Voted Best Independent Gym in the UK

Taking the title of ‘The Best Independent Gym in the UK’ 2021 - not a bad start to the year…

WILD TRAINING IS ENTERING IT’S 11TH YEAR AND BRINGING WITH IT
TWO INCREDIBLE TITLES

At the start of 2020 we were awarded the title of ‘The Best Gym in Buckinghamshire’ - a title we are proud of, especially being up against huge gyms, franchises and other independent gyms in Buckinghamshire.

Now, January 2021 we have just been awarded the title of ‘The Best Independent Gym in the UK’ from Independent Gyms UK.

This award means more than just a title to us, it shows belief and support in what we do. It’s very easy for us to shout about the good we do, but to get others to say it - they must first believe it.

Wild Training’s ethos has always been, make it fun, keep it effective and include everyone, and that’s what we have continued to do since day one. More and more people see and feel it now more than ever, because we have the right team in place, because we are passionate about our jobs, because we are constantly learning and evolving, and ultimately - we have stayed true to ourselves, even when confronted with battles.

10 years of silent exercise has brought us to right here right now - the 11th year, Best Independent Gym in the UK, consulting with fitness agencies, selling our Wild Online Workouts resource globally, working with distributors selling our Urban Strength Bar and programming, to being the front cover of Men’s Fitness Magazine, Daily Mail Online, Metro plus many other publications. People will think we are mad after the year of 2020 and making plans of expanding the brand - but in true Wild Training spirit, this is something that is under way.

GET READY TO SEE MORE OF WILD TRAINING.

The next 10 years may bring out our ‘Masterwork’ years, but one thing is for sure, we will not forget the previous 10 years. These were the foundation years, built up brick by brick. Those that threw stones, didn’t realise we were collecting them and building an empire.

THE FUTURE’S LOOKING WILD.

Daily Mail Online

The Urban Strength Bar takes steals the show with an impressive review on the Daily Mail Online

Melissa Cassar on the Urban Strength Bar - V3.0.
Photo credit - Matt Marsh

Another triumph for Wild Training and the Urban Strength Bar. Alongside an incredible front cover of Men’s Fitness, the Urban Strength bar is now tried, tested and reviewed on Daily Mail Online.

With a readership of over 92,360,000 people - we are extremely proud of this achievement.

The review came from a journalist who took on a 1-1 with James Griffiths during a live workout with the Urban Strength Bar. Going through a typical session they looked at warm ups with the bar, how the bar can be used for strength and cardio as well as ending with some flexibility moves.

Check out the feature here

The Urban Strength Bar was designed with the idea of training the body using leverage, thanks to it’s design and clever programming from James Griffiths, we can utilise the leverage to achieve an intense cardio workout, strength workout and flexibility workout. No matter your fitness level, whether you’re starting out, recovering from an injury (the bar will most definitely assist your recovery) to a hobbyist fitness fan all the way up to an elite athlete, everyone can benefit from the Urban Strength Bar.

IT’S A BEAUTIFUL EQUILIBRIUM OF STRENGTH, BALANCE AND CONTROL.

We have released a new version on the Urban Strength Bar. Now boasting the V3.0, this bar weighs under 2kg, the most lightweight model yet. This design has a built in texture that helps when gripping the bar which is new to the V3.0. The bar is guaranteed for 50 years and we have not managed to break one yet.

The bar is only £49.99 and comes complete with online training and workouts for you to get started. You can buy the bar direct from our Wild X app or here, available in blue, pink or grey.

Our trainers are always on hand to help anyone with the Urban Strength Bar. With over 7 years of experience in using the bar we are always evolving the training, expanding the uses for the bar and more and more people are benefiting from using the Urban Strength Bar everyday.

To buy your own bar click here

Front Cover Man

James Griffiths fronts the cover of Men’s Fitness magazine.

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Wild Training are incredibly proud to show off James Griffiths being the front cover man for Men’s Fitness magazine which is being released October 2020.

This incredible achievement is a well deserved reward of recognition for all the hard work that James has put in over the years. He has dedicated his working career to helping others. Since starting out James’ efforts have seen him change the lives of so many people, from his clients to the team around him.

The combination of his passion and drive has seen Wild Training elevate it’s status within the fitness industry. Still helping people who start their Wild Training journey with us, James is now trailblazing the way with hybrid gyms, raising the game for fitness apps with our brand new Wild X app to working as a consultant for other fitness businesses, and now changing the way serious fitness professionals learn and develop their skills to create successful businesses of their own with the Wild Evo instructor training programme.

James and the Wild Training team work very closely together, it’s very much a team effort with a pioneering leader. We have had many challenges along the way, but we make sure we are having fun whilst creating our Wild story, which gets better each day!

THE SCOOP

The feature is all about strongman training and how anyone can get started with this style of exercise, regardless of strength or abilities. Sporting professional photos taken by our Wild member - Ben Machekanyanga, with full explanations of each workout, the feature is incredibly comprehensive as an intro to strongman training, even without traditional strongman equipment.

James’ experiences in strongman training for himself, training others and further research makes the article a great and insightful read for everyone.

Available to buy in October 2020. Make sure you grab your copy!

WILD X

Your fitness app just got Wild

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The Wild X app has landed - and it’s changing the future of fitness apps.

Our Wild X app contains all of our incredible workout plans, programmes, our entire Wild Online Workouts catalogue which is always evolving with the most up to date Wild Workouts, nutrition support as well as mindfulness guides.

With workouts purely bodyweight and starting from 15 minutes, not having time or equipment is not an issue when looking for an effective workout.

TRACKABLE RESULTS.
MOTIVATION THAT LASTS.

Our built in claw points system means that with every workout you do, you gain claw points. Collect enough claw points and you will level up through the ranks and level up your fitness.

Collect 20 claws in the first month to go from Omega to Hunter, collect another 20 claw points in 1 month for 3 months consistently to get to Warrior status. Can you reach our Apex - the highest rank possible!

POWER. ENDURANCE. CONTROL.

Wild Training helps people maximise power, endurance and control across the full range of natural movement.

That doesn't mean maximise like a super elite athlete, or having to be the best at everything.

Wild Training is about maximising your time and delivering results. Maximising fun. Giving you a life you can live to the max.

The Wild X app means we can now deliver this to everyone, no matter where they are in the world from a sleek, stylish app.

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MORE THAN JUST EXERCISE.

We are a team of passionate trainers, together we trial all of our systems and programmes prior to release. With our high standards of delivering exceptional quality in all that we do, we make sure that we collaborate with the very best professionals out there who contribute to Wild X. Our Mindset guides created for Wild Training by Adie Shariff, a performance Psychologist with 25+ years experience. These helpful guides have been valuable not only to our Wild Training team, but our members too.

NUTRITION SUPPORT.

No fitness app is complete without nutrition support. Wild X includes our 21 Day Wild Shred Plan. This is the very best weight loss programme we have. It’s perfect for busy people that don’t have a lot of time. Simple to follow video guides covering workouts and food. No exercise equipment needed. Daily guides provided.

Wild Training members get access to all the Wild workouts and programmes included on the Wild X app as a part of the membership.
Non-members can get a 7 day free trial for Wild X and the monthly subscription is as little at £8.85 per month.

DOWNLOAD THE WILD X APP FROM ALL APP STORES NOW!

The Muscle Tunnel just got more muscle

Muscle Tunnel upgrades

The Muscle Tunnel is a key feature of Wild Training, an iconic and well regarded set up amongst our members, strongmen and women locally and afar.

Even legends such as; Laurence Shahlaei (Europe’s Strongest man 2017 and 11 x world’s Strongest man competitor), Terry Hollands (winner of England’s and Britain’s Strongest man competition), Andrea Thompson (x4 Britain’s strongest woman, World’s Strongest woman 2018), James Crossley (‘Hunter’ - Gladiators) come to visit Wild Training to hit the Muscle Tunnel for a workout.

Being far from the bleak and deserted tunnel prior to when Wild Training took over the location, we have made it in to an incredibly versatile training area, which is still growing.

Lockdown was thrown upon us and in true Wild Training style we took this closure opportunity to revamp the entire gym including the Muscle Tunnel.

Essentially, the Muscle Tunnel is comprised of 4 zones.
The Quad
Rig Zone *New 2020
Strongman Zone
Strength Zone *New 2020

The Quad - Top of the Tunnel, classes and free training happens here.
Rig Zone - Assault Rig area. A Wild Training designed rig for classes and free training.
Strongman Zone - Strongman area after the rig. Strongman classes and free training area.
Strength Zone - Bodybuilding, weight machines and free weights area at the end of the tunnel. Classes and free training.

New additions, new styles of exercise.

The new additions open up the Muscle Tunnel to more styles of exercise for everyone.
Our assault rig can be seen as you enter the Muscle Tunnel. Standing tall in all its glory, usually with members hanging off it, hitting beast slastix runs, rope climbs, monkey bar runs, suspension straps attached, the assault rig is how Wild Training make rigs - versatile and just badass. Used for classes, PT, members free training, aerial fitness like Silks, Hoop and Olympic Rings, the rig adds to the unrivalled value of variety which we offer to our members.

