‘The people’s gym’ aims to be fit for further growth as it launches Leeds site

The company, which was launched in 2009, is moving its head office from Wakefield to the 40,000 sq ft site on Kirkstall Industrial Estate, Kirkstall Road.

It will be the fourth gym in the chain after opening in Wakefield, Castleford and Stockton-On-Tees.

The fitness studio will be able to hold up to 400 people and will host over 40 classes a week. Class instructors will be projected on to large screens to ensure all participants can see them.

The gym will contain over 300 pieces of equipment and will be separated into different areas for activities such as cardio, weights, a combat zone, women’s only area and additional areas for personal training sessions and spin classes.

Jon Wright, managing director and former Leeds rugby player, said: “We’ve been lucky enough to achieve great success with the first three gyms, and due to increasing customer demand the acquisition of the Leeds site will allow us to provide our flexible, affordable gym memberships to a wider demographic of Yorkshire.

“To cope with this demand we’ve added a number of new appointments to the team which will continue to grow throughout 2012 and moving the head office to the Kirkstall Road site will ensure there’s room for this.”

The firm has appointed a new group operations manager and a marketing graduate to work in the head office team in Leeds, who will help to grow the £4m turnover company.

Xercise4less has ambitious expansion plans for 2012 with the acquisition of more sites nationwide. The chain currently has 19,000 members across its existing sites.

The growth of Xercise has been based on a low subscription rate, of £14.99 a month, flexibility, with members on monthly, discounted 12 month rates or ongoing contracts, rather than the rigid long-term agreements with high penalty clauses used by some operators.

Mr Wright said: “With Xercise4less we’ve set out to create ‘the people’s gym’ at each site, realising members use the facilities for lots of different reasons.

“For us, it’s all about offering flexibility, so as well as the low subscription rate, we will work with members on a monthly basis rather than insisting on lengthy 12-month contracts and we allow everyone to freeze fees in the instance of injury or holiday.”

He added: “I’m delighted that our previous sites have launched so well and we will roll out the same model for our Leeds site, which is based on charging as little as possible, not as much as we can get away with.

“We are truly revolutionising the industry.”