She is ONE: Meet the Founder of ONE LDN, Evgenia Koroleva (Janie)

Since our launch, we have been on a mission to change the rules for how Londoners train.

The mainstream services provided by large chains are mediocre in quality, inflexible and mundane in experience. Thus, many people are turning to highly specialised studios, which are often intimidating, expensive and far away from each other.

Hence my mission in starting a gym in London was to break the mould by combining the two, at the price point that suits our customers.

I was fed up with paying for a lengthy premium gym contract, where classes were simply not good enough, as well as various studios just to get fun quality workouts that delivered results. This was coupled with all the time wasted, having to travel between multiple locations and the money that it all cost.

As a typical Londoner I struggle with wanting it all; I am increasingly demanding and time poor. We need it all now – the best facilities, the best range of classes, the best instructors that deliver fast results and slot perfectly into our busy work schedule and come at no sacrifice to our social life and bank balance. That’s how the idea of a no-compromise premium gym was born.

When I embarked on this project and a complete career change, I did not expect it to change my life as dramatically as it did and evolve into everything it has become.

The concept, into which ONE has developed, came because of my personal journey, the journey of many of my clients and staff. This journey is a journey of learning, progression and improvement.

While we embrace the latest trends with all our concepts, we don’t rely on tapping into the fads or gimmicks to differentiate ourselves. We implement only what has been proven to work and deliver results.

Although the emphasis of our classes lies in strength, conditioning and high intensity training, as we know that it gains the greatest results - #trainlikeanathlete, we strongly believe in the importance of cross-training in pursuit of physical and mental wellbeing. Therefore we designed training facilities that incorporate all the major components of fitness all in ONE place. We have found a strong niche in the market offering athlete level training and no compromise premium fitness experience, whist building a community of like-minded individuals, who have experienced changes as a result of training with us, and aligning the brand with our belief that any fitness or wellbeing experience should be as much about the journey, as the end goal.

We have seen dramatic changes not only in the way we look but mostly in the way we feel and in our lives.

Coming from a career in finance, I was a complete outsider to the fitness industry. I had no background in sports training and didn’t know how the industry functioned. I approached it very much from the point of view of the consumer, whom I have been for many years, and tried to solve the problems, which I felt were not addressed in the London fitness market.

Education has been absolute key for me in my journey. I have learnt so much and I am extremely passionate about spreading the knowledge and educating the mass market on the things that I have learnt. So as first step, I made sure we focus on hiring experts to coach our classes because I realised the importance that the expertise of the instructors and their science and experience backed guidance plays. We need to know why we are doing certain things and what functional benefits it will bring us.

As a keen sports enthusiast, I have always enjoyed exercise, but I rarely went to the gym and often did outdoor sports as I found gyms mundane, intimidating and most of the time I simply did not know what I was doing or the benefits it could bring. I found all the overflow of information on training and dieting online simply too much to digest and understand, hence I tried to do it all, and often failed, ending up back at square one.

Throughout my life, I have had various insecurities about my body image. I saw long distance chronic cardio as the only solution to weight loss and I increasingly struggled to see results from it as it became more and more taxing on my body.

This education piece is what makes every class a journey of personal betterment, both physically and mentally, and not a caption in time for our customers - the one approach fits all simply doesn’t work. Every class is place that people chose their route – they can simply have a sweaty work out or a place where their can learn something new, improve and we will support them in their progression.

Secondly, I have always found that I was intimidated by many boutique studios and I found main stream gyms hostile and I came to realise the importance of creating the most welcoming atmosphere possible within the club so people always felt happy and excited to come here and be here.

And it’s the sense of community and overarching support at all levels that makes people go further and achieve more, as it’s not only the instructor who is supporting them but also their peers.

We chose ONE as the brand as its incredibly simple yet immensely powerful, reflecting everything we stand for – best and most effective classes taught by the best coaches, and the high-performance gym equipment all under ONE roof. We’ve focused on the most prevalent areas of fitness, with classes that deliver real results, picking out the best instructors in each field.

More importantly, ONE emphasises the sense of inclusivity and community that is at our very core, which is why we are so focused on ensuring each member gets the best experience and support every time they come to ONE LDN. The equality that we are embedding deep into our brand is the reason why we have managed to build such a strong community in such a short space of time.

We understand that it’s important to set goals to embark on the fitness journey and hard work is necessary to achieve them but our mission is to make people fall in love with the process.

Personally, I have seen a dramatic change in my life from where this journey of support through the instructors and the inclusive encouraging community has taken me, that for the first time in my life, I lost sight of the goal. I have stopped obsessing with what I look like. I have become happy and most importantly present with who I am.

Hence, I am keen to share my passion, as this journey has changed my life so much!

Our innovative pricing model, that is based on rewarding people the more they go and offers complete flexibility for our customers to choose exactly what they want, gym or classes or both was designed to put our customers back in control and reward them for achievement rather than tying them in.

Tower Hill

Our Tower Hill studio is set for opening first week of April 2017, in St Marks Street, London E1 8HG.

Based on our experience and with our belief in cross-training in pursuit of physical and mental wellbeing, we designed Tower Hill training facilities to incorporate all the major components of fitness all in ONE place - Strength, Cardio, and Flexibility. We picked out the most effective and engaging elements that deliver real results.

Thus, the 10,000ft² facility incorporates 3 studios – Strength and Conditioning (32 capacity), Boxing and Muay Thai (34 capacity), Hip Hop Hot Yoga – fast flow to Hip Hop music (50 capacity).

The opening of the new site is the start of the natural expansion of the brand, building further on our strengths in group fitness and the demand in the market.