The ultimate Strength Zone
The end of the tunnel is now our designated bodybuilding, physique training area.
This exciting addition is a perfect fit for the Muscle Tunnel. An area full of free weights and machinery such as; belt squat, leg extension, reverse hyper, glute drive, lat pull-down, dual cable cross over, prone T-bar, leg curl, incline press, squat racks, seated row, competition bench press. Whether you are in prep for a competition or training for yourself or your sports team, the strength zone is for everyone.

Book your tour to come and visit the Wild Training Gym: https://calendly.com/wildtraininggym/gymtour

What is Wild Training

Discover A Life Without Limits - That is to #LiveAWildLife

Wild Training is about empowering people to explore everything the world has to offer with confidence.

Wild Training makes exercise fun, because without fun, why would you start, and why would you carry on maintaining your health and fitness. Making exercise fun is our first value.

Wild Training keeps exercise effective. Making exercise effective when you start something new is easy. Keeping it effective takes creativity and useful experience. That's what Wild Training is the best at. Keeping exercise effective is our second value.

Most importantly, Wild Training includes everyone. We've trained everyone from young children to seniors, people recovering from surgery or managing disabilities, people that have never exercised before and some of the best athletes in our country's history. Including everyone is our third value.  

Learn to play with your physical and mental limitations. We're all going to fall over in life, in many different ways. Wild Training will teach you how to make sure you can always get back up and go again.

You will discover you don't need to be good at something to have fun with it, you just have to try. If you have fun with any type of exercise for long enough, you'll get good at it.

Try hard, try often, try everything. That's how Wild Training will help you do so much more than transform your health and fitness. Wild Training will transform your life.

#LiveAWildLife

Here from our Wild Training Gym members here:

My body is my canvas

Fitness is not science. It's art. We are all artists capable of creating beauty and joy in our own lives. 

Like a painter we have a canvas, paints, tools to effectively mix and apply those paints to a canvas.

My body is my canvas, and it is unique. No one else has what I have. I'm alone in where I am starting and where I am going. My final destination is unknown even to me. That means my canvas has an unlimited potential. I have no limits. 

Exercises are my paints. Any colour on it's own can have an impact, but when paints are used together, we create art. There are no perfect colours. There are no perfect combinations. Every time I paint, I learn more about the connection between my paints and my canvas. The only way I can fail to create art, is if I fail to paint anything. 

Without a paint brush, how can I paint. Is one paint brush perfect for every job. To enjoy art, we need to use as many tools as we can to learn more, experience more, and to see more of the infinite possibilities are canvas allows. My tools are my training programs. No program is perfect. Intensity, volume, time under tension, tempo. Bringing creativity, experience and science together to excite, inspire and motivate. 

Our beauty, Our art, is not simply in the image we make. The way we look. The art we create is in the life we give our canvas. We can literally build power to create happiness in our lives. A true sense of freedom in what we can achieve. How will you journey through life. We are physical things and should enjoy expressing ourselves physically. Create your own ballet of life. What we paint on our canvas defines how we experience everything. Will you paint something beautiful, or powerful, or skillful?

The most amazing aspect of our canvas... is at any given moment, we can choose to completely re paint it. The rules are the same no matter when we want to paint a new picture. 

My body is my canvas, and it is unique. No one else has what I have. I'm alone in where I am starting and where I am going. My final destination is unknown even to me. That means my canvas has an unlimited potential. I have no limits.

... so what are you going to paint?

Have a process - Use Your Claws

2017 was a big year. This video was put together to share an idea. Something that will hopefully impact your life in a positive way for 2018 and beyond.

#UseYourClaws
4 claws of Wild Training. 
- Love. Love people. Love caring. Love what you do in every moment of your life. Then you will love your life.

- Passion. Passion is an unstoppable energy. Find yours, hold on to it, and use it every day. Do that and even when any rational person would give up, you will be able to keep going.

- Courage. Be fearless. Believe in yourself absolutely. Never stop trying. Never, ever let someone else devalue, or try to take your dream away. Remember that the people that judge you for trying harder than they try, will be forgotten about.

- Spark. The most important bit. Without spark, without taking initiative, taking something you think about, or something you talk about and making it something you do, nothing happens. Without Spark nothing becomes reality. Being first is the easiest way to win... at anything. Don’t watch other people win, and do things you thought about doing because you lacked spark.

Attack life with Spark every day and make stuff happen. Use courage and passion to see it through, and always use love to make it great.

#UseYourClaws

#UseYourClaws

4 claws of Wild Training. #UseYourClaws

- Love. Love people. Love caring. Love what you do in every moment of your life. Then you will love your life.  

- Passion. Passion is an unstoppable energy. Find yours, hold on to it, and use it every day. Do that and even when any rational person would give up, you will be able to keep going. 

- Courage. Be fearless. Believe in yourself absolutely. Never stop trying. Never, ever let someone else devalue, or try to take your dream away. Remember that the people that judge you for trying harder than they try, will be forgotten about.  

- Spark. The most important bit. Without spark, without taking initiative, taking something you think about, or something you talk about and making it something you do, nothing happens. Without Spark nothing becomes reality. Being first is the easiest way to win... at anything. Don’t watch other people win, and do things you thought about doing because you lacked spark. 

Attack life with Spark every day and make stuff happen. Use courage and passion to see it through, and always use love to make it great.  

#UseYourClaws

10 Years of Silent Exercise

James Griffiths, Personal Trainer and founder of Wild Training

This is something I’ve been excited about writing for a long time. It’s something I always think about. What do I need to do to move forward? To get better. What does dedicating yourself to one career for 10 years do. What do you learn? What does it enable you to achieve?

If you are interested in the story so far look at the “One Wild Story” blog. It covers everything from before starting as a personal trainer to the end of 2016. Here is a link to that post - http://www.wildtraining.co.uk/wild-blog/2016/10/6/one-wild-story

In 2007, I qualified as a personal trainer, and back then if you'd have told me what the next 10 years would have in store for me, it would have sounded impossible. I probably would have said something instinctive like “Rock on, let’s go and make it happen”. That constant “let’s go and try it” attitude I have gets me in to a lot of trouble, but luckily nothing I haven’t been able to handle yet. I don’t think I could change it if I wanted to anyway. #LiveAWildLife right.

So why 10 years. Why am I excited about finishing my first 10 years as a personal trainer? It comes down to one question.

How long does it take to become elite?

A dude called John Hayes wanted to know the same thing, and being a cognitive psychology professor, he had a much better chance of understanding what makes people elite and being able to write it up than I ever could.

John looked at the way effort, practice and knowledge affected success and looked at the way experiences and different choices effect success.

The cool bit and how this links to my 10 years of silent exercise. John Hayes started his research by looking at the most successful music composers in history. This involved analysing thousands of pieces of music roughly created between 1685 and 1900.

John was looking at all this music to answer one thing. “How long after one becomes interested in music is it that one becomes world class?”.

What happened next is awesome. John ended up with 500 pieces of famous music that were regularly played around the world and were all considered to be the “masterworks” in the field. These 500 pieces of music were created by 76 different composers.

Next was to calculate how long each composer had been working before they created their “masterwork” music. What John discovered was that except for 3 pieces of music out of 500, all the “masterworks” were written after 10 years of starting their careers as composers.

Mozart had to work 10 years before creating anything popular! Forget overnight success and getting rich quick. 10 years of dedicated graft to become a legend.

John Hayes referred to this 10-year period, filled with hard work and very little recognition, as the “10 years of silence”.

John found similar patterns when he investigated famous painters and poets. Maybe more famously is the research from professors like K. Anders Ericson, who completed research that showed you need to put 10,000 hours of work in to become an expert in your field. Malcolm Gladwell did a lot around making that idea popular too.

Sad for some but obvious to others is that it doesn’t just come down to time served. The way people approach their 10 years, or their 10,000 hours is everything when it comes to the success that will be achieved. Perfect practice makes perfect. Rubbish practice makes… yep, rubbish.

Different people can get a lot of different things out of one hour. I’m not smart enough to understand the mentality of a successful vs a unsuccessful person. A person that consistently makes the most of every moment to get to their goal and to go beyond their goals and someone that doesn’t approach life with the focus to make their expectations a reality.

All I know is whenever someone tries to make a rule around success or how to become successful I see loads of exceptions to the rule. Can it not just be as simple as it takes epic amounts of hard work, discipline and tenacity to achieve success, and different people will go about it in different ways and need varying amounts of time to achieve their idea of success?

That is what made me want to write this article. Do I believe in “10 years of silence”? 10,000 hours of work before becoming elite at your career. I’m currently on around 10,800 hours of personal training and probably half of that in group exercise classes. What do you get after “10 Years of Silent Exercise”?

From a hobby to a job. A passion to a career. What Wild Training is now, is not what I planned for it to be, but honestly, it’s a lot better.

