After the initial shock of shutting down their fitness business at the start of lockdown, Rob Sears and Loren Taylor started doing their bit for the NHS. Oh, and their three dogs have helped them through, too
What did fitness duo Rob Sears and Loren Taylor do in lockdown? Set themselves personal goals for exercise, of course!
Rob and Loren of Focus 4 Fitness, based in Norwich, celebrate their business turning four this month and, thankfully, have seen it go from strength to strength during the pandemic.
However, it was a shock to shut down their sports therapy and fitness business to start with. Then they got moving. Rob says: ‘While I set about setting up challenges, motivating clients, having a business to go back to and doing our bit for the NHS, Loren was busy working full-time from home and looking after her accounting clients as well.
‘A client of mine (Charlie Crossman) had just set up his own coaching business and when we both spoke to Charlie, via Zoom, it was clear that we were dealing with lockdown by focusing on work, not on the madness.
‘We set personal goals for our own exercise, sleep, and self-development, and concentrated on making time to look after each other. We used our time to work on ourselves so we could continue doing what we love – helping others. And our dogs Rio, Hugo & Remy helped!’
They started putting their new business goals in place back in April when they set an online CoVi Challenge for participants to become fitter and healthier than they were before the outbreak of Coronovirus.
Running alongside the CoVi Challenge were free, daily 30-minute core or HIIT CoVi workouts run via Zoom. The exercises were so designed that you didn’t need any equipment apart from a gym/yoga mat and a stopwatch.
Next they brought in the Empire Strides Back Challenge, which saw 500 participate in a challenge to run a marathon distance in a month and raise more than £5000 for the Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital.
As restrictions began to lift, Rob and Loren decided to move to bigger premises which now offer a disabled friendly and a more direct access to their new studio.
Rob says: ‘We realised quite early on that we wanted to support our community during this pandemic and help those we have been working with build resilience to get through and come out stronger when it’s all over.’
Loren adds: ‘One of the positive things to come out of Covid-19 is that we looked at new ways of working with our clients and going online has worked extremely well for both us and our clients – and we are not restricted to working with those just in Norfolk, but much further afield too.’
Between them they are now running 10 online, 30 minutes classes each week with all previous classes available On Demand.
Alongside individual one-to-one Personal Training sessions and Sports Therapy massages, Rob and Loren offer the 30-minute workouts online every week, for Core, Burn, Recover, Strength, Pilates, BoxFit and RPM (Indoor Cycling) -with more workouts in the pipeline.
For more information and to sign up visit https://www.focus4fitness.co.uk/
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