Essex personal trainer whose work ‘vanished’ during Covid now owns huge gym business

An Essex fitness trainer who started running personal training glasses from his garden during the Covid pandemic has seen his business explode over five years – and is now running his own enormous gym. Former lifeguard Luke Nowakiwskyj has his own gym and health centre LS Fitness now running in an industrial estate just outside Braintree, a venture that started back in 2020 when we were all stuck indoors.

Luke, who previously ran various fitness classes and PT sessions, suffered a major blow in 2020 when the world went into lockdown and his self-employed work vanished. But through persistence and clients coming back to him, he has gone from running a few classes in his back garden to a fully functioning gym inside a former warehouse in Lakes Farm Industrial Estate in Rayne.

The gym is now open for seven days a week with more than 70 pieces of equipment, along with a sauna-equipped health suite which is exclusively for members. Luke is now up to 230 memberships, having blitzed his target for early bird sign-ups when he launched the venue earlier this summer.

Luke said: “I was a personal trainer in Absolute, then lockdown happened and we had no gyms, and we couldn’t go outside at one point. We were in the s***, we were both self-employed, so we had no income. I had a day or two with Royal Mail, I worked there to get some money in and then looked on Facebook Marketplace for gym equipment.

“When restrictions eased I did PT in the garden, I got in touch with a lot of old clients. The sessions in the garden were quite steady; they had all been locked up and they wanted to get out and help with their mental health and exercise again. I took on some new clients but it was a lot of late ones.

“I moved house again and had a PT studio in there, I put about £20k into that studio, and had about 30 to 40 clients a week. They enjoyed having it and I had a few that came to me privately.”

When Luke and his family had to leave the house they were in, he had to “think fast” to keep the business going. He continued: “I bought a house with a huge garden, I had an intention to build a gym in the back and I got scammed by a dodgy builder. They charged £12k and left us with a s*** ***e of a garden. But without that happening I wouldn’t have found here.”

Luke has invested around £150,000 into the LS Fitness business, which is named after his own school nickname. Members get all access to the facilities for £60 a month, with Luke also running a couple of PT sessions in there per week.

At present, Luke is the sole staff member of the gym, organising everything himself, but due to the demand he will now be looking at hiring other staff, and has big plans for the future.

He continued: “I got up to 150 members and then got offered this place. It cost quite a bit, I bought lots of equipment too. We’ve now got about 230 members, I put an early bird price out and smashed target in ten days, as I had a target of 200 in three months.

“I am so busy, and I never really get the time to sit and reflect on how far I’ve come. But I never want to be in a state of ‘this is it’, I want two to three of these, something else exactly like this. I still do some PT classes two times a week. It’s a soft opening for now, but we’ll see how it goes.”

LS Fitness runs from 6am to 9pm on weekdays, Saturday 7am-4pm, and Sunday 8am-2pm.