Hard to do sometimes when times are tough, workload is over capacity and money is tight, but when you step back and look with neutral eyes at what you have done, what you have, and the prospects that are on the table, I’m very happy with what we have achieved in 10 years.

There have been plenty of times when I'm not sure I did the right thing. Work more hours than anyone I know. Sacrifice family time. All to have more moments of scrimping and scrounging money together than you can imagine, and no guarantee of it being worth your while.

Wild Training grew as a company very differently to most because the focus was always growing the brand to be cool. Not just to grow the bottom line. The story would be very different if it was about money.

My intentions have always been good and honest. My wife Sophie always says if you put your personality out there then people will judge. Wild Training is very much my personality.

Even though it wasn't my purpose, if you decide to do a job a bit differently to other people that do the same job, you are inadvertently saying that you think your way is better than theirs. Your way is right and they are wrong. That was never my goal.

Wild Training was an opportunity for me to have a go at doing stuff I wanted to do the way I wanted to do it. Lots of people liked it, so it grew. That was it.

I really do try to help a lot of people. Not just with fitness. Wild Training is about helping people enjoy their lifestyle doing the same kind of things that have helped me enjoy mine. Was never guess work. Just tried to share the fun. We try everything. We get lots wrong. We do charity work we can't really afford because it’s the right thing to do. We learn from everything. We keep the best stuff. That's Wild Training.

Many opinions are formed on assumptions. Luckily the Wild Training brand is stronger than me. No one sees it cry. Professional organisations believe in it. They see the value in the colour, the vitality, the spark we have cultivated in the Wild Training brand. The energy that Wild Training has. The excitement the brand brings to people.

So why am I more excited today than I have ever been before in my 10 years as a personal trainer? Well if I’m going to believe John Hayes, then everything I have done so far, isn’t worth remembering, and what I’m about to do… well hopefully there is still something special to come.

The best thing I’m going to do hasn’t been done yet, and knowing that makes my whole body feel jacked full of excitement for tomorrow and beyond. What Wild story will we be able to tell in 50 years’ time?

… Or maybe I’m not elite. I just try hard but try in the wrong way. Remember it isn’t just about the time. It’s about how you use that time, so who’s to say I have used my time wisely to achieve success?

10 years in, where am I in my career, and where is the Wild Training brand?

Well I’m no Joe Wicks. I’ve always hidden behind the brand. Creating a profile for myself has been right down at the bottom of my priorities. No doubt that isn’t the smartest approach in an industry that is very much building up around some superficial windows like social media.

Having said that it has felt like this year that more big brands and top people are keen to work with me. That’s been a big confidence booster as a lot of them reached out to me. That is probably to do with the Wild Training Gym doing so well and the Wild Training website looking a lot better. Maybe it’s just because everyone got wind that I’m 10 years in!

I’m still learning every day. Still looking at equipment and movement differently to keep training effective and fun. Now I’m able to look back at older systems and re model them with more experienced hands.

The Wild Training Online system is approaching 300 gigabytes of programming and training resources to help all the Wild Trainers and franchises deliver the best training possible. That’s a lot of info and videos on exercise, nutrition and lifestyle.

Make sure you check out www.wildonlineworkouts.com.

Honestly that online training platform has felt like a lifetime of work and I don’t think it will ever end because I don’t want to stop creating new ideas around how to help different people with different goals have fun getting awesome results.

Showing people, what Wild Training is. How we train. How we coach. The equipment we use. The energy we share. It still gives me the buzz. It’s an addiction and I’ve done it long enough now and seen enough people to know that any time someone comes in with open eyes they will always see some form of exercise they can enjoy and benefit from.

We have literally been running the Wild Training Gym for 1 year now, and what a year it has been. Not one I would necessarily want to repeat as it’s involved working more hours than I would like to add up, but with the atmosphere it has and the membership growing every day, we did it right.

For anyone that hasn’t seen the gym it’s not much of a standard model. It’s not a cross fit gym. It’s not a performance strength and conditioning centre. It’s not a personal training and group exercise studio. You don’t need to be really fit before joining. Those are just some of the things we hear.

It’s a playground, designed to let everyone from kids to elite athletes, old, young, thin, fat. Strength focused beasts to elegant yoga and dance.

One place that lets people of all abilities discover new skills, and turn those skills in to a lifestyle. Somewhere for people to express their personalities physically and benefit in all the ways that great exercise in great company helps us manage modern life.

Is the gym done? Nothing in Wild Training is ever done. Of all the things we have planned, Muscle Tunnel is going to be one of the most unique things we probably ever deliver… Maybe a 10 year in the making “Masterwork”.

Supported by some of the very best people and brands in the strength and conditioning, Strongman and Calisthenics communities, Muscle Tunnel will be a strength and conditioning set up like nothing else. Imagine Muscle Beach in Miami, in High Wycombe, in a tunnel.

Sounds silly but look at the renders. In real life when it lands in September it will be even more incredible. Such a massive space to be able to throw, slam, lift, drop and shift some serious weight. 3 squat racks, Viking press, plate loaded leg press, seated row, lifting platforms, bars, tyres, atlas stones, farmer carries, super yokes, strongman logs, kegs, car deadlift. There is too much to list.

Rebel Strength, Craig Mullineux, Precor and Physical company are setting us up so we have more lifting and strongman equipment than most large commercial gyms. How about some epic body weight calisthenics skills with the Barmania 7 meter rig we are getting thanks to Neil Timms and Incite Fitness.

See what I was saying about the best people now wanting to work with Wild Training. Yes to 10 years of silent exercise.

So the Wild Training Gym could be a 10 years ‘masterwork’. Muscle Tunnel could be up there as well. Anything else.

Earn Your Claws has been an idea I’ve had (and not had time to deliver) since about 2013. People have always asked me what I am training for. I’ve never had a very good answer. I don’t do anything competitively. No sports. No events. In December 2016, I did my first strongman event and that was my first competition since the snowboarding days around 2004.

I’ve always trained because I love training, and I love discovering better ways to train myself and my clients. My focus was always simple. Gain skills and be good at everything. I didn’t just want to be strong, or to be able to run, or to be able to fight or stretch. I wanted all of it. My training plans evolved to try and deliver that balanced fitness, whilst minimising the risk of injury. Still to this day I have never suffered any kind of injury that has stopped me from training or enjoying my lifestyle.

How did this lead me to the Earn Your Claws idea? Martial arts have belts. Musical instruments have grades. Fitness has…. Nothing.

Imagine martial arts belts but instead of coloured belts you get #EarnYourClaws coloured T shirts and instead of martial arts we hit fitness.

Most importantly with the Earn Your Claws system we test fitness in balance so for each level we test stamina, strength, power, speed, flexibility, skill and knowledge. You can’t get to level 2 until you’ve passed all the components in level 1.

Whilst some people will excel at one or two of those components of fitness, to be at a good standard in all of those components of fitness is the key.

Level 1 (white) is something most people, even with very little training experience should be able to achieve after one month as a Wild Training member. Level 2 (yellow) will take 2-3 months for most people depending on where they are starting from. Level 3 (Wild Blue) is our minimum standard for a personal trainers to work with Wild Training, so it’s a great level of fitness, achievable by everyone of our members and that is the target we set all of them. Level 4 (orange), level 5 (green) and level 6 (purple) are a lot more serious and will take some real dedication to achieve them. The black level 7 t-shirt is out of my league right now, so you can imagine what all of my training is currently focused on.

The assessments are fun and challenging. We have tested them over a long period to make sure the levels are balanced right but we have seen in a short space of time showing some of our members it gives people an exciting focus to their training, which is maybe a lot more positive than thinking about their weight or body fat.

One of the most exciting things about Earn Your Claws is the youth program we are launching in schools this September. The mission? For every kid to leave school with a Blue Level 3 Earn Your Claws t-shirt. The youth assessments are different to the adults' but the concept is the same. Teach them how to train, achieve balance, and have fun with it as a part of their lifestyle.

For each level we include a training guide relevant to the Earn Your Claws level, the one hour assessment session and your Earn Your Claws T-shirt and with the schools we are running specific Earn Your Claws group exercise sessions at lunch or after school.

No matter what happens over the next 10 years Earn Your Claws will be something I put a lot of energy in to. The schools need it, the kids love it and from what I’ve seen, adults going to the gym to feel good about who they are buzzing for a structured system like Earn Your Claws.

In 2016 we started looking at partnering with Power League to deliver a brand new Wild Training franchise model. The partnership would of included a deal with The Fitness Agents. Building the model was a great experience and the venture was looking like a really exciting step for Wild Training but in the end it didn’t come together. Sadly it wasn’t the right time for all 3 businesses to come together.

Mostly it was a real confidence booster knowing that very successful people in the fitness industry, who have been in the industry a whole lot longer than me, that already own and run their own businesses, see something in the Wild Training brand that they haven’t seen anywhere else.

For me that is a win. 10 years of silent exercise. Work hard. Don’t get much recognition. Get even less money. Then after 10 years, all of a sudden, a ‘masterwork’. Maybe if I’m lucky 4 masterworks. Who knows?

What do I know? What have I learned?

