In December 2016 coaches Mark and Ste took on a derelict building that had lay dormant for decades on Park Road in Dukinfield.

It had been used as storage for a local market trader and a new landlord had come in and wanted someone with a vision to use the incredible space to do something meaningful with it.

The Landlord could see the vision of what we wanted to create with Platform and agreed to let us give our project a go.

So after picking those keys up late at night in December 2016 Mark and Ste scratched out exactly how they wanted that vision to come to life.

That vision was to make health and exercise welcoming, simple and rewarding.

To empower normal everyday folk to make health and fitness a natural part of their life and to re-write what a fitness facility was capable of.

With it scratched out on paper they set to work... only along the way things got tough.

At the time both were doing further education at University in Strength and Conditioning and Nutrition respectively, both were working unrelated full time jobs to pay the bills and they were operating a small Personal Training unit in Ashton where they trained a handful of people.

Throw on top of managing all that renovating an abandoned building with a very small (non-existent) budget and you can see why things got tough.

At times the pair were really low, hands and bodies were physically broken from endless work and long days of 6am-12am (some nights 3am) were taking there toll.

Somewhere along the way Mark watched a documentary about Sharks.

It explained that Sharks were the top predators in the ocean and as part of that they couldn't swim backwards, they could only ever go forwards.

If something got in the way of a Shark it would either keep going forwards around it or attack it.

So to get through the rest of the build Mark and Ste adopted this philosophy..

Whenever things got tough they would remind each other

SHARKS DONT SWIM BACKWARDS

A reminder that if they want to get on top and stay on top they must always go forwards.

Fast forward to April 8th 2017 and Platform first opened it's doors.

The Sharks Dont Swim Backwards story was shared amongst the first members.

It captured the imagination.

To this day members are known as Sharks.

They will often remind each other that Sharks Dont Swim Backwards, send each other Shark Emoji's and when things get tough and remind each other to constantly keep swimming forwards.