Flexing with the best: Meet the Gold Coast’s top fitness guns and read their success stories
Muscle junkie and World Gym director Jon Davie once pumped iron in a shed because other gyms didn’t stack up. See how he turned his love for a brutal sweat sesh into an empire.
News
Don't miss out on the headlines from News. Followed categories will be added to My News.
When chasing a workout on the Gold Coast, you’re spoiled for choice.
Everywhere you look, there’s an image of a barbell at breaking point with the word ‘GYM’ emblazoned across its signage.
And there’s no shortage of yoga or pilates studios either. It’s a bona-fide craze intrinsic to the sun, surf and sand lifestyle of the Glitter Strip.
Meet the Gold Coast’s best personal trainer.
These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find a single car boot in Burleigh Heads without a yoga mat jammed in among groceries.
Along our beaches locals gather en masse, like it’s church, punching pads, or downward dogging. We’re a city where the sweat factor is at fever pitch.
And whether it’s targeted towards the muscle-bound beast, the lean and lithe influencer or the average joe keeping up a healthy lifestyle, there really is something for everyone.
Introducing the Gold Coast’s best gym, according to readers.
The Gold Coast has downed a huge protein-shake sized portion of the country’s $2.5bn fitness industry, and there’s a number of major players flexing in the spotlight.
These are the faces of some of our most recognisable fitness institutions and exports, from yoga and pilates, to the muscle-crunching World Gym.
JON DAVIE, WORLD GYM
Jon Davie knows fitness. In fact, he’s got the busting shirt sleeves to prove it.
And despite overseeing four World Gym clubs across the Coast plus several across the franchise group Australia-wide, he says he never misses a good workout.
He hits the iron four-to-five times a week, and loves a good bushwalk too.
When co-founding World Gym Australia 15 years ago, Davie was a retired professional bodybuilder who worked out in a shed because he “couldn’t stand other gyms”.
“I wanted to train really hard, and a lot of gyms and their equipment couldn’t facilitate that,” Davie said.
But while Davie says World Gym was “born out of the Muscle Beach era”, it has had to evolve with the rapidly changing fitness industry on the Gold Coast, to “stay relevant”.
“We’re always trying to renovate and update our clubs, it’s an annual thing,” he says.
“We’re very conscious of what’s going on in the fitness industry and the broad demographic of people living in any one area.”
This year, Davie set his sights on updating the Burleigh club, where he capitalised on the multi-million dollar upgrade of the Burleigh Home + Life centre adjacent to Stocklands West Burleigh.
“Beacon Lighting was relocated in the centre so we had an ideal opportunity to expand into the former site,” he said.
“The Burleigh gym was too small and we were mindful of people’s evolving needs.”
The expanded World Gym Burleigh will include a new 350 sqm functional space, 14-bed pilates reformer studio and a 200 sqm fitness area, with estimated completion towards the end of April/early May.
Davie says the old gym will also undergo a second stage of renovations, with new equipment and fitness and stretching areas to be introduced once works have wrapped on stage one.
“We’ve tried to make the turnaround quite quick because we know members don’t like missing out on a workout,” he says.
“We’re very proud of where we’ve come from but Burleigh has changed so much and we want to stay in-vogue and relevant.”
Davie says his number one goal is for everyone to “find their happy place” in the gym.
“It’s all about people finding a space in the gym where they feel comfortable. So we’ve really got to have it big enough and include enough for everyone to get the most out of their membership.”
AMY FARROW, BOHEME + BODY
When Amy Farrow started practising yoga 15 years ago, she was “embarrassed” to tell her friends.
“It was completely weird and woo-woo then and there were barely any yoga studios on the Coast,” she said.
Farrow, a former youth worker who now runs the highly popular Boheme + Body yoga studio in Varsity Lakes, says when she started out, “60 year-olds” were the only people taking the class.
“I was always the youngest one there,” she laughed.
But Farrow is legitimate, and she’s poured her love for yoga into more than just the fitness space.
Rather than expand her studios – she had a second Boheme + Body in Tweed which closed due to border restrictions – Farrow channelled her youth work background when launching Chase the Sun, a wellness program for kindy to high school students.
But before Boheme made the big time and became a hot hangout for like-minded yogis, Farrow was teaching classes “out of the boot” of her car.
“I didn’t want to fit the mould like everyone else,” she says.
“So I started holding yoga classes anywhere I could, from the beach to the park and at surf shops and surf clubs.
“At the time it was pretty unheard of and I always wanted to have my own thing where I could teach the way I wanted to.”
It was following her own style that led to a “whirlwind” opening of Boheme + Body in 2015, which now has ten instructors and has allowed Farrow to focus on the wellness side of her business.
“The beauty of it is that all of the teachers at Boheme + Body do their own thing, and every class is unique,” she says.
“And most people think you need to go to yoga because you’ve hurt your back and need a stretch, it’s so much more than that.
“What I’ve seen is that once you start yoga it will positively impact all areas of your life – from jobs to relationships and everywhere in between. The only regret I have is not starting even earlier.”
While Farrow has her eye on taking her Chase the Sun wellness program to schools Australia-wide, which currently operates across Brisbane, Logan and the Gold Coast, she’s also lapping up the limelight as new mum to her 18 month-old son Onyx.
She says of the competition on the Gold Coast: “A lot of studios have come and gone in the seven years we’ve been open. But we’ve always stuck to our roots.”
YANDELL DAVIS, PLANK HQ
Plank HQ founder Yandell Davis danced her way around the globe professionally for close to a decade.