When it comes to apologies never hesitate. Whatever the result, if you do everything you can to fix a mistake then do it with all your heart and odds are the result will be better than you imagine.

Success. When you are down, no one talks to you about being successful, but when it appears things are going well, everyone starts asking what your secret to success is. My question is how do they measure success, because from the down times when no one talked to me, to now, nothing has changed.

If they judge it by anything to do with the car you drive, the size of your house or the money you earn they are crazy. I don't think success in any form can be measured by a moment, or an achievement. No one ever wins a race by patting themselves on the back while they are running.

I'm not saying you shouldn't enjoy the exciting, positive moments you have, in fact I'm saying you should enjoy every moment, including the bad ones that feel like negative moments in your journey. Enjoy overcoming those challenges, and the reward you get from realising you can find a solution to any situation.

Acknowledge the positive comments you get and REMEMBER them. They give me more energy than all the coffee in the world. People say to me "James you should sit back and appreciate what you have done and should be really proud of yourself". Thing with that is... I'm not done.

I've got trainers that have invested in Wild Training as a brand, that are still working towards where they want to be, so my job isn't done. I don't get to spend enough time with my family yet so I need to work on the processes, and build the management team within Wild Training to allow the business to operate with less of my time.

Why would I take a second out just to self-congratulate myself. I'm happy with who I am and what I do. If I wanted to change anything, I'd change it. I'll let my family and the people I care about choose if they want to be proud of me. I'll just focus on doing the best I can and not worry about spending time feeling proud of myself.

So to me being successful isn't measured by a moment, an asset or any specific achievement. I think being successful, or to achieve success, you need to have a successful mindset, and that is the end of it. I enjoy every day I have. I enjoy the journey, because I don't see it having an end, and I wouldn't want it to have an end. Everyone can be successful. They just need to put more energy in to everything they do till the output of what they do matches their expectations.

A lot of the time I have seen people that want to earn money more than they want to be good at their job. This is why I think so many self-employed people fail. Have big eyes and take on too much with too little ability. Success comes from being a master of what you do, and that means taking time not earning lots of money so you can gain the skills and abilities you need to be properly successful.

Personal trainers. Some are really really good looking, but can’t move properly without pain. Some promote health while they themselves suffer from IBS, regular kidney infections and other illnesses through the extreme lifestyles and nutrition plans that they do to look the way they think they are supposed to look to be able to say they are a good personal trainer. I hear lots of jokes about personal trainers attitudes towards other personal trainers, normally being a bit quick to overly criticise our peers' work, but the vast majority of personal trainers help people enjoy exercise.... so to me that's a win.

I started out as a personal trainer 10 years ago and saw a fitness industry that was failing. That's not me saying everyone else is rubbish and I had it right. That's one of the problems with the industry right there. Gyms looking at other gyms. Personal trainers looking at other personal trainers and having a knee jerk reaction to criticise, belittle and bad mouth without knowing any background, which is just an unwillingness to learn.

There are lessons in everything if you look,  good and bad. What I'm talking about is the industry failing the people we serve in that of the millions of pounds that are spent on health and fitness, there are pounds that have a big impact and there are still pounds today being spent that have very little impact. Fitness can help people suffering from illness, disease, some of the darkest times in life.

Fitness can help people improve the QUALITY OF THEIR LIFE. From what I see you get two types of business in the fitness industry. Those that focus on earning money, and focus less on creating real impact on improving people's quality of life. Then there are those businesses that focus on having a positive impact on people's lives and have less focus on earning the money.

Guess which businesses have the best referral, attendance and retention rates? That's right. The ones that focus on delivering the positive impact. If that's the case why don't more fitness businesses take on this approach instead of putting Ben and Jerry's ice cream vending machines in their "Health" clubs to make more money from their members, and have less impact on improving their quality of life.

I will only ever focus my business on having the greatest impact possible on improving as many people's quality of life as we can. There are commercial reasons to do this and it must be done the right way to see those benefits. That's what I want to try to prove to the industry, so as a collective we serve our customers better and earn more of the money people spend on fitness and health by delivering more for each pound spent.

You put your heart in to it. Your love. Your soul. Your passion. Your best energy. It doesn't have your name on it, but it’s a part of you. An extension of who you are. Your values. It represents you. It becomes your identity. That point is the fear. It becomes an acceptable way for people to judge you.

People that don't know you. Have never spoken to you. People will judge sometimes without ever experiencing what we do. Assumptions. Preconceptions. That's why it’s so scary. You know that at the end of the day, if it fails, it’s on you. It will be judged very publicly as your best, the things that you are so passionate about, your heart and soul... came up short.

From the start you have zero guarantees, no idea if the time and energy you spend will be worth it. You can't rationalise your efforts. Can you justify missing out on so much life? The glimpse of joy that comes in the shape of a compliment from a friend. A thank you from a client. An idea becoming a reality, and it working the way you thought it would, and one person enjoying it.

Those are the moments that fuel your work. You're not crazy. People like it. It's not just you. You're going to get it wrong. You're going to be wrong. You're going to make mistakes.... and it doesn't matter.

The thing that was true before it started, that was always true during even the worst moments, that is still true today, will keep you moving forward. You believe you can help people enjoy life more, and you want to do that for as many people as possible to leave the world a happier place for having the privilege of being here.

The lesson I still haven’t finished. Just because you think you can do something good, doesn't always mean you should do it. Likewise, just because you think you can't do something good, doesn't mean you should never try. Understanding the right option is without doubt my biggest weakness because I love life and I love people. 

Self-respect. To have a genuine ability to respect yourself. To be honest with yourself about what you're good at and what you’re not good at. To know your limits but to have the confidence in knowing you can push them to become a better version of yourself. Most important is to respect your heart.

Follow your gut and don't let those feelings stop at your mouth. I can, I could, I will, I should, I will.... If you want it, do it. If you don't want it enough to do it, then don't talk about wanting it. If I ever say I'm going to do something everyone knows what that means. It's getting done. No doubt. Doesn't matter how long it takes. I'll finish it.

Respect yourself enough to be honest with yourself. Arrogance and confidence get confused a lot these days. Being confident, knowing your ability based on previous experience, isn't a bad thing.

Even when you get the above right, life doesn't work solo. We all thrive off of other people and at the same time will find other people to be the most challenging part of our lives. Colleagues, friends, families, partners. We can easily control how we behave ourselves but understanding how people around you behave isn't as easy.

For me I think it's having an honest understanding of my values so I know what I can accept and what I can't accept when it comes to how other people behave around me. If I know that I know who to keep in my life and who to remove. If I don't stick to those values then I'm going to feel conflicted and won't be happy.

Some people are spiritual, religious, look at star signs, become hippies, go 100% corporate, love life completely through logic.... or completely through chaos. I've never described myself as any of those things but at the same time I know I'm more than a head, a heart and some really clever evolution. I'm more than the sum of my parts. I'm a lover of people. I love that we all create a great story to tell.

One of my favourite things is to listen to other people sharing their stories. Their passions. Their memories. Their lessons.

I'm a lover of life and everything it can offer. I'm pretty sure if we stripped it all back and lived on the planet in the simplest way we could and focused our efforts in supporting our local community on average we'd all live happier. At the same time, I'm happy to live in the world I live so I just try to balance what I need to do with what I want to do.

Realistically we have values around who we are and how we are and whilst they can change as we get older, I don't think I've ever been that distracted or unhappy with my values. I've made changes to what I do and how I do it but to the core I'm the same person, the same soul, the same heart I have always been. 

Hopefully just a bit wiser so I can stop myself from making a mistake or letting someone down because odds are I have probably done it before and learned the lesson. What I do know is that in my life I have had tough times. Times where everything went against me. When people I trusted let me down. I felt like I never thought I could feel. Worthless. Weak. Depressed. Angry. Incapable to deliver what I wanted to be able to do for the people around me and for myself.

I hadn't changed. I was the same person with the same values that I had when I was in my early 20's. The same person I am today. Yet today I'm happy. Every day is an exciting adventure I look forward to waking up to. It's all incredible. I feel fulfilled in what I do. I know that the hard times where worth the sacrifice of time I made for my family. 

The difference. I have the right people around me now. In life and in work. When times were hard I could have become cynical. To give up on people, which I genuinely felt like doing. To just shrink my business and do it on my own. I didn't do that. I love people and I wanted to prove to myself that the belief I always had that a team of dedicated people can deliver better than anything an individual can deliver is true.

It is true. I found the right people. I worked hard to give them what they needed and worked harder to keep them motivated and passionate about delivering the brands future. Find the right people. Look after them. Trust them. If they let you down, move on. Find new people to work with. Learn the lesson but don't let bad people make you a bad person. Keep your values, keep looking for new people and be open to working with new kinds of people and keep working hard on delivering your dreams with their help while you help them deliver their dreams. If you do that for long enough the journey you share on balance is going to be a lot of fun.

In 10 years the best thing I've learned in life is to focus on myself. Sounds selfish. We live in a world where people worry more about what other people think of them than what they think of themselves.

