From Chantry to gym owner: Kyle's bet on Ipswich

Kyle Easdon grew up in Chantry, and the fitness bug bit early. "I remember in primary school, I was in year 6, and I was showing the year 2s how to do press-ups," he laughs. "That was like the first PT moment I didn't realise was a PT moment."

By high school, he was through the gym doors as soon as he was old enough, and it was around then that the ambition took shape: one day, he wanted to own a gym.

Work experience at a gym in Martlesham gave him his first taste of what the job actually involved, alongside an unexpected lesson in people. "They really instilled in me — you need to talk to new people, you need to be people-facing, otherwise this isn't going to work," he recalls. It was a lesson that would shape all that followed.

After college and a personal training qualification, Kyle moved to London in January 2020 with ambitions of building a PT career in the capital. Two months later, lockdown sent him straight back to Ipswich, and he never went back. The maths did not stack up — "you're £3,000 negative before you even start" — but it was more than finances that put him off. "I hated it. No one spoke to anyone. The most crowded space, but no one talks."

Coming home felt like a relief.

The text that changed everything

By 2022, Kyle was building his personal training business in Ipswich and training at a local gym for the 'Ipswich Strongest' competition. The gym had been part of the town's fitness landscape since around 1970, passing from owner to owner while keeping the same reputation — a bodybuilder's gym, rough around the edges, not for everyone. Kyle had trained there on and off since 2012. "Even I was like a little bit wary in that space," he admits.

He knew the owner was thinking of selling. Conversations had drifted that way without going anywhere. Then he won the competition.

"I sent her a jokey message saying, 'Now I've won your competition, can I buy your gym?'" He was not expecting her to say yes. "Then it was full on."

He had the money to buy the gym, but the transformation he had in mind would need more. The pitch to backers was simple: come and see the potential. "I took a few people around and they said, 'I think you're crazy doing this,'" he recalls. In September 2022, Kyle took ownership.

Stripped back to the bones

A month after completing the purchase, work began. When they pulled back the floors, they found the supporting boards underneath close to collapse. "I'm so surprised the floor held up," Kyle says. New concrete went down and the structure was rebuilt from scratch.

The renovation that followed was a community effort as much as a commercial one. Kyle put out a call for help, and gym members turned up in numbers.

Since taking ownership, Kyle has not taken a penny in salary or dividends — he still earns his personal income through PT and coaching. Every pound the gym makes, he says, goes straight back into it. "Money comes into the gym, it goes back into the gym."

Named after his son

His son Hunter had been born in April 2022, and Kyle was still searching for a gym name when the deal completed in September. Nothing felt right until, suddenly, it's like it was meant to be. "Hunter Strength and Fitness came to mind. I'd not settle on any other name now." Beyond the branding, he says, it carries something more. "It's got that family values to it, and it's represented in how the gym is portrayed."

That family sits at the heart of everything. The hours are long — up before they wake, home at eight or nine in the evening, six days a week — but the reason he pushes is as much for them as for the gym. "Whatever he loves to do," he says of Hunter, "we're going to build an industry around that. This is how I've built this — through passion. If I can give that same opportunity to my children, then yeah — that's success."

Everyone gets the same treatment

The gym Kyle inherited had a culture that kept people out as much as it let them in. A previous owner had offered women half-price memberships just to coax them through the door. It had not worked.

Kyle's approach was different from the start. "If you're 16, if you're 60, if you're male, female — everyone gets the same treatment." He has members in their 70s from the nearby mosque. He has teenagers from the college down the road. Recently, he looked up mid-session to find ten women training and no other men in sight. "I was like, this is an example of what we would never have had previously."

What draws them, he believes, is not the equipment. "I've had so many people recently saying they went to other gyms — had this equipment, that equipment. But it's not about the equipment. It's about the people, the community."

The warmth of Hunter's culture is not without its limits — Kyle is the first to admit he has had to remind the occasional group of lads that not everyone wants to share a gym with six shirtless men — but the ethos is consistent. Everyone is welcome, and everyone is treated the same.

That culture has taken root in the building itself. One member, Faye, came to Kyle for personal training and went on to qualify as a PT, compete in a wellness competition, and open the supplement shop at the front of the building. "She's always striving for more," Kyle says.

What comes next

The 'Ipswich Strongest' competition, which Hunter hosts each year, has grown into one of the town's more distinctive sporting events. This year's takes place in May at the waterfront — lorry pulls, car deadlifts, crowds spilling onto the waterfront. "Everyone encourages everyone," Kyle says. "People get a sense of what you experience down here."

Beyond that, the plan is to find the right people, open a second site, and do it all again. As for the gym's namesake, there is no pressure on young Hunter to get involved — whatever path he chooses, Kyle will back him.

The bottom line

Kyle has not taken a salary from Hunter Strength and Fitness. He has not taken a dividend. For nearly three years, every pound the gym earns has gone straight back into it. The result is a gym that barely resembles what it was, in look or in spirit. Ipswich's oldest gym now belongs, in the truest sense, to everyone.

Hunter Strength and Fitness is on Upper Orwell Street, Ipswich. The Ipswich Strongest competition takes place in May at the waterfront.

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