Lancashire gym is voted the best in the country

Your Gym of Preston Road picked up the honours in three categories including the headline title of National Gym of the Year.

Club manager Rob Ward said: “It was the tenth anniversary of the awards and they had more nominations than ever.

“We won Regional Gym of the Year North and Group Exercise Gym of the Year.

“The winners of the regional competitions go head to head for the national title and we won.

“We have won the regional title before (2019) and during lockdown we really pulled out all the stops to do more for the people who come here.

“It is unbeliveable that we won given the number of entrants and the fact we were up against some of the big London gyms. We are delighted.

“We have built up a massive community online and the instructors double down and put on a lot of online classes for the local community during lockdown.

“When we could go on the parks we did a lot of free classes. We did a lot of mental health work. We employ a mental health coach and she and myself did a lot of Q&A sessions.

“But ever since we have been allowed to open again we have kicked on and learned lessons from lockdown. We do special closed gym sessions for people worried about coming inside during the pandemic.”

He said membership numbers stayed strong through the lockdown and they were at around 90 per cent of the numbers before the pandemic.

They have opened an extra site in Kirkham at St George’s park doing fitness classes, hot yoga and wellness sessions.

Your Gym now runs 110 classes a week across the two sites. He added: “A lot of people now just want to come in for a quick session and leave. There is less socialising I have noticed which is understandable. We have a class for everyone, from beginners classes to our triathlon club for experienced people.

“This year has taught us a lot. It was challenging but we came through stronger. We did not lose anyone from the team and we created a support network. It has been rewarding and we are excited for what 2022 brings.”

The gym, situated behind Lidl in the former KAOS climbing building, was set up by Andrew Langley in November 2017 and has around 1,000 members.