We seek acceptance on superficial social media platforms from people we don't see for months, or years. Some we've never met. It's like a drug. Getting a like! I know I can control me, and I definitely know I can't control other people.

Personalities are so diverse and the way we all build our identities and values are wildly different. Why try to work out a way to analyse the way other people think and act. For every concept on mindset and life coaching there will be examples that break the rules.

For me spending time understanding me makes more sense. Where am I good. Where am I bad. How can I make the good stuff better? How can I make the bad stuff good? Know what bad things I can't change and accept it.

I remember an awesome old guy busting some epic Indian style dancing at a wedding (attempting to teach me Indian dancing) shared a pearl of wisdom I'll never forget.  He said "In the 1st third of your life you worry lots about what others think of you. In the 2nd third of your life you say, 'I don't care what other people think of me' which is you still thinking about what others think of you. In the last third of your life you realise, no one was ever thinking about you, they were all too busy worrying about what other people were thinking about them.

What do I think it takes to be successful?

• · You need a good idea

• · You need the balls to give it a go

• · You need the talent to make it great

• · Then you need the work ethic to see it through

There is only one fight in your life that you should never avoid, and you should never back down from, and you must never lose, because bottom line is, you never need to lose it. It’s the fight with yourself. Your fears, your doubts, your weaknesses, your injuries, your lack of motivation or determination. Your negativity. You might only have this fight a few times a year, or every month, or every week or even every day, but don't think you are the only one fighting.

All successful people have the same fight. The difference with people that experience a lot of success, the people that never moan about a lack of opportunities, the people that never give excuses, is they know, no matter what, they will always win this fight.

Everyone can step up. It works at every level. That's what inspiration is, when you see something that you can relate to, that makes you want to try harder and be better.

There are people that think about doing stuff, people that talk about doing stuff and people that actually do stuff. To me the scariest people in the world are the ones that say they want to do something and then don't do it. I don't understand them.

When someone shakes your hand, acknowledges the hard work, and tells you you're doing a good job. That will always be more powerful motivation to me than any amount of money. Work for those moments and let yourself enjoy them. 

#LiveAWildLife... Always

#LiveAWildLife

#LiveaWildLife is what makes Wild Training different. It's the heart of the brand. 

Its about giving people confidence to try something new. Something they haven't experienced before. Not just our training, but so many fun things from snowboarding to rock climbing, mountain biking in the Alps, surfing, skating. Anything and everything. 

When people join Wild Training they experience so many new exciting things and those experiences add so much to their lives. 

#LiveAWildLife is how Wild Training empowers all kinds of people to attack life with passion and confidence.

It's how our brand goes beyond fitness. Wild Training is about helping everyone make the most of every moment we have.

Calisthenics - What are they

It's about movement, your body and gravity. Those three things are constant in life, activity and sport, so calisthenics exercise is for everyone.

The word Calisthenics comes from the Greek words “Kallos” and “Sthenos”, which mean beauty and strength. When Greeks saw people mastering their own body weight back in the day they named it beautiful strength. Calisthenics. 

Expressive movements from levers and handstands to planches and transitions linking different positions and movements together.

The Urban Strength Training equipment like the Urban Strength Bar and Parallettes we use at the Wild Training Gym offer a really nice way to get in to calisthenics for people that aren't as experienced with body weight training.  

The parallettes allow you to practice sit position, press position and handstand position skills but thanks to their height you will get more time training and less time dragging your feet on the floor while you develop the early levels of strength you need to do these types of exercises with perfect form. Another benefit to using the parallettes is when gripping them your wrist will be in a straighter line compared to when you hand has to flex to plant on the floor. This means you can spend more time training without lots of wrist fatigue which means better results in less time. For developing great stability and strength in your upper body and linking that strength in to your abdominals and hips parallettes are incredible tools to add in to your training. 

The Urban Strength Bar is very different to the parallettes but that's one of the best things about it. Variety is the spice of life. 

The Urban Strength Bar brings together strength, flexibility and balance to achieve incredible results.

By enhancing movements with increasing levels of leverage the Urban Strength Bar can strengthen core muscle fibre which improves performance, reduces risk of injury and helps to tighten muscle tone to create beautiful body shapes by lengthening muscles.

It’s easy to work the whole body in the frontal, sagittal and transverse planes of movement, and in fact link all of those planes of movement together which is one of the reason the Urban Strength Bar can help so many different types of people, achieve different types of goals, in a way that they see those results transfer in to all of the sports and activities that they enjoy.

Calisthenics is about strengthening your body while lengthening your muscles so for us we think it can add something to literally every ones training. Whether you are training for weight loss, body shape, muscle tone or performance you will see and feel the results calisthenics deliver in everything you do. Results that transfer to life and sport. 

You can come and try some of this equipment and calisthenics training at the Wild Training Gym. Check out our 1 week trial offer. 

Another amazing resource is the guys over at GMB Fitness. These guys are incredible and offer some great programs if you want to take calisthenics to the next level. 

The parallettes and Urban Strength Bar are both available to buy from Physical Company so if you want to train with them at home you can get video programs from Wild Training and get going where ever you are. 

Beautiful Strength that will help you go turbo ninja in every moment. Get on calisthenics now. 

Landmine Training - A real weapon in your exercise arsenal

It’s been given many names in the weights room, mainly because most people have no idea what it is. Landmine training is where you take an Olympic bar and stick one end of it in a corner of a room so that you can use the bar as a big lever. Weight up the end you hold and you will have one of the best training tools in the world for developing whole body explosive power.

Landmine training is an incredible way of developing your fitness. It’s fun and can be done with light or heavy loads. If you use light weights you can improve your endurance, speed, tone and burn loads of fat. If you use heavy weights you can increase your maximum strength, power and muscle mass.

The best selling point of landmine training is that every exercise is a whole body exercise, so you develop power through your legs, transfer it through your core and in to your arms – Toe to finger power! This is why you will see such insane increases in your strength. I saw my single arm lunge press go from 30kg to 75kg in 6 weeks! If you’re throwing a punch, lifting someone up or wrestling them on the ground you will be able to produce a lot more force if you use your body as a unit, rather than isolating specific muscles.

This sounds obvious but if we know that we need to create force using our whole body why do some athletes still train in isolation or with really stable, simple movements? Bicep curls, Bench pressing and sit ups will all have minimal impact on your performance because they are movements we never re-create in fights or any other sport for that matter. The closer you get to real movements that you use in your sport the better the transfer you will see from the results you get in the gym to your performance in the ring.

The other reason landmine training is so effective is the fact your core has to work so hard to keep the bar travelling along the right path. A lot of the exercises make it feel like the bar wants to fall away from you. Take the single arm fly. You would normally associate that exercise with a chest isolation exercise used by body builders. Do it on a landmine and you will feel your abdominals working like never before, as well as your chest and shoulder complex.

To see some of my favourite landmine exercises check out the Wild Training landmine tutorial on YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv5N9GZ0y4Q. Subscribe to the Wild Training channel on YouTube for regular training advice and exercise demo’s. If you want more advice get in contact with us at http://www.wildtraining.co.uk.

Start off with light weights to get the technique right. Something like a 60 second set to fatigue with a 30-60 second rest. Aim for 2-3 sets of each exercise. If you want to increase your maximum strength and power then do a 30 second set to failure with a 2-3 minute rest in between sets. Aim to complete 3-6 sets of each exercise.

Again start at the lower end of these numbers and build up.
 

Wild Training got a visit from Mens Health Magazine

This week was a special week as Wild Training got a visit from Mens Health Magazine!

Wild Training founder and Wild Gym Co-owner, James Griffiths, took Wild Training to new heights last year, literally to the top of the world and back. Well, Mount Kilimanjaro to be exact. James Griffiths set the record for the highest altitude workout ever recorded and in the process, has helped raise over £3000 for Hope for Children.

Mens Health Magazine decided that they wanted to try out the same work out that James successfully completed. However, this time it wasn't at 5000 meters above sea level but down to earth at the new Wild Training Gym in Loudwater, High Wycombe. 

Read the full article on Mens Health's Website

Wild Training Gym Launch

Wild Training Gym Launch

Wild Training have a brand new training facility and we want you to come along to see what all the hype is about. Our launch day event gives you and your friends the opportunity to come along for a FREE workout/class, or for a look around. Check out further details and the event schedule at www.wildtraining.co.uk/events

Location: Unit 15 technology centre, Treadaway Hill, Loudwater, HP10 9RS

Opening/Closing: 8am to 4pm

For further details visit www.wildtraining.co.uk/events

The Wild World Record Workout

This is the workout James will be doing at the top of Kilimanjaro next week! 

Blown away by how generous everyone has been. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE DONATIONS.

Keep the support for the #WildWorldRecord and Hope for Children coming.

Here is link to donate - https://wildtraining.everydayhero.com...

#LiveAWildLife 
www.wildtraining.co.uk

More Walking For Hope For Children

Blown away by how generous everyone has been. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE DONATIONS.

Keep the support for the #WildWorldRecord and Hope for Children coming.

