The POWER of TEN

Sometimes, bad things lead to good things. In the case of Joanne Mathews, founder of Ten Health & Fitness, it resulted in a thriving business that has impacted positively on people’s lives for nearly 20 years – and continues to do so

When a driver ignored a “no u-turn” sign and smashed into Joanne Mathews’ car in October 2005 – leaving her in severe pain and signed off work for six months – it sent her on a journey of discovery. Mathews had fractured her coccyx, rotated her pelvis and suffered severe whiplash, leading to several appointments with GPs, physios and sport massage therapists. What she found was that, for people like her, there was a serious lack of consistency in rehabilitation programmes. “I wasn’t able to move very well at all,” Mathews says. “There was also an emotional side to what was a serious accident that needed attention.

“I spent months navigating a healthcare system that was very disjointed and inefficient. I think the NHS and hospitals are great if you’ve broken something, as they can fix it. But when you have tissue or muscle damage or need a more holistic approach, they’re not really great with that.

“I was carrying my X-rays between an orthopedic consultant, a physiotherapist, my GP and everybody else with everyone giving me different advice. What I learned was that there was no coordination, no shared language and nobody was expected to join up the dots. If there’s not a clear protocol for dealing with something, then hospitals seem reluctant to keep you within the system.”

I recognised a deep need for joined-up thinking in rehabilitation

The initial idea

It wasn’t until she met David Higgins, a personal trainer who specialised in a dynamic form of reformer Pilates, that she found a path to recovery – both physically and psychologically.

“The introduction of reformer Pilates equipment transformed my rehabilitation journey,” says Mathews, to whom – as a former county-level swimmer and squash player – sport and exercise had always played an important role in life. “At a time when I was finding it very difficult to walk, reformer Pilates enabled me to start exercising again.”

As her condition improved, Mathews entrepreneurial nous kicked in and she began to consider the implications of her experience – and what reformer Pilates had offered her.

“It made me realise that there must be other people out there in my position – people who weren’t receiving that kind of care which, honestly, was life-changing for me,” she says.

“I recognised that there was a deep-seated consumer need for joined-up thinking and a system where the individual would be at the centre of the process, rather than the person trying to join the process together themselves.

“At the time, in early 2006, Pilates wasn’t really known outside of dancing circles – and even then it was more to do with mat-based Pilates. So I investigated the yoga market and also looked at how the Australian market had developed.”

Mathews adds how, at the same time, the gym market was going through a transitional phase. Consumer attitudes and needs were changing and gyms weren’t necessarily meeting them. In 2006, budget gyms were still two years away, while boutique gyms were few and far between. The “one-size fits all” middle market still ruled the roost.

“Ten Health was born out of, I think, a real client need,” Mathews says. “My concept was to launch something that enabled people to do small group classes on a new piece of kit that was both sustainable and inclusive – but also provided fitness in a functional way. So I didn’t set out to be a Pilates purist. Instead, I wanted to take the components and fundamentals of Pilates and turn it into a more dynamic format.”

Setting up a business

After deciding to spend her life savings on her business idea, Mathews secured a site and opened the first Ten Health in Notting Hill in August 2007. “I literally put everything I had in the bank, £60,000, in getting that first studio,” she says. “It was a risk, but I took the view of ‘what’s the worst that can happen’.

“The worst that could happen, I decided, was that I’d lose the £60,000 and would have to go live with my parents again. I could deal with that.”

Any doubts Mathews might have had about the concept quickly evaporated. The business broke even within three months and had become profitable by the end of 2007 – five months after opening.

“We then started to look at scaling the business, because that has always been the vision,” Mathews says. “We decided that the first thing we should do was have a bigger footprint at Notting Hill and introduce integrated services. So we started with dynamic form parties and personal training and within six months we had also added physiotherapy services.”

The success of the first site led Mathews to agree a lease on a second site in Chiswick. The timing of the decision, at the end of the summer of 2008, could’ve turned out to be less than optimal.

“I remember driving home after signing the lease at Chiswick,” Mathews recalls. “I was listening to the radio and the big breaking news was that the Lehman Brothers had crashed – soon to be followed by the great stock market crash and runs on banks. I called my boyfriend and said ‘I think I might have just made a mistake’.

“But after the initial worries, what we found was that people won’t give up on health. They might give up on their holiday or a new posh bag, but they’re not going to give up on their health. And I think that’s what really stood us in great stead.”

Being able to thrive in a recession was the final proof – if any was needed – that the concept of Ten Health was solid. From that second site in Chiswick, Ten continued to grow further. A second site in Notting Hill and others in Fitzrovia, Nine Elms and The City followed. Today, Ten (rather fittingly) owns and operates 10 sites around London.

A virtuous circle

Determined to ensure that clients who are recovering from injury have a better experience than she did, Mathews and her team have introduced services such as in-house physiotherapy and sports massage to Ten’s dynamic Pilates and personal training, as well as small-group exercise programming (including Barre, yoga, stretch, TRX and HiiT classes). In 2019, the business secured £4m growth capital investment from Foresight Group.

Mathews says the USP has always been to provide a cohesive, joined-up approach to exercise and rehabilitation – the type of service she herself looked for during her own recovery.

“We combine the different modalities, which means that each informs the other,” Mathews explains. “So our Pilates informs our physiotherapy service, while our physio – and our clinical services – also inform our Pilates. You could say it’s a virtuous circle.”

With more than 160 staff across the locations, Ten has established itself as a destination of choice for Londoners looking for personalised Pilates. The success of the business is, perhaps, reflected by comparing the launch of that first site in Notting Hill with the latest opening in Kings Cross. Notting Hill was set up with Mathews’ life savings of £60,000, while the investment in the Kings Cross site exceeded £1.5 million.

Mathews is now planning the next stage of growth. In April this year, the company entered the franchise market with the launch of a new brand – tenreformer. With the franchise concept, Mathews looks to capitalise on the growing popularity of Pilates and the aim is to secure tenreformer sites across the UK and internationally.

Launching a franchise feels like a natural progression for Ten

“Launching a franchise strategy fits with our mission of delivering more Pilates to more people in more places,” Mathews says. “It feels like a natural progression for Ten, expanding the reach of our Pilates expertise. We’ve already had interest in franchises thanks to our legacy in London.

“tenreformer leverages our history and reputation. We’ve always been incredibly protective of the Ten brand, and this doesn’t change with this strategy – tenreformer will be from Ten but a brand in its own right – and we’ll be ensuring the quality of teaching and providing all of the resources needed for franchisees to deliver the authentic experience we expect from a Ten Brand.”