Ladies who lift

Tucked away from the buses roaring along Temple Gate is Boxworks, a set of 20 former shipping containers that have been turned into spaces for small independent businesses. The newest addition is personal trainer Amy Newton, who has moved here to fulfil her ambition of opening her own gym and is helping clients – 80 per cent of whom are women – to get to grips with weightlifting.

Inside, the Warrior Gym has space for two trainers at a time to work one-to-one with their clients. “Big commercial gyms are full of equipment that you don’t actually need,” Amy says, dressed in violet leggings and a personalised top. “Being in this space has made us really focus: if you’re a good trainer you don’t need loads of kit.”

Inside Amy’s compact shipping container gym, which personal trainer Amy Newton is hoping will be a place anyone can feel comfortable working out

The kit Amy has invested in is very well looked after. Boxes for step-ups and jumping exercises, built by her partner, carpenter Matt Bingham, are piled up next to a large potted plant. The floor is slightly raised in the middle of the room to offer a platform for deadlifting – something Amy says is very important but that most gyms don’t have – and towards the glass doors at the back is equipment for calisthenics, along with pictures celebrating the achievements of current clients.

Making her gym simple and approachable is something that Amy really cares about. “My journey mirrors a lot of our clients,” she says, explaining that once she reached university she put on weight that she was determined to lose in the gym. “I figured out that what I wanted was in the weights room but I was terrified of going in there,” she says. “I remember going in and picking up the brightly-coloured 1kg dumbbells and flapping them about a bit. I felt like an idiot, so I left.

“People are coming here to a place that is safe rather than a big gym full of people grunting and wearing tops with their nipples hanging out.”

The pared-back kit still offers a complete workout without the obsolete machines that clog other gyms

In the past five years, Amy has gained huge amounts of confidence from weightlifting, from deciding to quit her insurance job for life as a personal trainer, to running a networking group when before she wouldn’t have felt able to go to a networking event. “Weightlifting is a form of meditation,” Amy says.

After renting space in a private gym at Pithay Studios in Broadmead as a trainer, Amy now works with a team of five female personal trainers at her gym. “Not only did I want to create something that was going to provide stability for me, but I really wanted to give other trainers jobs,” she says. “It’s a very competitive industry. You might be an amazing trainer but often you can’t access the clients that need you.”

Amy breaks off to greet a new client who has just arrived for her first ever session, looking nervous in her gym kit, but Amy is reassuring and kind. “People can come here and not feel out of place,” she says. “They can feel like they are among people that are as motley as they feel, us included, and learn how to lift weights. Weightlifting is a solution to the problems that a lot of people have.”

Find the Warrior Gym at Box 1, Boxworks, Clock Tower Yard, Temple Gate, BS1 6QH. Find out more about The Warrior Programme’s personal training services at www.amynewtonpersonaltrainer.com/