14 Days to Greatness · Katoomba
Fourteen days, built around your body.
Steps to Greatness is a small training studio for women on Katoomba Street. Weights, three to five women in a session, and a program written for you rather than handed to you.
This page is the whole fortnight, start to finish. What the first session is, what you do in week one, what you should feel by week two, and what happens on day fourteen. Read it before you book, so you know exactly what you are saying yes to.
Fourteen days of training with Lachlan, at no cost to you.
The best of both, and that is the point.
Personal training gets you a program built for your body. Group training gets you the mornings you actually look forward to. Almost everywhere makes you pick one.
Here you get both. Your program is written for you, from what I see when I watch you move. You then train it here, alongside three to five other women who are doing the same thing on their own programs. Eight is the most I will ever have in a session, and that is a hard ceiling.
Nobody here is doing your workout with you, and nobody here is doing it without you.
I can describe this to you all day and you will still not quite have it until you are standing in it. That is exactly what the fourteen days are for.
Why fourteen days and not one session.
One session shows you the place. It does not show you what it is like to train, go home, be a bit sore, come back on Thursday and find it easier than it was on Monday.
That second part is the whole thing, and it is the part nobody ever lets you see before they ask you for a decision.
It also matters because of what you have already been through. Lisa came to me after the cheap gym, the bootcamp and the six week challenge. Thousands of dollars across a few years. What she had to show for it was a fractured shin from work that was never meant for her body. She trains here now, stronger than she has ever been.
That was never a discipline problem. She was in the wrong place. Fourteen days is long enough for you to tell the difference for yourself, rather than take my word for it.
Session one
The first one is a screening, not a workout.
You will not be thrown into anything. The first session is me looking at you properly, one on one, which is something most women tell me has never actually happened to them.
Here is the whole of it, in order.
- Before you come in. A short form arrives by email. You fill it in at home, in your own time, so your first session starts with you rather than with paperwork on a clipboard.
- You arrive at your session time. Not earlier. There is nothing to be early for. Park in the Pryor Lane carpark, or the Petbarn carpark, whichever you find first. Look for the green brick wall with the STG logo on it. Walk straight in.
- I introduce myself and take it from there. You do not have to work out where to go, who to talk to, or what to do with your hands.
- It is you and me, and nobody else. Your first session has its own time slot, outside the group hours. There is no class going on around you and nobody watching you do something for the first time.
- We warm up. Unhurried, and I talk you through what we are about to do before we do it.
- Then the movement screen. I take you through a series of movements and watch how your joints, muscles and tendons are working. Where your range of motion is. Where your mobility is. Where one side is carrying more than the other.
- Thirty to forty five minutes, and then you go home. No heavy lifting, no being pushed, nothing you have to survive.
- Then I go away and write your program. Built on what I saw, on your body, for where you are right now. Not general advice, and not a guess.
This is the part that changes the answer. Sol had lower back pain for years and saw a chiropractor once or twice a week just to keep going. During her screening I noticed one of her legs looked longer than the other, so I sent her to a podiatrist. The podiatrist was sceptical, tested her anyway, and measured a difference of an inch and a half.
A lift in her shoe. The back pain went. She went from two visits a week to one every couple of months.
That is her story, not a promise. I am not a podiatrist and I send people out when they need it. But nothing there was fixed by trying harder. It was fixed by somebody looking first.
Fourteen days of training with Lachlan, at no cost to you.
Week one
What you will see.
Your first real sessions on your own program. The weight will be lighter than you expect, because the first job is teaching your body the movement properly, not finding out what you can survive.
You will learn the movements with me standing next to you. You will be corrected, often, and it will not feel like criticism.
By the end of the week most women notice two things. The second session was easier than the first, and it was not because it was lighter. And they have stopped checking whether anybody is watching them, because by then they know everybody’s names.
That is the week when it stops being frightening.
Week two
What you should feel.
By the second week you should be able to feel a difference in the way your body moves and how it feels. Getting off the floor. Up the stairs. Out of the car. The small things that have been quietly getting harder.
You should have more energy than you walked in with, not less. If a fortnight of training is flattening you, the programming is wrong, and that is on me to fix rather than on you to push through.
And by then I can see it too. Not just how you are going, but the areas that would improve a great deal if you kept going.
Two weeks will not remake your body, and I am not going to tell you it will. What it will do is show you, in your own body, whether this works for you. That is a far more useful thing to know.
