Colne’s ex-military gym owner standing Unbroken with his gym

After leaving the military in 2006, Steve Backhouse admitted that he was initially naive when it came to adapting to civilian life, leading to him doing some personal training at his mother’s friend’s gym in Clitheroe. From there, Steve’s’s love for personal training grew, moving from gym to gym and gaining expertise in CrossFit training before launching Unbroken - his own personal gym nearly three years ago.

“The sort of story for Unbroken was I suffered with a bit of PTSD back in the day. And I believe that then health, fitness and exercise for me was the only thing that really saved my life a few times,” Backhouse admitted. “I just wanted to use that as a sort of forefront for what we branded the business as it is. I can't be broken and no matter what you're going through in life, there's always help. And we basically use the gym as more of a mental health situation for most people these days.”

The gym’s “base of the blueprint”, if you will, is based on strength and conditioning. It’s a plan that Steve has remained committed to since launching his fitness career, but stated that Unbroken operates as a more community-oriented group. “I think your old school gyms where you sit in an air conditioning room with your earphones in suits people, but what we deliver is more community-based work.. People come to train with each other to have a laugh and to share stories and stuff together basically.”

Steve, who openly admits that he has a “very high discipline” in himself, learned the importance of self-discipline while serving with the military out in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The gym owner went into a rut, subsequently ballooning from 11 and a half stone up to about 16 and a half stone, but that soon changed after a friend tricked him into joining him on a 10-mile run.

“The funny thing is the amount of pain that I was going through and the amount of times I've been sick on that run, I've never looked back since, because I never want to go back to that place where I was. It was a dark place, being depressed with being overweight and not having any motivation or no energy.

“So I've used that discipline from that time of my life and just kept pushing it forward and doing it. And, people always say that life's a hard place to be at the moment, things are tough, things cost a lot of money and the government takes us for everything they can. But I believe if you can work as hard as you can in the gym for just an hour every day, that nothing else really can be that hard.”

Recently, the gym owner launched his beginner-on-ramp course - a six-week programme that will see participants attend the gym twice a week to learn the basics about themselves and how to use the gym. However, the biggest thing Steve wants participants to take away is that going to the gym can be an enjoyable activity.

“I think some people come with a very high expectation of themselves and I just live by the rule of there should be zero expectations of life and zero expectations of yourself or anyone else because then everything's a positive. You'll gain something from it. So, I'm using the foundation course as a leveller really to level people out and say, look, get rid of this expectation and relax. It's not a chore. It's supposed to be fun and it definitely is.”