In 2017 while on her “last contract” in Germany, she decided to hang her flats up for good and focus on her other passion – fitness.
“Every time I was back on the Gold Coast after performing overseas I’d always turn to fitness. I’ve always been in love with it,” Ms Davis said.
Davis, then 27 years-old, put her mind to study and earned ceritifcates 3 and 4 in fitness and completed courses in pilates and reformer teaching.
Once she was fully qualified, she started teaching at schools on the Gold Coast and with full support from her parents, opened Plank HQ Mermaid Beach in 2018.
“My parents really backed me and that was a huge factor,” Davis says.
“I had no mortgage, no children and it just seemed like the ideal time to do it or I was never going to do it.”
Davis says there are two “major” misconceptions about pilates.
The first being that you don’t get a “proper” workout.
“Pilates has always been seen as a gentler workout that tones and lengthens the body, but you can still get all of that while working up a serious sweat,” she says.
“I changed up the way a pilates class is run by introducing my love for dance and high-intensity work. It’s definitely challenging in the best way possible.
“I really wanted to create a one-stop shop workout for the day, where you wouldn’t need to go and lift weights or do separate cardio either.”
The second misconception, Davis says, is that men can’t do pilates.
In fact, Davis’ husband is a big, burly tradie who has tried his hand at the workout.
“It’s funny that a lot of men who try it really can benefit from it and will say how much they enjoy it,” she says.
“It really depends on what kind of physique you want, but it’s great if you want to be lean and toned.
“But I can definitely still see why it has such a huge appeal for women. It’s amazing for their physiques and great during pregnancy and post-partum.”
Late last year, Davis looked to expansion, scoring an adjoining shed space next door to Plank HQ in Mermaid to create a HIIT-style workout room.
“We really have the best of both worlds now so when you come to Plank, you will absolutely get a full workout in,” she says.
Davis says the new space accommodates for circuit work, strength training, boxing, cardio and yoga classes.
“I still teach three or four days a week because I truly believe you have to show up to be successful,” she says.
When asked why she thinks the Gold Coast has gone fitness mad, Davis said: “Most people live a stone’s throw from the beach and have a get up and go attitude.
“It really is about the lifestyle here and it’s totally different to living in another city like Brisbane, Melbourne or even Sydney,” she says.
ALEXZ PARVIAINEN, HUSTL
Founder of Hustl Alexz Parviainen says Aussies didn’t work out as hard until she brought her hardcore training style to our shores.
The Canadian is a firm believer in getting in a serious workout, one where “you can smash it”.
Parviainen taught fitness for seven years and says the “heavily invested” North American style of training she was used to was “all or nothing.”
“There was never a studio I was super proud to teach at,” she says.
“I was teaching in Byron Bay at the time and it had a very spiritual core and it wasn’t really my thing.”
After announcing on social media she was keen on opening her own space, she was flooded with enquiry from those who loved her no holds-barred teaching style.
“I’m all about pushing people to the limit,” she says.
After launching Hustl in Byron Bay in late-2019, she was already at full capacity.
“There was just so much demand so we looked to the Gold Coast, where we opened a second studio in Mermaid Beach just over a year ago,” Parviainen says.
“Since we’ve opened, a lot of studios have adapted to the Hustl style. When we built our first space in Byron, the painter asked why on earth we wanted black walls.”
Parviainen says demand for the Hustl brand has grown exponentially, with the potential for a Sydney studio in the pipeline.
“Sydney is definitely on our radar. There’s a big influencer population there and we’ve seen that they are huge fans of our brand,” she says.
During the pandemic, Parviainen launched the Hustl app globally, and was “shocked” when thousands of people subscribed.
“It really went better than we expected and I never would’ve imagined it would blow up so much. It definitely got us through Covid,” she says.
BODY FIT TRAINING (BFT), PEARCE HANLEY
After racking up an impressive 169-game streak in the AFL, Pearce Hanley traded a footy for a kettlebell and saw a golden opportunity to run a fitness franchise for a brand he “trusted.”
He now co-owns Body Fit Training (BFT) Miami, as the company plans to expand after winning a ‘David vs Goliath’ court battle against fitness juggernaut F45.
Last month, in an interview with The Bulletin, he spoke of his move into the industry: “The more my business partner and I looked into it, the more we fell in love with it.”
“Obviously the gym market on the Gold Coast is very high but we trusted the brand (BFT),” he said.
“The progressive training blocks with elements of building strength and endurance appealed to me with my background.”
Hanley says there are big things happening for the Melbourne-based BFT, which has five studios on the Gold Coast and has plans for an additional eight franchises in the next six months.
He says BFT offered a “unique approach”, drawing on his and co-owner and former Brisbane Lions teammate Jordan Bourke’s experiences in professional sport.
“When our members leave it should feel like they’ve had a personal training experience,” Hanley said in a 2021 interview with The Bulletin.
“The fact Cam (Falloon) started it — he based the training programs off exactly what we would do in an AFL gym. At the Suns … anything we did there in terms of our training programs is exactly what you would see in here.”
BFT Miami opened in 2020 and the brand now has more than 100 studios across Australia.
More Coverage
Originally published as Flexing with the best: Meet the Gold Coast’s top fitness guns and read their success stories
Snake bite surge: 15 strikes in days across Qld
A snake expert who catches chook-pen pythons to huge eastern browns in the burbs has spoken out as bite callouts increase across Qld and one region emerges as a deadly hotspot. SEE THE LIST.
Qld woman’s amazing recovery after horror spinal injury
Queensland pro surfer Sophie McCulloch once feared she might never walk again after breaking her back in a terrifying wipe-out.