Day fourteen
We sit down and talk about it.
At the end of the fortnight you and I sit down together. I map out what I have seen over the two weeks, what I think we could do together, how I can help, and what the next steps would look like.
That is also where you get the price. Training here after the fortnight is a paid membership, and I would rather give you the real number to your face on day fourteen than a guess before I have seen you move.
Then you make a decision based on that. We either carry on together, or we shake hands and part ways. Both are a perfectly good outcome, and the fourteen days stay free to you either way.
There is a second half to that conversation, and it is mine. I am deciding too. I only take on women I know I can actually help, and who are going to lift up the people training beside them. Say yes to everybody and you end up doing a worse job for all of them.
That is not a hurdle for you to clear. It is the reason you will feel safe on your first morning.
Why it feels different here
Not everyone gets to stay.
Women feel safe here, and that is not luck. It is protected.
People who take away from it have been asked to leave, and they always will be. I have turned away business over it and I would do it again.
This has been running since 2013, and some of the women who started in the early years are still training here more than ten years later. That does not happen in a place where anybody feels watched, or judged, or uncomfortable.
This is not about screening you out. It is about lifting up our community, which is the most important part of Steps to Greatness.
What I ask of you.
Three sessions a week is what I recommend, and it is the number the fortnight is built around.
Beyond that, come as often as you like. There is no cap on your attendance across the fourteen days. The one thing I ask is that you tell me when you are coming, so I can adjust your programming and manage what your body is carrying. Turning up unannounced four days in a row is how people get sore for the wrong reasons.
The fortnight works when you are in the gym. That is the whole of what I need from you.
Women who sat exactly where you are
The five minutes before the first session.
Catherine sat in her car outside for five minutes before her first session. Certain she would feel stupid. Certain she would not fit in. Certain this was not for her.
She is in her seventies. She is a grandmother. She has trained here every week since.
She has gone from barely being able to lunge to lunging with twenty four kilograms. Roman chair with twenty. Rowing sixty.
This week she stopped mid set and told me that when she first did that exercise with nothing in her hands, she was sure she would never finish it. She had just done it with twenty kilograms.
I cannot believe how far I have come.
Gabi could not walk down a flight of stairs when she started, at sixty two. Fifteen minutes was her limit and she did not think she belonged here. Twelve months later she stood on top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Leanne was fifty eight and could not get up off the floor after playing with her grandson. Six months in, he ran after a bird and she ran after him without a second thought. Her words: I had no idea. I didn’t know my body could do it.
Alana did not want to come to that first session. She had been places before, never belonged, and nothing had ever fitted. She is nearly three years in now and she is the one I have to ask to stop talking so we can finish the set. When she got sick and missed two weeks, she said it felt like part of her was missing.
Lynda came in at sixty two with a bone density warning from her doctor. She now deadlifts ninety kilograms, more than her own body weight. Her doctor looked at the follow up scan and called it remarkable.
Not one of them arrived ready. Every one of them started exactly where they were.
Reviews on Google
You do not have to take my word for any of this.
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For someone who never set foot in a gym for 64 years walking through the door was daunting. I’m so glad I made that first step because Lachlan is a great trainer, so supportive and makes me feel I can do this! And the camaraderie of the other members is fabulous.
★★★★★ Jenny O’Baugh
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I never ever thought I would join a gym. It took a lot for me to overcome my fears (too unfit, too unco-ordinated, too old etc etc). But here I am, five years later, thrilled with my decision to join STG.
I found that my initial fears were completely unfounded.
★★★★★ Natalie Evans
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The tailor made training, the non judgemental environment, the people and the laughs are the best!!!
I am sad when I miss a session. Attending is often the highlight of my day.
★★★★★ Angela Balog
The practical part
Times, parking, and what to bring.
The current timetable.
| Day | Session start times |
|---|---|
| Monday | 7:00am9:00am4:30pm5:30pm |
| Tuesday | 7:00am9:00am5:30pm |
| Wednesday | 7:00am9:00am5:30pm |
| Thursday | 7:00am9:00am4:30pm5:30pm |
| Friday | 7:00am9:00am |
| Saturday | 7:00am8:00am |
Each of those is a separate session with its own start time. Pick the one that suits your day.