Here is link to donate - https://wildtraining.everydayhero.com/uk/james-griffiths

#LiveAWildLife 
www.wildtraining.co.uk

One Wild Story

Like any good story should, this one will start at the beginning. On the south side of average throughout school. First part time job started at 12 years old as a butchers boy. Keeping the shop clean and doing deliveries on my bike. Snowy Christmases were fun delivering turkeys and having to do a second trip for all the vegetables. Second job at a ski and snowboard centre. Could already ski, chose to learn to snowboard. Got hurt lots learning. Kept at it. Was worth the hits. Qualified to teach people to snowboard. Found a passion in sharing my passion. Confidence communicating to different types of people in different ways grew. Worked as a labourer, maintenance worker and dabbled in retail for a time. Car sales was next. Great experience. Top of the company leader board in 8 months. Left in 12 months to pursue a career where I could improve other people’s quality of life.  

Quit work and studied full time. Loved every second of learning. Very different to the school days.  As soon as I read about something to do with fitness and nutrition I'd use it practically, and then it was locked in my head. People asked if I had a photographic memory when we were learning. I just loved it. It all made sense. A 21-year-old qualified personal trainer and sports massage therapist starts a career in the fitness industry.  

First job was in a small, private gym in Ascot. I was box fresh and with no support in marketing, upskilling or help in developing a client base the large number of established trainers swallowed me up like sharks. That was a lesson I wouldn't forget and a moment that would define my approach to what Wild Training would deliver for other personal trainers. The lack of support given to trainers by gyms turned out to be the rule rather than the exception. So many people qualify every year as personal trainers. 80% of people that qualify as a personal trainer quit before the end of their first year doing the job. The gyms have an endless supply of fresh trainers so staff retention isn't exactly the highest priority on their list.  

My next place of work was potentially the luckiest thing that happened to me in my career, but I only realise that now. Personal trainer at Champneys. At my 3-month probation I'm made senior trainer. I was doing a good job, and Champneys taught me how to do the job better.  With a massive exposure to personal training a variety of clients from 155kg with 50% body fat to elite athletes like A P McCoy. My confidence in delivering a good service grew and I was able to refine all the skills learned so far. The reason I say Champneys was one of luckiest times in my career was the freedom they gave me to study new techniques and develop my skills. I created and programmed posture correction and mobility classes that became some of our most popular classes. New qualifications and experience like running the first cryotherapy centre in the UK. Non-stop learning from experienced trainers specialising in everything from martial arts to pilates.  

Posture class in the Pyrenees

This ability to up skill helped me become a lot more successful, and that passion for learning and knowing how much of an impact improving my knowledge is what lead me to build a development program for personal trainers to achieve the same success. That is what Wild Training started out as...  but that's me skipping ahead in the story.  

Towards the end of my time at Champneys they wanted me to take on a more senior role in training the other trainers, but I wasn't done growing and knew I had more to learn from other areas in the fitness industry. My girlfriend and now wife was working at the local David Lloyd and told me there was an awesome gym manager there that I should meet. As always, she was right. I met him, thought he was awesome and someone I could learn a lot from.  

Next step was obvious. Quit the safety of Champneys. Enter the shark pit of 14 established trainers all with established clients bases and all with more experience than me. If I was any good I should be ok, and I was. 4 months in I was the busiest trainer in the gym and after 6 months me and the awesome gym manager left to set up New Movement, my first business. A small personal training studio that we would make a success with a system we planned to develop in to a franchise to help other trainers progress their own careers. The success came but the franchise didn't happen. We decided to finish the partnership and my partner and his girlfriend continued to run New Movement as a great personal training business.  

New Movement taught me so many lessons, as anyone will probably say about their first experience at being self-employed. I was running a lot of outdoor group exercise classes as part of the New Movement service. 8 week courses. TRX frame. Old school manilla style battling ropes. Kettlebells. Power bags. I ended up being able to set up a 10ft TRX frame on my own including unloading it from my truck in 15 minutes. That’s crazy quick!

It was fun but lacked the progression and flexibility needed to get people training regularly. The other thing I was getting frustrated with as a trainer is not being able to get my clients training enough to see the results they wanted. 1 Hour a week does not work. It's less than 1% of your lifestyle. Wild Training don't sell one personal training session per week. If that's someone's budget we include a Wild Training membership so rather than 1 personal training session per week, they get 1 personal training session per week and 3 Wild Training classes. That works and that's why we do it. 

So flexible, progressive, fun training built around a concept that encourages more people to do three effective workouts every week... need a name... Wild Training... need a logo... email the only guy you know that can draw properly... "Wild like it's been ripped in to a wall and a claw next to it ripping down. Training written under it.  Blue."… How in the morning he sent the Wild Training logo we still use today I don't know because it was exactly what I saw in my head. Thanks Jordan. Wild Training was born. 

Next step. Phone every single person in my phone book and try to book them on to a launch class. Wild Training launched in July 2010 and by the end of the year I had 40 members signed up to a direct debit enjoying 3 classes every week. The system was working. What I didn’t anticipate was the rate of referrals. I’d never seen anything like it. I delivered 152 personal training session in January 2011, 6 months after starting Wild Training. That was a lot, and actually I needed to slow it down or get help. I’m not much for slowing down so get help was the only option.

Having employees sounded like a nightmare at this early stage of Wild Training, so what about adapting the franchise model I wrote for New Movement. Trainers had already been approaching me after seeing my Wild In The Park sessions and my truck. They wanted training and the opportunity to run their own Wild Training.

Interesting. Where do you start? Speak to some smart guys. Then speak to smart guys that the first smart guys told you to talk to. It’s on. Got a franchise agreement. Got a plan. Got an UNREAL amount of motivation.

There is a fine line between brave and dumb and I’m sure I flirt with it daily. Went against the advice of a lot of people that I know care about me and a lot of people smarter than me because I felt like it was the right thing to do. I’m a 100% gut kind of guy. If it feels right, I’m going to hit the button with everything I’ve got. Most were worried I’d give away all my ideas on training and business and get left with nothing. That didn’t happen.

Training never stops for the trainers

I started small with people I thought I could trust to put the work in. I didn’t charge them a lot of money because I wanted to prove the system. It worked. By the end of the year I was no longer running Wild In The Park classes and I was just managing the other trainers while delivering personal training to stay afloat.

Hannah Camden took over my Wild Training business. It was always going to take someone pretty awesome to take on my clients, and as it turns out Hannah is beyond pretty awesome. Today she is a director of Wild Training and is helping me create the future of the brand.

From 2011 when the franchise started it has been a turbo charged ride of fun, filled with challenges no one saw coming. Thanks to all of that and all the different trainers we have worked with we have built the Wild Training systems and trainer development from the ground up based on what practical skills and resources trainers need to create success and maintain a profile as a top trainer in their area.

First franchise at Lilleshall national sports centre

People in the industry started to notice what we were doing, and the level of training we delivered to our franchised Wild Trainers. We got better and better at delivering the support to our trainers. Quarterly training days at Lilleshall national sports centre, video training resources, written articles and regular training workshops. Consistency started to come easier and easier and the infrastructure behind the business was getting slicker. I had a written process for everything so if I disappeared one day someone would be able to carry on running every part of the business.

Anything else interesting happen along the way. A few things.

2012 I designed and created the first vibrating barbell in the world. Imagine a power plate that you can move with. Turning something that plugs in to the mains and weights over 100kg work as a portable barbell was a trick, but we pulled it off. Got a prototype. Got a patent. Needs another £200k ish to get it to market the way I want as a complete station but then it will become a very cool high street franchise.

The ATI Barbell was an awesome bit of kit but the tri-planar system of exercise that I developed for it was incredible. Case studies with professional athletes like GB decathlete Ben Gregory. Helped him get past a nasty shoulder injury. He came 6th in the decathlon at the common wealth games in 2014. Good job.

We had been using tri-planar exercise in Wild Training systems since 2011 but I decided the training concept of using a barbell in intense 30 minute multiplanar classes using some of our most effective goal specific protocols we had ever experienced was a no brainer.

BTB Exercise started in 2012 and became the most successful group exercise series I had ever delivered. People loved the fact it was 30 minutes. They loved that it was different to anything they had done before, but most of all they loved the results. Mind blowing for a 30-minute class.

Anything else in 2012?

Yep. One of the first ever Wild Training members introduced me to Adrian James. Adrian is a hugely successful fitness model, and he had a plan. Create some top class fitness apps for people to get fit anytime anywhere with training videos and protocols that really work. He wanted to make it “Different” to the other apps. Apparently I had become the “Different kind of training” guy! We had a lot of fun creating the workouts and Adrian’s apps were number ones internationally. The abs app was even number 1 when the London Olympics were on, making the Olympics app second.

Adrian helping me get some incredible shots for ATI. 

Working with Adrian was an amazing experience and what I learned from him in terms of photo and video production, as well as directing models on shoots has been an incredible help in everything we have done with Wild Training.

