Mara Ellis
Head coach · 14 yrs
Former state-level powerlifter. Writes most of the strength programming and does the intro sessions herself.
Islington, Newcastle
Every session is capped at eight and coached from the floor. You get a program written for you, and somebody watching you lift who will tell you when it's wrong. That's the whole product.
Cap per session8
Coaches on floor1:8
Sessions a week34
Opens5:30am
Members190
This week
Pick your sessions.
Tap the ones you'd come to. We'll tell you which membership that lands you on and what it costs. Spots shown are real for the week.
Progressive overload
It goes up.
That's the whole idea.
20kg
Empty bar
Week
01
You start with the bar and nothing on it. Everybody does, including the people who look like they didn't.
Keep scrolling — the bar loads as you go
Coaches
Four of them.
All on the floor.
Nobody at Forge coaches from behind a desk. If you're in a session, one of these four is standing next to you.
Tom Vasilev
Strength · 9 yrs
Ex-rugby, now mostly rehabs shoulders and backs. The one to ask if something hurts and you don't know why.
Priya Raman
Technique · 6 yrs
Olympic lifting background. Runs the Saturday technique sessions and will happily spend an hour on one movement.
Jack Okafor
Conditioning · 7 yrs
Runs everything that leaves you on the floor. Also the one who talks the most, which some people need at 5:30am.
The room
A warehouse
with good iron in it.
Six hundred square metres on Maitland Road. Twelve platforms, two turf lanes, and no mirrors anywhere. There is no juice bar and there never will be.
What it costs
Three prices.
No contract.
Weekly, paid fortnightly, cancel with two weeks' notice. No joining fee, no minimum term, and no twelve-month direct debit you have to ring a call centre to escape.
Starting
Your first month.
Most people who join have either never lifted or haven't in years. Nobody is thrown into a session on day one.
Week 0
Free intro, 45 minutes
One-on-one with Mara. What you want, what hurts, what you've done before. You lift nothing heavier than a broomstick.
Week 1
Two beginner sessions
Capped at four instead of eight. Squat, hinge, press, pull. You will be sore and it will be manageable.
Week 2
Into normal sessions
You join the general timetable with your own numbers on the board. The coach still watches every set.
Week 4
First re-test
We measure the same things we measured in week one and show you the difference, whether or not it flatters us.
That's the most common thing we hear and it's the wrong way round. Coached strength is where you go to get fit, and the beginner sessions are capped at four so nobody is watching you. About a third of our members had never touched a barbell before they walked in.
Yes, and that's the point of the cap. Sessions open eight days ahead and the 5:30am and 6:15am slots do fill. If you're on the Unlimited membership you can hold a standing booking for the same sessions each week.
Tell us at the intro and we'll program around it. Tom does most of the shoulder and lower back work and will happily talk to your physio. We won't tell you to push through something that hurts.
No. Two weeks' notice, in writing or in person, and it stops. We'd rather you left and came back than stayed because leaving was difficult.
Open Gym runs four times a week and is included on the Unlimited membership. Outside those hours the floor is running coached sessions, so there isn't a casual option — the cap doesn't work if people are wandering through.