers are without qualification and injuries can happen.

If you start the business for the wrong reasons, it will affect the industry as a whole.

Every time a gym closes down, people mistrust gyms a bit more,” Sia stressed.

Going forward

With another outlet planned in the upcoming Plaza Merdeka mall, Level Up Fitness is slowly expanding its reach in Kuching.

Having accumulated experience in opening up the current fitness centre, Sia noticed that there was a demand for more exclusivity and privacy.

“Some of them want a bit more of a VIP treatment, so we are planning on catering to those who want to exercise in privacy with the upcoming outlet.

We will also be having a bigger functional area where we have instructors on standby to guide the members around.” Sia enthused that there would be added convenience being located within a shopping mall as people can go around the mall after workouts.

Members would also have access to a swimming pool as well as the spa and sauna areas.

The upcoming 12,000 square feet fitness centre was also expected to rectify a lot of problems its predecessor faced, having learned from trial and error.

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