A medical student’s desire to venture into business combined with a passion for fitness, and investing in health and wellbeing has materialised into the opening of a fitness facility in the heart of the capital city.
A gym enthusiast himself, Sigatoka lad Nitish Sharma, 24, was well aware of the importance of having a healthy population.
While he said that youths today were healthy in terms of fitness, noted the prevalence of childhood obesity cases and the sedentary lifestyle associated with the ever-so-busy corporate world.
Last Wednesday, Island Strength opened its doors for the first time at its first home situated at the Fiji Times building on Suva’s Gordon Street.
His fitness journey started in 2022 when he begun to develop a deep passion for health and fitness, and at the time had become a dedicated patron of Metro Gym.
“In my sixth year of medicine, I wanted to get into the business side of things, but I wasn’t sure what (business) exactly. I started going into Metro Gym in Suva to pass time only because it was close to where I lived and I really got into it and started liking it,” Mr Sharma shared to this newspaper.
His interest in going to the gym and the benefits he reaped out of it was confirmation enough of the business venture he would be exploring.
The son of a businessman in Sigatoka, his first preference for his gym idea was his rugby hometown.
“I’m from Sigatoka and we didn’t have a gym there, so last year during the school break, I would travel from Sigatoka to Nadi sometimes to use a fitness facility, and the closest one was at Pacific Fitness in Nadi.
“That kind of gave me the idea – ‘why not open a gym in Sigatoka’ – so that’s where the business idea came from.”
In August last year, Mr Sharma began to commit himself to doing the required ground work towards setting up the fitness establishment.
He started to arrange for the gym equipment that were shipped from Melbourne, Australia.
However, his hope of opening the gym in his hometown did not fall through because of the unavailability of space.
His next choice for location was Lautoka, some 90kilometres away from home.
“In my final year of medicine, we were usually sent to three different hospitals – Lautoka, Labasa and Suva so my name came in for Lautoka.
“I said to myself that since I’m studying there, why not just open a gym in the area there in Lautoka.
“Even then, Lautoka did not have a large commercial gym so I started looking for spaces. And just a week or two before uni started towards the end of January, I got a message from our coordinator that my name had been swapped with another student in Suva.
If he had to choose a town to run his fitness gym business other than Sigatoka, Mr Sharma said it was either going to be Nadi or Lautoka because it was closer to Sigatoka.
“Not Suva because Suva already had quite a lot of gyms so I said, maybe I will open one in Nadi because it is a closer location to home.
“And since I usually travel a lot from Sigatoka, I could somewhat manage and towards the end, I made up my decision to open in Suva.
“It’s better if I open in Suva so that I have more oversight and that’s how I came to open here.”
Starting his first ever business in Suva, Mr Sharma said he made sure he approached each challenge as an opportunity to grow and learn.
“I would say I do have some knowledge of business as my family does own a hardware store back in Sigatoka.
“Basically, one of the reasons I chose this site is because its right in the city centre, so my targeted customers are those who work in corporate offices.
“The goal is a lot of people travel from the Nasinu and Nausori area and even Navua to come to Suva to work, and sometimes you can spend like an hour or two stuck in traffic and even an hour of travelling to reach your destination.
“Instead, you can basically come to the gym and buy time. Once you’re done spending one or two hours, the traffic would have cleared so you kind of reach home around the same time but the best thing, you’ve had your workout.”
The journey of the young fitness entrepreneur was not without its challenges, and the fitness industry was no exception, he said.
“It’s quite expensive and since the equipment are shipped from a company based in Melbourne, I had to pay for the container, and on top of that VAT and customs, and the equipment and lighting, etcetera.”
Mr Sharma preferred not to divulge the monetary value of his investment.
“It was quite a hefty figure that my parents even suggested I should just buy a property instead.
“The challenges of the business was mostly bureaucracy because it was very hard to get paperwork done on time.
“I was hoping to open a while back in June or July, but it took so long that my approvals, my compliances from the various government department became the biggest hurdle.
“It really drained me and there was very little co-ordination among them, so I had to do a lot of running around.”
Despite the odds, Mr Sharma has assured his potential clients at Island Strength that his approach to fitness would remain relevant and would align with innovation at every level – be it through advanced fitness equipment or personalised wellness programs to suit customer needs and preferences.
“I’ve met with a few personal trainers to provide services here and they are considering training clients over here.
“I am hoping to introduce more personalised training in fitness strength and conditioning and maybe some Zumba classes at the upstairs level of the building.”
Mr Sharma said they used two brands of equipment at Island Strength – Matrix and Titanium USA, which are mostly used by everyone.
“It falls mostly on the body building side. It’s not just ideal for those that compete in Olympics but for a regular person on a regular basis as well.”
Mr Sharma’s message to everyone is quite clear – “we must make a difference and invest in our own health and wellbeing”.
“I feel like Fiji’s youth are quite healthy in terms of fitness, although we have a few childhood obesity problems but in general, our younger generations are healthier to some extent.
“It’s only when as they grow older and they start working that they start to neglect their health.
“We must prioritise our health a bit more and invest in our health.”
Mr Sharma said he also understood that people did have to prioritise on a gym budget, but added Island Strength offered $100 a month per head subscription fee.
“A lot of people have said that the fee is pricier but then you have those spending around $50 to $60 on just a night out on movies and in drinking so $100 per month can make a difference to your health and well-being.
“Usually, they start when it’s already quite late so it’s better to start early when you are still healthy and you don’t have to wait when you get sick.”
Island Strength gym is open from 5am to 9pm from Monday to Friday; 6am-6pm on Saturdays; and 7am-5pm on Sundays.
