Maree walked in in 2014.
She wanted to get fitter and stronger. She did not feel comfortable in gyms, and she was looking for somewhere that would actually work for her rather than somewhere she would have to survive.
She was nervous. Quiet, reserved, and honestly not somebody you would have picked as a gym person. This was not a place she felt comfortable in.
She came anyway.
Twelve years later
She is still here.
She went past every goal she set for herself. She got stronger. Her walking improved. Every marker we track moved forward, and they have kept moving.
She is also the wall sit queen. That is a real title and she has held it a long time. The joke is that she could sit there and knit, she is that good at them.
Life has thrown things at her along the way, the way it does. A lot of travel. Years of sitting at a desk and what that does to a body. Each one has been dealt with as it turned up, which is a very different thing from starting again every time something goes wrong.
As far as I know she has never once seriously thought about stopping.
Why she actually stays
I asked her. This is what she said.
Community, friendship, and accountability. I travel regularly, and I know I need to be held accountable to coming to see Lachlan, to showing up, to doing the work. I’ve tried on my own, and it just doesn’t happen.
Read that again, because it is the whole thing.
She is not saying she has more willpower than the women who stopped. She is saying the opposite. She tried on her own, and on her own it did not happen. What changed the outcome was somewhere to show up to and people who noticed whether she did.
The part that gets this wrong
Most of what you have been sold about fitness is built around the idea that staying is a character trait. That some people have it and some do not, and if you have quit things before, you are one of the ones who does not.
That is not what I have watched happen over thirteen years in this studio.
What I have watched is women staying for a decade in a room that suited them, after quitting in eight weeks somewhere that did not. Same woman. Same willpower. Different room.
Maree describes this place as family, and she tells people it is catered to her. She also calls me the enigma solver, which I did not ask for and am not giving back.
What this means if you are deciding
If the thing stopping you is a list of places you have already quit, that list is not evidence about you.
It is evidence about those places.
Fourteen days is enough to find out whether this one is different, without having to take my word for any of it.
Fourteen days of training with Lachlan, at no cost to you.
All writing. Published 7 September 2026.