{"id":323564,"date":"2026-03-01T15:04:11","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T15:04:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323564\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T15:04:11","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T15:04:11","slug":"no-egos-no-leaderboards-the-cork-gym-system-putting-progress-over-pressure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/323564\/","title":{"rendered":"No egos, no leaderboards: the Cork gym system putting progress over pressure"},"content":{"rendered":"

Revelate Fitness, founded by Corkonian Chris Kennefick, attracts thousands with tailored workouts designed to make exercise accessible at any age\n<\/p>\n

No heavy barbells, no stacks of protein shakes, no big displays with leaderboards or advertisements for the next Hyrox event.<\/p>\n

This room has men and women, some up to their 70s, all competing against one person: themselves.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no trainer shouting at them to pick up the pace, no anxious glances over their shoulders to see how far they\u2019ve fallen behind, and no intimidating workout programmes or complicated machines to master.<\/p>\n

Three activities: bike, row, ski \u2014 with each individual collecting metres, being given tailored workout programmes that suit their fitness level, and guided through the session via a tablet. Everyone gets their own station, and each workout is different, with the music changing and sessions varied for the hundreds who pass through the door every week, all on their own fitness journey.<\/p>\n

Revelate Fitness is the brainchild of Cork man Chris Kennefick, who has designed a system which doesn\u2019t reward the dedicated gym bunnies or force new users into the usually intimidating gym setting, but rather gives everyone the opportunity to improve their own fitness, whether they\u2019re 17 or 78.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have an engineering background, but I\u2019ve been involved in gyms for the last 14 years,\u201d said Chris at Obodo, his first gym, which he started at the height of the CrossFit fad over a decade ago on the South Douglas Road.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was during COVID that we looked at the system in our gym and asked: can we give our members a better class? We thought the best way to do that was to go down the technology route,\u201d said Chris, who found a lot of the technology being sold was targeted at hardcore gym users, part of large-scale gym networks.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found my own team of engineers and we started testing and building the app. We put the app onto the bike, rower and skier, and give a user an experience that\u2019s tailored to them. So it\u2019s not like a \u2018one size fits all\u2019 class where you have to keep up with whoever is in the room.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The app, which was made in-house, is designed to be as user-friendly as possible<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re up to about 25 gyms using the system, so there\u2019s around 2,500\u20133,000 people using it, but the key to all of it was: how do we make a good class to get people fitter and healthier? If we do that, people will keep coming back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Obodo is a \u2018hybrid\u2019 gym. In their own room, away from the racks and weights, are the Revelate entry-level classes, which can number up to 10 across the day and give hundreds of people a chance to take their first baby steps into the gym.<\/p>\n

But for those who want to go further, the Revelate philosophy continues with weight classes that also rely on consistent progress against yourself, with screens displaying the correct technique for various activities, allowing users to learn the right form without needing to face the awkwardness of asking and re-asking coaches and fellow gym members.<\/p>\n

I always ask them why they keep coming back \u2014 they never give me a straight answer, but they keep coming back!<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at gyms and chatted to a lot of people who all had the same story: \u2018It\u2019s too intimidating. I go, and I don\u2019t know what I\u2019m doing. There\u2019s always someone next to me absolutely flying it, and I\u2019m always lost and confused.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cSo with the app, we can tell them to go at one pace or another \u2014 just follow the screen in front of you. We\u2019ve got my dad and my uncle in, and they\u2019ve been here for two and a half years and have done millions of metres.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always ask them why they keep coming back \u2014 they never give me a straight answer, but they keep coming back!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Metres\u2019 is the yardstick, if you will, for progress. There are no leaderboards in Revelate, no times to beat or power levels to reach. It\u2019s about consistent progress. The \u2018million metre\u2019 wall displays the name of everyone who reaches the target, with further trophies for the next million along the way.<\/p>\n

\"Obodo<\/p>\n

Obodo gym has a ‘Million metre club’, in which they display names of those who have passed the landmark number on a wall insdie the front door<\/p>\n

Chris says the metric helps users track their progress as a personal achievement, rather than battling to top a leaderboard, as seen in some other classes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe could give people all sorts of data, and maybe 5\u201310% love that, but what most people want to see is \u2018how many metres have I done?\u2019 It\u2019s like the 10,000 steps \u2014 it\u2019s just for people to know that they\u2019re improving.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a lot of people who told us: \u2018I went to the gym before, I didn\u2019t enjoy it. I gave up after a month because I was lost. But I enjoy this because I know what I\u2019m doing.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we found was that once people got a little bit fitter, they became a bit more confident, and then all of a sudden they were branching into another class, like a strength class, even doing a 5k.<\/p>\n

We had a lot of people who told us: \u2018I went to the gym before, I didn\u2019t enjoy it…but I enjoy this because I know what I\u2019m doing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can get those people in, get them a little bit fitter, build their confidence, it just kicks off from there,\u201d said Kennefick, who says the clients who give him the greatest enjoyment are the grandparents in their 70s or the Special Olympics group that comes in during the week, rather than the well-established fitness gurus.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t get too caught up in who was the fittest or strongest \u2014 it\u2019s about rewarding people for their own effort, and we\u2019re seeing the benefit of that now.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now the gyms can offer more to their members because they\u2019re starting with this, but then they will naturally want to do a strength or conditioning class.<\/p>\n

\u201cRevelate is designed to be done once or twice a week \u2014 it\u2019s not your be-all and end-all.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

The classes are tailored to each individual iser, who tries to better themsevles every session, on their way to improving their overall fitness<\/p>\n

Chris says that right from the beginning, the software \u2014 which works on a tablet that sits on the machine \u2014 was designed to be simple to use for people of all ages. Gyms around the country have signed up for the licence, in which they buy their own tablets and pay an annual fee, as well as a small user fee, in order to keep the service going.<\/p>\n

Fees are kept low to encourage more smaller gyms to adopt the system, which he says has seen superb success, particularly in rural areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt the beginning, it took time to sell when there was no social proof behind it, but now we have the credibility, and gyms are hearing more about us through word of mouth.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re starting to scale up, even outside of Ireland, which is great.<\/p>\n

If you get people fitter, that has a knock-on effect on everyone else\u2019s lives<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re telling the gyms that you can reach a way bigger market because people know what to do. My goal has always been to get as many people into fitness as possible. We\u2019ve dozens, even here, training who would never otherwise have seen a gym.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd if you get people fitter, that has a knock-on effect on everyone else\u2019s lives,\u201d said the Cork native, who added that the new system also frees up staff members from directly running spinning classes, which Obodo uses the extra time to allow them to pursue other opportunities in the gym, including marketing, management and programming.<\/p>\n

But scaling up is the next step.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing we\u2019re trying to do now is focus on big team competitions. So we recently had 10 gyms taking each other on as a fundraiser for \u2018Lust for Life\u2019 with Bressie, and all of a sudden you had 20 people in a class competing together against other gyms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe think that will be really popular. It\u2019s really accessible, it\u2019s individual, and we\u2019re working on loads of those events. It\u2019s always easier to do competition when you\u2019re in a group with your buddies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Revelate Fitness, founded by Corkonian Chris Kennefick, attracts thousands with tailored workouts designed to make exercise accessible at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":323565,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[499,103,61,60,1718],"class_list":["post-323564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kevin-galvin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=323564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/323564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/323565"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=323564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=323564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=323564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}