Founder & CEO

One Playground

Justin Ashley

Over 15 Years Fitness Industry Experience. Started at grassroots with coaching and frontline work before climbing the ranks to Senior Management in multi-national brand Fitness First. This experience gave me the “Education” necessary to co-found 3 Fitness Industry start-ups.

I am driven by the need to create a better way of doing things. Let me bore you with some stats: Since the fitness explosion in the late 80’s, obesity has more than tripled. Only 17% of Australians are gym members. And of this, less than half use it enough/efficiently in order to get meaningful results. As an industry, we are happy to accept that 50% of our members will quit each year. Madness. Switching to staff: The average tenure for a Personal Trainer is estimated at 6 months! Some companies have over 200%+ salary based employee turnover. Yet we are still “educating” tens of thousands of new trainers every year incorrectly, many via an 6-8 week online course.

Whatever way we look at things, what we are doing right now is not working. There has to be a better way. An approach that consistently creates success for our people – members and staff. That is the mission I am on with Fitness Playground. We are on a mission to change the Gym Environment and Experience and ultimately create success for our Members and Staff. How? We are exchanging Intimidation for Engagement & Education; Boredom for Experience & Fun; Isolation for Interaction & Community. We don’t believe that the gym should only be a place for the already fit to get fitter. We believe the Environment and Experience should allow every Australian to feel comfort and a sense of belonging. Well, that’s the plan anyway. Wish us luck!