A FITNESS fanatic has gone from strength to strength after opening a new studio in Worcester.
Julie Liggins swapped law for lycra in May last year when she opened up her first business, Studio 2, in Droitwich.
Just over a year later and the 35-year-old has opened the doors to WR3 Fitness in Ombersley Road after seeing business boom in her first 12 months.
WR3 contacted Julie in April, after seeing the work she had done in Droitwich, with a proposal to take over the studio, something she jumped at the chance at.
“They phoned and said they’d got an empty studio at their gym and did I fancy using that there aswell,” she said.
“So I opened three weeks ago and the last three weeks numbers have just grown and grown as word gets out.
“It’s all been great. It was easier in Droitwich because I had a client base, but with Worcester I’ve gone there and nobody really knows me, so it’s having to start from complete scratch again.
“You just need that one person to put a comment on Facebook about how much they enjoyed it, and bring their friends along, and that’s what’s happened as my Zumba classes went from six to 17 people in three weeks.”
The mum-of-three, who opened the gym on at the start of June, worked as a legal executive for a law firm in Birmingham before taking a career break when she had her third child.
During the break, she attended Zumba classes to the point where she dreamed up the idea of running her own fitness studio.
Julie, who has help running the studios from fellow fitness-fan Lisa Cannon, teaches her classes everything from Zumba to body weight circuit’s to hip work outs, but said her future aim was to get into personal training.
“I’d like to start working with people more on a one-to-one bases,” she added. “You get a lot of people who are very nervous to come to classes.
“They don’t like the class environment, they feel exposed almost, and they prefer that one-to-one. When you have that one-to-one the results are so much faster as you can really focus on just them.
“I remember when I first went to a Zumba class I was terrified and didn’t know what to expect, I was clinging to the back wall and two years later I’m stood at the front teaching it.”
