For many first-time gym-rats, it is harder to walk into a crowded fitness centre than the workout itself. The equipment is unfamiliar, there are mirrors everywhere, and experienced gym-goers flexing muscles provoke a fear of being judged; or at best, being body shamed silently. This makes exercise intimidating to many. Bengaluru-based fitness venture Unleash45 is trying to remove some of these mental blocks with a new twist: if you don’t want to go to the gym, the gym will come you. That knock on the door is Unleash45, a van with muscles.
Founded by former competitive wrestler Rithwik Radhakrishnan and dancer-turned-fitness coach Bhoomika Jayanna, Unleash45 is a mobile gym that travels to condos and homes. It has eight fitness coaches and serves eight Bengaluru communities with one mobile gym: for now. They found that most apartment gyms lacked equipment for strength and functional training. “This was a challenging problem,” says Jayanna. “We thought, why don’t we bring the equipment to the members who don’t have it at home or in their apartment?”
Unleash45 carries around dumbbells that weight from 2.5 kg to 20 kg, kettlebells up to 24 kg, medicine and slam balls, resistance bands, steppers and plyometric boxes. The age of its members range from six-year-old children to 80-year-olds. The mobile adult programme caters largely to clients above 30, while members over 70 receive personalised training. “Senior citizens as old as 84-years-old are working out with us,” say the founders. “They find getting to a gym is tough. So we go to their apartment with our mobile van to train them.”
For other members, signing up for Unleash45 is less about convenience and more about comfort. “Few people do not like to be seen working out in public,” says Radhakrishnan. Beginners, he adds, can feel self-conscious about how they look, how much weights they can lift or whether they are doing an exercise correctly. Training in a familiar community space, with a coach guiding them, makes the first step easier. This approach appears to be working, since more than 80 members have subscribed to Unleash45 so far. Some of them have become stronger to do everyday activities, while the others have progressed from lifting four or six kilograms to 20 kilograms.
Unleash45 has plans to expand to other parts of India with more gym vans. The idea behind their business is simple: fitness does not always have to begin by adapting to a gym environment. Sometimes, the gym can adapt to the one who wants to work out but is too shy to take that first step: on the treadmill.