What makes the world’s leading personal training business tick?
How has Ultimate Performance become the only truly global personal training business on the planet?
What is it about the unique culture, systems and methodologies at U.P. that help mould the world’s best trainers and consistently help thousands of clients every year achieve exceptional results?
We are going behind the scenes at U.P. in our ‘Inside U.P.’ series to answer these questions and many more.
This series will explore real-life stories of our trainers and successful clients across the globe to learn how we achieve the results we do with countless clients of every age, ability and background.
First, here is a little introduction to U.P., looking at where we started, what we stand for, how we have developed our culture, and the environment we have created that enables trainers and clients alike to excel.
Our History
Ultimate Performance was founded in 2009 by Nick Mitchell, widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost personal trainers and body composition experts.
The business was born from Nick’s vision to create a place where people knew they could train and get the results they wanted, without the ineffectual ‘fitness fluff’ that permeated the U.K. personal training industry at the time.
Since then, Ultimate Performance has changed the face of the industry and rapidly expanded to become the world’s only true global personal training business operating across four continents.
Ultimate Performance has a team of more than 300 elite personal trainers across 20 private personal training gyms (and counting), helping thousands of clients achieve life-changing results each year.
Our Culture
What defines Ultimate Performance is our culture.
We are a personal training business founded on values of integrity, accountability and excellence.
Our focus is on delivering a life-changing experience, world-class results, and tangible return on investment for every client.
Our culture can be summed up in any of our company maxims – ‘Results, not promises’. ‘Where the excuses stop, and the results begin’.
While many companies try to attempt to emulate our model, the results-driven culture of excellence and accountability we have built over the years has never been replicated. It is what sets us apart as world leaders in our field.
Our culture is built on robust systems, rigorous data analysis and layers of accountability at every level – from the junior trainer up to the global CEO.
By giving trainers and clients alike everything that is required to excel – the tools, the support, the systems – we have created an environment that breeds success.
Our culture drives us forward. We champion continual research and development with some of the world’s leading academic institutions, including Cambridge University and the University of California, in the pursuit of perfecting our craft and furthering the fields of nutrition science, health and sports performance.
Our People
Ultimate Performance could not claim to be the world’s leading personal training service without its people. We offer the highest possible level of qualified, rigorously tested personal trainers.
Each one of our trainers is distinguished by their ability to practice what they preach. They talk the talk and walk the walk, training themselves even harder than they train their clients and living the healthy lifestyle we advocate for our clients.
U.P. are committed to the science of body composition, strength, and conditioning and have assembled a team that covers all exercise and nutritional backgrounds to meet client needs with unparalleled excellence.
The true benchmark of success and the foundation of our credibility at U.P. is the results achieved with our clients. This is driven by the collective knowledge and expertise of our global team and the robust systems, processes and tools we have built at Ultimate Performance that enable our team to succeed.
What makes Ultimate Performance so unique isn’t our facilities, and it’s not even the knowledge and experience of our trainers. The overriding factor is that we find trainers that care.
They care about your wellbeing, your health, and your results. They invest everything they have in helping you reach whatever goal you have set for yourself. Their hunger and passion for success motivate them to leave no stone unturned. They lift clients up, even when they feel flat themselves.
They help you in every possible way they can because they care. At Ultimate Performance, it is much more than just a job. It is a calling.
Our Clients
A common misconception about Ultimate Performance is that the results we achieve are only possible if you are already fit and healthy. This is far from the truth.
A motto we stay true to is that ‘you do not need to be fit to start, you just have to start to be fit.’
One characteristic of U.P. that sets us apart is that we achieve world-class results regardless of our client’s starting point. We can take the average Joe from ‘dad bod’ to cover model-ready. We can help women get in the best shape of their lives after children. We can deliver a unique and visceral training experience for even the most experienced of trainees.
We can help people of all ages and backgrounds dramatically reduce their blood pressure, reverse type 2 and turn the tide on heart disease. You can see the evidence of our results in the hundreds of transformation stories our clients have shared down the years.
At U.P., we refuse to conform to the fitness industry norm of working only in niches and hand-picking clients that achieve results easily. We genuinely believe that we have the tools, systems, and trainers on hand to dig in deep with any client and help them unlock their potential.
While our results far exceed that of the average gym trainer, it is our ability to help our clients achieve their goals under any circumstances that has never been replicated within the personal training industry.
Join us for a behind-the-scenes tour like no other, as we show you everything from what it takes to be a female trainer, to undergoing a transformation after cancer, and even our ongoing tech developments, for our trainers and clients alike.
Ultimate Performance was born from Nick’s vision to create a place where people knew they could train and get the results they wanted, and not the ineffectual ‘fitness fluff’ that pervaded the personal training industry at that time. Read here, what the gym means to Nick.
