Iron Palace wins Gympie’s best gym of 2023

Iron Palace’s crowning as Gympie’s best gym of 2023 came as no surprise, thanks to its 200+ nominations. Check out their reaction, and who came in the top three:

Iron Palace, owned by Brad Morris and Mimi Rogers, won Gympie’s best gym of 2023 with overwhelming support.

From more than 500 comments, Iron Palace easily secured its position as the favourite with an overwhelming majority of nominations, leading to its unsurprising crowning as Gympie’s best gym of 2023.

Brad Morris and Mimi Rogers, the power couple behind Iron Palace, bought the gym in February 2021, — “smack bang in the middle of covid”— and have since gained an astounding following across the Gympie community.

Mr Morris shared that the gym’s logo — a grizzly bear wearing a crown – was inspired by his late rottweiler, Bear, who sadly died two months ago.

Iron Palace‘s cherished mascot, Bear, and beloved dog of Brad Morris and Mimi Rogers, sadly died two months ago.

“I was devastated; he has been my best mate for 12 years (his whole life),” Brad said.

“But little did I know, two days after he passed away I found out that the gym had got together and pulled enough money to buy me a new rottweiler puppy.

“We now have a puppy at our gym who we called Koda — means little bear — and the members and gym team bought him for me.”

Continuing on the legacy of his mascot and best friend, Mr Morris found out that Koda was actually Bear’s nephew.

Iron Palace’s new addition, Koda.

“I’m sad that the big fella passed away but it’s awesome that this little guy (Koda) gets to have a personal relationship with everyone who walks through the door.”

The Iron Palace team experienced a similar display of community support during last year's floods which forced them to relocate.

“Our members are unreal! We had the flood waters come through the gym at 5.5m, and after the water went down, within two days the gym was fully operational again.

“Financially, we lost heaps of stuff, but the members helped out heaps”.

Despite take a big financial hit from the floods, the support the gym received from its members was “priceless”.

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Brad coaches powerlifters while also managing Iron Palace alongside Mimi.

In addition to working at the gym, Mimi juggles two other jobs, at ST marketing and her picnic business, You and Yours Picnic, of which she is a part-owner.

Engaged since January this year, Brad and Mimi found love through friendship.

“We were friends for a long time before we started dating,” Brad said.

Home to 250 members, Iron Palace limits its memberships to ensure that their clients are getting the best out of the gym experience and are a part of a good community.

“We’ve got body builders, powerlifters, people who have just started, people losing weight, weightlifters (to name a few),” Brad said.

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“People who are brand new right up to world record holding winners that train here.

“We have one world record holding lifter who holds multiple records, and about seven Australian record owners that train at our gym.”

Brad said that when looking at who was in the top three while the vote was taking place for Gympie’s favourite gym, with The Real Body Movement getting runner-up and Iron Therapy coming in third, none of them were franchise owners.

“They’re all local people with local staff,” he said.

“This shows that the town’s not really interested in huge commercial gyms.”

Originally published as Iron Palace wins Gympie’s best gym of 2023