2013 kicked off with me getting invited to the Stroops master trainer summit in Barcelona. Shon Harker invented the best slastix in the business and with the Stroops brand he created products that we introduced to Wild Training straight away. Elasticated resistance tubing housed in a safety sheaf to make sure even if the slastix snapped, the athlete would not be injured. I still have a slastix band from 2009. They are awesome. Add resistance to any movement you can imagine. I was always going to have fun with that.

Some top trainers from all across Europe came to this master summit to learn about the technical side of Stroops training and integrating it in to fitness services effectively. Better believe I learned a lot from these guys. Skip “Archimedes”, Paul Bradbury, Matt Hancocks, Eugenio Santos, Gary Harker. All legends.

It was Physical Company that were kind enough to put me forward for the Stroops master summit. All of Wild Training equipment for all our trainers came from Physical Company as they offer great gear and the team that work there are ace. Wild Training and Physical Company started working more and more together.

Various Physical Company photo and video shoots went down really well. They asked me to write a CPD course for Battling Rope training. Battling ropes are a core piece of Wild Training equipment and a tool I’ve used in my training regularly since 2008. We also had Wild Trainers working at international exhibitions for Physical Company doing demos of equipment from the NEC to Germany.

Wild Training at LIW with Physical Company

John Halls, managing director for Physical Company, and I started having regular meetings where we would discuss grand plans for changing the landscape of the fitness industry.

First things first, equipment. Parallettes I used to make out of 40mm waste pipe from Wicks. Pictures on the right are an early production line at my in laws house! Those days had to end. With Johns help Wild Training and Physical Company designed Parallettes that would be manufactured in China. The new parallettes are perfect and have gone down so well with everyone we have trained to use them.

Below you see pictures of m and super star personal trainer Katie Bulmer Cook rocking the new parallettes at the Leisure Industry Week exhibition. 

We made it official. Wild Training and Physical Company are partners and Wild Training now even feature in their glossy catalogue. John has an incredible knowledge of the fitness industry and he has been a great mentor to me throughout my Wild Journey.

Wild Training featuring in the Physical Company product catalogue

In 2013 we set up the first Wild Training Studio. We had been playing with systems and class programs that just seemed like they needed a room. Stroops. Suspension systems. These things need anchors to attach to. Hannah found a studio space that for anyone else would look too small or an awkward shape, but for what we had planned it was perfect.

3.5 meters wide and 17 meters long, it was a glorified corridor, but what we were able to throw down in that space was so cool that we ended up getting loads of free PR out of it. People seemed to think the way we used it to deliver such a diverse range of classes using equipment a lot of people had never seen before was pretty cool. Hannah’s Wild Training business grew and the studio became a big success.

One exercise license that came out of all this new equipment and the new studio was Fit Squared. In my head I always challenge what the best general conditioning system we have is. Whenever I do a Fit Squared workout I have no doubt it’s in my top 3 workouts of all time. So good for burning fat, building strength, jacking metabolism. For me it’s one of the systems I have the most fun programming as the equipment we use lets us challenge every component of fitness.

Aerobic, Anaerobic, Strength, Power, Speed. Designed around an anchored set up or to be delivered using a Fit Squared rig. The rig is a small functional training rig that will allow gyms to use the Fit Squared system for up to 20 people at a time. It stores all the kit and can be moved around. No more massive rigs taking up loads of space that don’t get used properly. Fit Squared is a game changer, because it’s simple to coach and its design helps get the best out of the people training.

The experience we gained from that small studio has been so valuable in setting up all our other facilities since. When people come in to a Wild Training Gym, the first thing they say is “this doesn’t look like a gym”. We take that as a big compliment and after we talk with people about what we deliver and why we do it the Wild way, they normally sign up as anyone can see that what Wild Training do is going to work a lot better for them than a traditional gym.

One of my favourite systems ever came in 2013. Wild Flow. I’d been practicing capoeira for a year by now. Loved it. Expressive. Powerful. Fun. No doubt it helped me more with my movement and flexibility than anything I’ve done. Now to make a fitness class that incorporates basic capoeira concepts that is suitable for everyone. It had to be fun.

The class is made up of 5 components. A capoeira inspired warm up. Dynamic tension training which is one system Bruce Lee rocked. Capoeira sway kicks and Cap Core, a floor based conditioning system that mixes Pilates, functional core training and capoeira all in one. Finish that lot with a fluid cool down involving lots of developmental stretching techniques and you have a class that would complement literally anyone’s training routine to help strengthen, tone and stretch the whole body while getting your aerobic system working to burn a lot of fat. If I’m on holiday, I’m throwing down Wild Flow every day. 

Next bit of equipment with Physical Company. The Titan Bag came in 2014. We had used every type of sandbag on the market. Power bags. Bulgarian bags. Various functional sandbag designs. Some were too big. Some weren’t versatile enough for Wild Training. We just couldn’t find the right bag. 

So like normal, if I thought I had an idea on how to make something better, I’d make it happen. With some terrible drawings from me and a slightly better spec sheet of what I wanted our bag to be, John and the Physical Company team helped me get the Titan Bag produced. This thing was epic. Soft so super easy to coach with and for members to use with confidence. So versatile. Top loading, swing loading, unique sandbag movements, power lifts. All from one bag. That’s epic. Feedback from users has been awesome ever since.  

Something happened in 2014 that I didn’t see coming so early. I was introduced to a couple of business veterans that had recently launched a chain of gyms. Choices Health Clubs were looking for systems and equipment that could help them deliver a more unique member experience than other gyms.

They decided I could help them and made me a director of Choices Health Clubs. At the same time, they saw what I was doing with Wild Training and thought that if it wasn’t just me running every part of the business, we would be able to scale Wild Training up. At this point we had 9 franchises. The system was working and the processes and resources we had in place made replicating the franchise simple.  

We did it. Choices bought 50% of Wild Training in 2014. My main goal was to learn from the two directors of Choices as they were both in their 60’s and both people with business experience I definitely wanted to learn from. After investing a lot in marketing opportunities Wild Training started to get a lot bigger. Feedback was awesome and the idea of having all the support Wild Training offer but the freedom of being self-employed was something that attracted a lot of trainers.   

Choices was in its early days as a business and it was too early for me to really impact the service they deliver. After buying our first Wild Training Gym in 2016 I can appreciate how much time the basic operations of a gym business take to get right when you aren’t starting from scratch. Moving away from previous existing systems has to be done sensitively to keep members on side. It didn’t take long for me to stop working for Choices so I could focus all my time on Wild Training. Easy decision.

2015 was when Wild Training really matured and I started to transition the business to where we are now. 9 trainers at the start of the year. 26 at the end of the year. Some amazing people but like any business, getting the right people for Wild Training is the key. We kept reinventing our recruitment process but the bottom line, finding the right skills, experience and motivation in one person is a challenge.  

The plan was never to have millions of franchises. My plan was to create a team of elite trainers that would support each other and work together to achieve what no trainer could do on their own. In my mind how could one person keep up with a team of forward thinking trainers pushing together. That's exactly what we do.  

In the middle of 2015 I got 30% of the Wild Training shares back from one of the Choices directors and in 2016 I got the other 20% back. Wild Training was back to being Wild Training. We decided to reduce the team down to the core trainers that made Wild Training incredible. Exciting times.

It was time to adapt the all singing all dancing franchise package in to separate licenses that would allow trainers and gyms to take on components of what has made Wild Training so successful and build those programs in to their own business to suit their own business goals. The core trainers get set up in to Wild Training Gyms with a model we have proven to showcase the best of Wild Training and help push the brand forward.  

We have our plan, and most importantly we have the team to pull it off. No stopping us now.  

Now we are working with education companies like The Training Room and Future Fit Training to deliver our exercise licenses to all their graduates. Gym chains in New York getting in contact with us to organise a demo weekend to showcase all of our licenses. It’s gone turbo.  

So many exciting partnerships. Natural Muscle Company. Salomon sportswear are supporting our trainers by delivering awesome clothing that rocks in every situation. Wild Training Holidays moving to Italy to deliver our hiking, cycling, ski and snowboard trips.  

Wild Training is just getting started.  

When Jump In launched in 2015, an awesome trampoline park in Slough, they showed us the demand was there but no effective exercise license was available for the trampoline centres to use. Wild Jump kicked off in 2015 as the first Trampoline park group exercise license was available. 3 different programs. Brand new programming every two months. Mixing rebound conditioning with functional training equipment. Awesome. Feedback from the classes has been amazing and now we are talking with some of the biggest trampoline park operators about taking on Wild Jump to improve their attendance and retention of people using their facilities to get fit.  

Calisthenics or body weight training has always been a part of Wild Training but when the concept of building on the success we have seen for years with the Parallettes came along in Urban Strength Training, we knew we were on to a winner.

Phone call to my brother Stew the engineer. Me - "Bro I need a bar"

Stew - "What size"

Me - "6ft, 38.1mm thick"

Stew - "I've got one here next to my desk"

Crazy but literally had a prototype thanks to my big brother the next week. It was on. 

