How CBJ started.
CBJ began with Joanna Hodge. She started in the fitness industry in 2014, studying while she worked across commercial gyms as a Personal Trainer, Gym Instructor, and Group Fitness Instructor. She learned the trade from every angle, and saw first-hand where the typical gym experience let people down.
In 2017 she stepped into a Health Club Manager role, running gym operations and leading a team of up to eight personal trainers. Alongside the work she kept studying, continuing her education through ASCA and Pre-Script, and built a deep focus on strength training, movement quality, and developing clients for the long term rather than the quick fix.
In 2021, Jo launched CBJ Coaching as an online coaching business. It was a different way of working, built on real coaching rather than generic programs handed out and forgotten. The results spoke for themselves, and a community grew around it.
In 2024, that community got a home: the CBJ Lifting Club, a private coaching gym. It's a coaching-only facility with an old-school feel: chalk, real iron, and weights heavy enough for the most experienced lifters. But it's just as much a place for someone stepping into a gym for the very first time. Safe, welcoming, and free of the noise and intimidation of a commercial floor, it's built so that whether you're chasing a big PB or just starting out, you belong here.
What started as one coach and an idea has grown into a full team, and the same belief still runs through everything: everyone who trains with us, online or in person, gets a coach who knows their name, their goals, and what's been getting in their way.
