The UK’s only personal training gym that is male-only is celebrating raising thousands of pounds in aid of male suicide prevention causes across International Men’s Health Week.
The Training Club, in Washington, Tyne & Wear, offered t-shirts and hosted a talk on mental health and wellbeing with motivational speaker and author Paul Mort, and climbed the Yorkshire Three Peaks earlier in the year.
The gym raised a total of £2985.00 for Andy’s Man Club, a men’s mental health charity that offers free-to-attend talking groups for men and aims to challenge the stigma around male mental health.
The charity is named after Andy Roberts, who took his own life in 2016.
“To raise almost three grand for such an amazing cause so close to us as a gym is truly mind blowing,” said Ross Colquhoun, founder of the Training Club.
“All credit has to go to our amazing community. It’s our mission to enable all men to challenge perceptions, push their potential and help them find a true purpose through the power of togetherness, self-betterment and fitness.”
The Training Club was founded in 2020 as a male only gym that offers small group personal training sessions.
“It’s one of its kind in the country, there’s nothing else like it,” said Ross.
Ross founded the Training Club to be not only a fitness facility, but “a place where men can come, fully express themselves, get an hour to themselves away from their kids, their wives, their jobs and just get to solely focus on whatever’s going on in the room.
“The constant challenge, the camaraderie within the groups, and the competitiveness all breeds positive energy.
“You haven't got to feel like you're judged when you walk into a place like this,” Ross said.
“We meet you where you're at and you feel a sense of comfort and belonging straight away.”
The Training Club is based in the North East, the region that had England’s highest suicide rate in 2020 (13.3 per 100,000) according to data from the Office for National Statistics.
This has been the case in five out of the last ten years, with the region seeing a 15.7% increase in suicides compared to 2019.
Ross described the statistic as “jaw dropping”, but hopes that the Training Club will be able to offer support to men across the North East who may be struggling.
“If there’s more positivity going on around the area, in everyone’s own little circles, then hopefully things like that will massively reduce.
“I truly believe in what we're doing here and I truly believe that there's not many people doing it with the duty of care and the passion that we have,” Ross said.
Training Club members testify that that the gym has has a profound effect on both their physical fitness and their mental wellbeing.
Mick O’Donnell, a retired Royal Marine who served for 28 years before joining the Training Club, said: “When you hang your boots up and you come to retire, all of a sudden you seem to have this time on your hands. I think it can be quite dangerous.
“You’ve lived in a trusted bubble for such a long time, with high integrity, and you jump into ‘civvy world’, where there are a lot of sharks out there.
“Some people can go down a dangerous path.”
After retiring from the Royal Marines in April 2020, Mick developed arthritis in his ankles and problems with his knees, which are known as legacy injuries.
“It’s quite a physically demanding job and it just seems to be when you sit down all these injuries come out.
“A lot of guys end up with bad backs, bad knees, lower limb injuries and stuff like that,” Mick said.
Mick joined the Training Club in June 2021 in order to receive support for his injuries and since then, the gym has become a part of his life.
“This isn’t a short term fix, this is a lifestyle change for me.
“For anybody leaving the Armed Forces or a physically demanding job, you need to crack on with your fitness.
“I'm being educated in how to look after my body now and the best means for longevity. Coaches basically look after you and that’s what you need, especially when you get to my age.
The Training Club welcomes men of all ages and backgrounds, from retirees, to men who are dealing with the effects of recent phenomenons like social media.
Marco D’Andrea appeared on Treasure Island with Bear Grylls , a reality TV survival show, which was broadcast on Channel 4 in September 2019 and resurfaced on Netflix in December 2021.
12 participants were left to fend for themselves for 35 days on a remote, uninhabited Pacific Island as a test of their survival skills. Across the course of the show, £100,000 in cash was dropped onto the Island in boxes for contestants to find.
“We're aware there's cameras there the whole time. So we are aware that this will be on TV, but when that actually happens, it's a different story,” said Marco.
Marco took home £19,000 from the Island, the largest chunk of the prize money and more than all of the other contestants.
“I started looking at social media to see how people were responding and there was a lot of negativity aimed at me.
“I was getting a lot of quite hurtful and very hateful comments spun towards me for the way I was shown to be playing the game.
“I was called a liar and a cheat. My motives for going on the show were questioned, so was my character and my integrity. It was all quite foul and it stung quite a bit,” Marco said.
After the show arrived on Netflix, Marco experienced a resurgence in online abuse.
“I was stuck in a bubble of negativity for quite some time and it hurts, it really does,” he said.
Marco found that by attending the Training Club everyday, he was able to deal with the negative comments he received.
“Being a member of the Training Club brings so much more than just workouts, it's a community,” he said.
“I know I'm going to meet certain individuals who will listen, who will give guidance, and help bring structure to my mind when I might be struggling.
“It’s like being part of a wolf pack, everyone’s got each other’s back and if I'm seeing things which are negative towards me, or if I’m doubting myself at any point, I have friends around me who tell me how it is. They'll reaffirm, or reassure me.
“It’s a pillar of strength that cements me in reality, I guess.”
Dan Talbot joined the Training Club in August 2021, following struggles with his mental health and addiction to cocaine, alcohol and gambling.
“I was out of control,” Dan said, “I just thought it was being a lad and what you do, but it was far from that and I wanted to change.”
He joined the Training Club in order to improve his fitness and develop a new routine as part of a number of lifestyle improvements he made.
“I was quite nervous at first to come, but all those nerves were gone as soon as I walked through the door. It’s an amazing place.
“The coaches here are like having friends. They’re like mini-counsellors, they give you life advice, but they’re also there to just pick you up and drag you through each session.
“Although it’s a small group, it’s like a personal training session with a friend.
Ross and his team of five full-time coaches are committed to helping more men, by offering them not only group training, but an “outlet” and a “safe space”.
“People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care,” Ross said.
He vows to continue raising money and awareness of mental health causes across the North East.