Through Physical Companies contacts I had the first Urban Strength Bar designed and produced. A simple 6ft bar that can be used for countless plank, upper and lower body exercises that can be linked together in fluid sequences. The Urban Strength Bar has transformed my fitness and every single person that has used it has been blown away by how versatile it is. A tool to develop strength, flexibility and balance all in one. You will never loot at a 6ft bar the same way again after your first Urban Strength Bar workout.

The Urban Strength Bar

The best part about it is that the Urban Strength Bar makes calisthenics training accessible to everyone. That’s how we have been able to incorporate it in to a lot of our group exercise classes, where we need to be able to create a lot of regressions and progressions to suit a variety of fitness levels. The Urban Strength Bar is being sold through Physical Company and we have already introduced some of the biggest gym chains to the Urban Strength Training system.  

The Urban Strength Straps, a hybrid between a suspension system and Olympic rings is in the process of being designed. Elegant, simple, unbelievably versatile. Unmistakably a Wild Training piece of kit. Like the sandbag issue, we’ve never quite had the perfect suspension system, until the Urban Strength Straps.

2016 also saw the first Wild Training Academy set up. My old school had a gym running but it wasn’t the most successful gym and my old P.E. teacher, now deputy head asked if I could help. We built a new building and started fresh. The concept. To deliver a facility that the students could use in the day and the community could use in the evening. Access to video training programs that would help members get the very best out of the equipment available. We are developing the Academy in to an apprenticeship program which is something I’m really excited about as I know Wild Training can give our apprentices an amazing start in the fitness industry.  

Any other licenses coming? You know it.  

Back in 2015 my wife and I started skating. Was part of her post-natal training plan… really it just felt like a lot of fun. Straight away we loved it but I was shocked at how good a form of cardio it was. No impact. Tri-planar forces so better body shape and less imbalances. Better for your posture than running or cycling. I had my heart rate at 190bpm. Last time I did that I was trying to kill myself on a spinning bike while I was qualifying as a personal trainer completing a range of fitness tests. Then a question hit me. Why don’t more people skate for fitness. I put it out there and people seemed keen to join us.

Inline Fitness started with a lot of excitement. K2 make the most comfortable skates in the world and they now offer everyone that signs up to the Inline Fitness subscription a discount on skates through our shop partner Slick Willies. The Inline Fitness subscription is how we deliver nutrition support and interval programs to get people great results while having fun skating. I hope to grow the Inline Fitness community and get to the point where we can organise events to give people targets to train towards.

“Hey do you train younger people, like kids?”. I’ve delivered fitness for kids since 2008. Lots of different systems but with Wild Training we started to nail it. Interactive, game style workouts that get young people in to movement. Key for us is making it fun and keeping every experience positive while teaching kids fundamental basics in how to keep healthy and fit. This isn’t just for sporty kids. Wild Ninjas had to be fun for everyone. Our coaching concepts encourage a change in culture at home to help our communities become healthier at every level.

Wild Ninjas is one our most exciting exercise licenses. We can all talk about how everyone is getting less healthy. Blame sugar, fast food companies and everything else we read on the news. Or we can do something about it. Create a service that kids actually choose to do, that will have a positive impact on them physically and mentally and set them up with values that will keep them healthier all the way through their lives. Wild Ninjas is that service, and maybe one of the most important things Wild Training deliver.

2016 saw the big moment. The first Wild Training Gym. We closed the studio Hannah set up in 2013 and went for it. Standard Wild Training mentality. Go big or go home.

The Wild Training Gym is like nothing else out there. An open plan environment that allows our members to use the space to challenge their body in any way they want. Our facility only works because of our service.

10 hours of structured training for every person that joins to teach them how to use every bit of kit, and how to do cardio, physique and toning workouts. We also dedicate 1 hour of the free initial training to teaching our members how to warm up, cool down and correct posture imbalances. What other gym does that, for free?

As always the best exercise equipment supplied by Physical Company. HD slastix rock

The most diverse group exercise class timetable you can imagine. The most exciting personal training systems we have ever experienced. Free workshops every hour the gym is open to make sure our members always have support, without having to ask for it. They can walk in to our Wild Training Gym and use our equipment with programs that will really work, because that’s what we teach them to do. No guess work. No copying the thing your mate is doing. Proper training that has been tested by us to make sure it’s good enough for our members. 

We are developing new licenses thanks to this facility. Groove and Grind step classes. Wild MMA will be one of the first credible MMA fitness licenses available in Europe. Pole Fitness classes. Wild Strong, strongman classes for all. Wild Aerial is where we use acrobatic silks to create the most exciting strength and mobility class I’ve ever done. Rock Conditioning is where we bring training concepts that have helped professional rock climbers build their insane power to weight ratios to our members to make training accessible and progressive for everyone.

Wild Training isn’t slowing down. We aren’t even cruising. We are accelerating forward with so much support from everyone that has been a part of the story so far. Family, friends, members, sometimes they are all of those things. Professional athletes like Jon Partridge were we supported him with his Rock Climbing. Andy Nudds with his snowboarding. Ben Gregory and Jess Tappin with their athletics. Helping people at every level has helped us build the systems we have today. All from our experience to make sure what we deliver works for everyone, no matter where they are starting. We assess where people want to be. Where they are starting from and use our systems to bridge the gap. No trial and error. Proven training and coaching that doesn’t fail.

Nothing gets me more excited than thinking about the future for Wild Training. We are working hard to support the communities where we operate and have a lot of initiatives to work with local schools, charity groups and grass roots sporting organisations.

We want to reach more people, so with the launch of Wild Training Online, a free training subscription that delivers new body weight training programs and nutrition tips every month we should be able to do that.  

We also have the new Wild In The Home subscription that will see people using our most effective equipment in their homes, or anywhere they want. New programs are delivered via our new online training platform that they can easily watch on a phone or tablet, and those programs progress every 2 weeks so the training grows as fitness levels improve. Detailed food plans are included with over 30 healthy recipes to start. The equipment allows us to deliver varied, goal specific training to everyone. It’s like an exercise DVD that never gets old, because we never stop programming for you. The interest in Wild In The Home, and using it as a flexible corporate wellbeing strategy to get more staff doing effective exercise has been massive.  

Most recent Wild In The Home sign-ups are Steve Backshall and his Olympic gold medal winning wife Helen Glover. Busy people need effective training systems that they can hit anytime so for them Wild In The Home is perfect. Watch out for the videos of these two training with Wild Training. 

Wild Training will be one of the first Fit For All centres in Buckinghamshire, which means we are a credible place where people with physical disabilities, mental health issues or learning difficulties can come and exercise. This just doesn’t happen in the fitness industry. Wild Training want to change that, and our actions show that we are doing something proactive about it. Make it fun, keep it effective and include everyone. Those are our values. Wild Training will continue to grow in the best way possible by sticking to them.  

Hopefully you’ve enjoyed reading this. That is just the “One Wild Story” so far. If we did that in 6 years, imagine what the next 6 years are going to be like now we have nailed down what we are doing, who we are doing it with and how we are doing it. Might have a Wild Training Galactic program for people on space stations in the future. Everyone that knows me knows how scary that last sentence is, as they know I’ll probably think of a way to make it happen!!!

Wild Training would be nothing without the people that I’ve shared the story with. There have been tough times but I always stick to my rules and so far, they have always gotten me out of trouble and where they have taken me to, feels like a lot of fun.  

4 claws of Wild Training (my rules)

• Love. Love people. Love caring. Love what you do in every moment of your life. Then you will love your life.
• Passion. Passion is the most contagious type of energy. It is an unstoppable energy. Find yours, hold on to it, and use it every day. Do that and even when any rational person would give up, you will be able to keep going.
• Courage. Be fearless. Believe in yourself absolutely. Never stop trying. Never, ever let someone else devalue, or try to take your dream away. Remember that the people that judge you for trying harder than they try, will be forgotten about.
• Spark. The most important bit. Without spark, without taking initiative, taking something you think about, or something you talk about and making it something you do, nothing happens. Without Spark nothing becomes reality. Being first is the easiest way to win... at anything. Don’t watch other people win, and do things you thought about doing because you lacked spark.

Attack life with Spark every day and make stuff happen. Use courage and passion to see it through, and always use love to make it great.

Use your Claws

#LiveAWildLife… always.

 

15 days to go to the #WildWorldRecord

Thank you for your support. Donate here - https://wildtraining.everydayhero.com/uk/james-griffiths
 

59 days out from the Wild Training World Record Attempt

Training is going well. Plans for some big hikes coming up so I'll keep you all posted on that.

Wanted to share this short video with you talking about what Hope For Children are all about. Please watch it. 

Hope For Children really are an awesome charity. The work they do is epic and the team behind the charity are all awesome.

On October 15th I'll be heading out to climb Kilimanjaro and the plan is to complete a Wild Training workout at the top using a Titan Bag, Urban Strength Bar, Barbell and set of Parallettes. It won't be easy, but I'm on it! 

Please Please Please support me, support Hope For Children and sponsor me. Link to donate is here - https://wildtraining.everydayhero.com/uk/james-griffiths

James Griffiths