Fitness trainer opens his dream gym
When a Palmerston North man couldn’t find his perfect gym for love nor money, he decided to build it himself.
The Platform owner Graham Eckersley was a professional fitness trainer for seven years before he struck out on his own and opened his gym last week.
‘‘It was out of frustration. I was sick to death of having to deal with the way most suburban gyms did things.’’
He said it was hard to find a good strength and conditioning-focused gym, with enough equipment – so he bought a spot on the corner of Fairs Rd and Jasper Place in Milson and started the kind of place he was looking for.
Eckersley figures other people will be looking for the same thing he was, and that seems to be the case so far.
‘‘We’re three days deep, and we’ve already got 40 members signed up,’’ he said last Thursday.
Eckersley said most gyms catered mainly to bodybuilders, because they were reliable, frequent gym-users – so most of the equipment was more effective at building muscle than improving fitness.
‘‘Trying to find a good strength and conditioning gym is hard, and we just have to make do. They tend to scrimp on the things we want, and go for things that don’t give much returns [in building strength and conditioning].’’
Eckersley said the classic example was the ‘‘pec deck’’, a common gym machine.
It is great for sculpting and building up chest muscles, but barely helps improve practical athletic conditioning.
At The Platform most of the money is put into the squat racks, bar bells and dead-lift platforms. And the space itself is stripped back, with little decoration other than the murals drawn by his friend, Barry Mcgoldrick.
Eckersley is the only trainer, but he hopes to recruit a few more in the new year.