Rethinking Fitness Spaces: What It Really Means to Be Inclusive

When Anna Hearn opened her first studio in Sydney’s inner west, she wasn’t trying to jump on a trend. She was trying to survive the fitness industry without selling her soul.

Anna’s background isn’t unlike many of us. Growing up in Greymouth on New Zealand’s rainy west coast, she spent years feeling like the “chubby one” beside her athletic, slim sisters. She absorbed the messaging of the '80s—rice crackers, diet yoghurts, and the pursuit of thinness. She learned early that to be active meant to shrink yourself.

By the time she started a running group in her 30s (mainly for accountability—hello, late-diagnosed ADHD), she had clocked up decades of disordered behaviour around food, exercise, and body image. And like many trainers who enter the industry with personal transformation stories, Anna’s initial foray into fitness as a professional mirrored the status quo. Weigh-ins. Skinfold calipers. "Before and after" measurements. Until one day, it just didn’t sit right anymore.

“I realised if I was going to stay in fitness, I couldn’t keep doing things that felt unethical,” she said on the Women's Fitness Podcast.

So she took a gamble. Found a small, soon-to-be-demolished space and started training clients on her own terms. No scales. No weight-loss marketing. Just movement for the joy of it. And Haven Wellness was born.

What Body-Inclusive Actually Looks Like

Today, Haven Wellness has grown from a solo act to a vibrant community hub, and Anna has just opened a second space, Haven Movement, in Sydney’s CBD. These aren’t your average gyms. When you walk into Haven, you don’t see transformation photos or protein shake ads. You see art. Colour. Plants. Murals celebrating diverse bodies—older, pregnant, bigger, non-binary.

You’ll also see practical inclusivity: chairs and equipment built to support a range of body sizes and abilities. Books on body neutrality. A bowl of chocolates next to a bowl of apples.

“There’s no moral hierarchy between foods,” Anna explains. “We want to neutralise the idea that food is good or bad.”

But it’s not just about aesthetics or snacks. Haven is built on the principles of size inclusivity, trauma-informed care, and weight-neutral health. Anna’s team intentionally steers clear of conversations centred on weight loss, instead focusing on what clients can do—move their bodies, connect socially, explore joy in movement, and build strength in a way that respects the body's own limits and needs.

A Systemic Shift, Not a Niche

While Anna’s approach might sound radical, it’s slowly gaining traction. More trainers are seeking her out, wanting to learn how to work with clients who’ve been burned by the mainstream fitness industry. But as Anna admits, there’s no formal course (yet) for onboarding staff. Most of the time, she relies on shared values, lived experience, and curated resources—including trauma-informed training, language guides, and brainstorming sessions on adapting movement for diverse bodies.

This is where the industry still has a long way to go. Trainers are often taught a “one-size-fits-men” approach to fitness. And while a few tweaks and Instagram algorithms can help shift mindset (pro tip: follow diverse accounts that challenge diet culture), we need more robust systems to truly shift the standard.

Which is exactly what Women’s Fitness Education is trying to do—with our Certificate III & IV add-on women’s health training, and now, with our Menopause Training Matrix™.

Want to Be a Trainer Who Gets It?

Anna’s story is inspiring, but it shouldn’t be rare. There’s room—and need—for more trainers who are willing to ask the uncomfortable questions, challenge the traditional norms, and create spaces where people feel safe to move, regardless of size, age, ability, or gender identity.

If you’re a trainer and the idea of doing things differently resonates with you—especially if you’re already starting to work with clients in perimenopause or menopause—then it’s time to get yourself into our Menopause Training Matrix™ Workshop.

This 3-hour practical training is specifically designed to help you move beyond general guidelines and into a system that adapts to each client’s symptom profile. It’s where we unpack the nuance around strength training, pelvic floor health, stress management, and what actually works when hormones start to shift.

You don’t have to be experiencing menopause yourself. You just need to be willing to learn and lead in a space where too many clients are underserved.

👉 Find out more or register here.

Final Word From Ann

“We always want new, congruently authentic trainers who want to learn this approach—who are curious and who really want to give back to people.”

That’s the bar. Not perfection. Not having all the answers. Just curiosity, care, and a willingness to do better.

So whether you’re running a gym, planning a new business, or just trying to unlearn your own bias—start somewhere. Flood your feed with bodies that look different. Audit your onboarding. Sit with the discomfort of not chasing transformation pics.

We don’t need more perfect trainers. We need more real ones.