Matthew Januszek brings together a genuinely international panel for this Escape Your Limits Growth Summit 2023 episode — operators and consultants spanning Ghana, Dubai, Saudi Arabia, Latvia, and the United States, all sharing what they are seeing on the ground in their markets and where they believe gym design is heading next. The episode is a rare cross-continental conversation about a topic that matters to every operator who is investing in or renovating a facility.
What emerges across the discussion is a set of consistent signals hiding underneath market-specific variation: a decisive shift away from traditional cardio-heavy layouts, rising demand for free weights and functional training zones, a growing female member base, and the increasing importance of trainers as community architects rather than simply instruction providers. The picture the panelists paint together is of an industry in the middle of a structural reorientation.
About Escape Your Limits Growth Summit 2023
The Escape Your Limits Growth Summit is a gathering Matthew Januszek convenes to bring serious industry conversations out of the conference center and into a format that the Escape Your Limits audience can access directly. The 2023 gym design episode assembled experts from five distinct markets: Candace Pettit from Advantage Sport and Fitness in the United States, Edgars Bercis from G-Fitness in Latvia, Gina Kerstye from AKI Fitness in Dubai, Yaw Mograbi from Watertree in Ghana, and Mohammed Shammaa and Osama Aoun from Delta Fitness in Saudi Arabia.
Each contributor brings a different market context to the conversation, making this one of the more geographically diverse episodes in the Escape Your Limits catalog. The presence of voices from emerging fitness markets in Africa and the Gulf region alongside established operators from Europe and North America gives the discussion a breadth that is unusual in fitness industry content.
The themes that surfaced — fitness consultancy embedded at the architectural design stage, the corporate gym as a workforce wellbeing asset, the fitness boom reshaping Dubai — are not regional curiosities. They are early indicators of directions the global industry is moving, and the Growth Summit format allows each expert to describe what they are noticing in their own words.
What Escape Your Limits Growth Summit 2023 and Matthew Januszek Talked About
- The shift from traditional cardio equipment toward free weights and functional training zones is happening across all five markets represented in this episode — suggesting a global reorientation in how gym layouts are being conceived and sold.
- Increased fitness consultancy at the architectural design stage is emerging as a meaningful trend: facility owners are engaging fitness experts earlier in the construction or renovation process to avoid costly redesigns once the building is operational.
- The rise of the corporate gym — positioned as a workforce wellbeing tool rather than a perk — is expanding the addressable market for commercial fitness operators and equipment suppliers, particularly in markets where employers are competing for talent.
- Trainers are increasingly being recognized as essential community architects, not just technical instruction providers; their role in building member retention through relationship and culture is gaining formal recognition in facility design and staffing strategy.
- An increase in women training in gym spaces was noted across multiple markets as a significant demographic shift — one that carries design implications for floor layout, equipment selection, programming, and the overall culture operators are working to create.
- Yaw Mograbi's perspective from Watertree in Ghana highlights the fitness industry's growth trajectory in African markets — a geography that is often absent from global fitness conversations but is developing rapidly with its own consumer dynamics and infrastructure realities.
- Dubai's fitness boom, described by Gina Kerstye of AKI Fitness, reflects a city-level investment in health infrastructure and an affluent, internationally mobile population driving demand for premium training environments that integrate technology and design.
Why This Conversation Matters
Gym design is not a peripheral concern for Escape Fitness USA — it is central to the business. When operators decide how to configure a facility, they are simultaneously deciding which equipment categories to prioritize, which suppliers to partner with, and what training culture they want to cultivate. The trends this panel describes map directly onto the product and positioning decisions that Matthew Januszek and the Escape Fitness USA team are navigating.
The international scope of this Growth Summit episode also matters for context. The fitness industry is global, and the signals coming out of markets like Ghana, Saudi Arabia, and Dubai are often ahead of where larger Western markets will be in five years. For anyone using Escape Your Limits — or the LIFTS Podcast — as a tool for strategic awareness, this episode is a reliable source of early-trend intelligence.
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube
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About Matthew Januszek
Matthew Januszek is the co-founder of Escape Fitness, the functional-training equipment brand he built from a UK startup into a global name supplying many of the world’s leading gyms, studios, and hotel fitness spaces. Following the separation of the UK and US businesses, Matthew’s focus today is Escape Fitness USA and the next chapter of the brand in North America. He hosted more than 300 episodes of the Escape Your Limits podcast and now co-hosts the LIFTS Podcast with SweatWorks founder Mohammed Iqbal, covering the business, science, and technology shaping the fitness industry. Explore more interviews and episodes on MatthewJanuszek.com.
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