- More times as they are needed. When a session fills, I add another one. If nothing on that list works around your week, tell me and we will look at it.
- Sessions run forty five minutes to an hour. They never go over the hour. The exact length depends on what your program has in it that day.
- Booking the rest of your fortnight. Once you have done your first session you get a private booking link that only women who have been in get access to. Same system, one tap, book your own sessions from your phone.
- What to bring. A water bottle, and clothes you feel comfortable moving in. Whatever they are. Towels are here, and there is water if you need it.
- Where to park. The Pryor Lane carpark. The easiest way to find us is to head for the Petbarn carpark and walk towards the main street. Parking is free.
- How to find the door. A green brick wall with the STG logo on it, Unit 2, 101 Katoomba Street. Come straight through the door at your session time. I will meet you.
The things people ask me before they book.
Is it really at no cost to me?
Yes. Fourteen days of training, your screening, and a program written for you. You do not put a card in, and nothing starts charging you at the end of it.
All you spend is the time you turn up for. Staying on afterwards is a paid membership, and that is a conversation we have on day fourteen, once you already know what it is worth to you.
What does it cost after the fourteen days?
We talk about that on day fourteen, and not before, because until I have watched you train for a fortnight I genuinely do not know what you need.
What I will tell you now is that this is not the cheapest way to train in the Blue Mountains, and it was never going to be. The cheapest gym is the most expensive one you quit. The price is never only the membership. It costs you the months, the effort you put in for nothing, and a little more of your confidence every time it does not work.
You have already paid that one, more than once.
Who is this actually for?
Women. Mostly from about forty five onwards, though the range is wider than that in both directions.
Some come here having tried everything. Some have never set foot in a gym in their lives. Both are normal here and neither one is further along than the other.
Will this work for me? Nothing else has.
That is the honest question, and it is the reason the fortnight is fourteen days rather than one taster session.
I am also, generally speaking, where women end up when nothing else has worked. I am the last call. The break glass in case of emergency. A good part of this gym is women who had already tried everything else first.
I am not asking you to believe me. I am asking you to come in for two weeks and find out in your own body. If at the end of it the answer is no, you will know that for certain, and it will have cost you nothing to find out.
What makes this different from a gym?
Three to five women in a session, eight at the absolute most, every one of them on a program written for her.
There is also no cardio equipment here, and that is deliberate. No treadmill, no bike. You can walk and ride on your own time and you do not need me standing beside you while you do it. Your hour with me goes on the thing that actually changes what your body can do from forty five onwards, which is lifting.
I am not fit enough to start.
Gabi could not walk down a flight of stairs when she started. Catherine is in her seventies and could barely lunge.
You do not get fit and then come. You come, and the rest follows, slowly, the way it really does.
Will I be judged?
Every gym on earth says no judgment here, so the words are worth nothing. What I can tell you is what I actually do about it.
People who take away from the atmosphere here get asked to leave. That has happened, it has cost me money, and it will happen again. The standard is pointed at them, never at you.
Will a man understand what I am going through?
I have lost count of the women who have walked through that door, sat where you will sit, and said something out loud for the first time.
There is nothing I have not heard before. There is nothing I have not worked with before. This is what I do, day in and day out.
What if I get hurt?
It is a fair question, and for some women it has already happened somewhere else.
It is the reason the first session is a screening and nothing else. I look at how you move before I write a single thing for you, and your first weeks are lighter than you will expect, on purpose. If something hurts, you tell me and we change it that day.
I will not tell you the risk is zero, because there is risk in exercise and anyone promising otherwise is not being straight with you. What I work on is risk against reward. My job is to get you as much of the reward as possible while keeping the risk as low as it can go, and after years of doing exactly that, my track record speaks for itself.
I do not have time.
It comes down to what you decide to put first. You are going to have to put time into your health at some point, and you know that. It may as well be now, and it may as well be on something that actually matters and actually works.
Christie works eight to ten hour days, sometimes twelve to fourteen. Her 7am is the one hour of the day that is hers, so it does not move. In the weeks before she turned fifty she hit personal records on every lift.
Three sessions a week, under an hour each. That is what the fortnight asks for.
Come and see.
Pick a time that suits you and book it. The form comes to your email, you turn up at your session time, and we start with me looking at how you move.
Fourteen days later you will know whether this is your place. That is the whole of it.
Fourteen days of training with Lachlan, at no cost to you.