My first fitness class at The Space started with me embarrassing myself over coffee. While waiting, I was offered a cup, but instead of a polite “thank you,” my stupid brain flashed back to the horrendous auto-machine brew at my previous gym.
Almost unconsciously, I blurted: “Do you guys have good coffee?” and immediately regretted how pretentious that sounded.
"Yes," said Apoorv, with that slight smile that said he'd dealt with coffee snobs before. I'd soon learn he co-founded the fitness studio, which had been on my radar for at least a year, but I never made it until June 10.
His soft-spokenness was genuinely refreshing because—my apologies for the stereotype—studio founders often fall into gym bro tropes: that loud aggressive energy, the arrogance about "knowing what's right," or the other extreme of being overtly nurturing motivational gurus who never tire of offering "no pain no gain" wisdom when no one even asked for it. Apoorv had none of that. He was just there, with a quietly confident presence, and we ended up chatting about how the studio came to be.
And as I was taking this in, the space itself had already started working on me. Even though I'd seen photos, it didn't register until I walked into what felt like a beautiful courtyard rather than a stuffy gym box: there are trees peeking through the overhead cover, natural light filters in, fans circulate actual wind, and you can just... breathe. What a vibe.
The class started at exactly 8:30, which turned into a personal training session with Rakesh since no one else showed up. The strength-focused programming was exactly what I was looking for, and I knew right then I'd made the right call to show up here.
But getting here—and why this place matters so much to me now—that requires a backstory.
I first discovered The Space in May 2024, while exploring options after moving to Mumbai to work at The Whole Truth. But out of convenience, I actually settled on Fitness First (FF) instead—a significant upgrade from my Delhi gym, where Cult Fit was seeing deterioration in quality as it scaled.
FF was 2x expensive than what I was used to paying for a gym subscription, but with my office’s (insanely) generous fitness reimbursement, it felt almost irresponsible not to sign up. And it delivered what I needed: spacious, solid hygiene, functioning machinery, and coaches who would help even if you don't take PT.
For the first three months, life was good. I was routinely logging reps in Strong app and hitting my PRs as I followed my Push-Pull-Legs routine. I loved the occasional dance fitness group class (just that the Santacruz-Juhu crowd had no match for the energy we infused in Cult Rajouri Garden—that I missed.)
And then, I slipped. My routine went for a toss, which first made me slip a few days in a week and then weeks together. I hated it.
It's that predictable phase that just comes—where motivation fails to translate into habit. Even when you've maintained it for years, something snaps. The gym routine falls apart, you try different approaches to get back, and nothing sticks. You start looking for external reasons to explain whatever's internally blocking you, convincing yourself that maybe a change of environment will be the fix that's needed.
In that zone, I rediscovered The Space again, wondering if what I needed was a group workout where I wouldn't have to make daily decisions about what to do once I got to the gym—just trust the coaches to push me through. But instead of finally trying The Space, I chose a different studio. Let's call it X.
X had a great first impression after the trial. I started going three days a week to X, and this felt like me coming back. But within a month, I knew I didn’t feel at home.
The programming was okay-ish. I specifically signed up for strength, only to see the workouts didn't lean heavily on that front. There was some instructor drama and pushiness to sell me bootcamps, one trainer promoting bullshit fat loss supplements on her IG, and once, after a post-run Boojee breakfast, this guy told me he paid ₹20k a month to one of the coaches for a fat loss "plan"—which is just bonkers. Because this didn't include cooked meals or personal training. Just consultation. Yet when I talked to him about his nutrition plan, hoping he was feeling empowered to make better choices, the guy had no clue. I mean... what even?
This is the classic problem with fitness: people are vulnerable about their bodies, and they trust coaches with that vulnerability. There is a massive information asymmetry, and someone always finds a way to exploit it. But studios are supposed to be different: they sell community alongside fitness, which makes the trust violation feel even worse.
All of this made me realise... these are not my people. It didn't feel right. And once again, my amazing plans of killing at both FF and X failed. And guilt... welcome back!
By May 2025, my FF membership was up for renewal, and it was time to rethink everything. By now I knew this "show up and do your Push-Pull-Legs routine" wasn't working out, and I either had to get a Personal Trainer or find a group class. This was also when I was so pissed with myself for my irregularity, and the weighing scale confirmed I had really really screwed up.
This hit different because in 2020, I'd taught myself fitness fundamentals and went from 87kg to 67kg in seven months. Maintained it for four years. Only to show up in Mumbai to build the future of food and sell protein powder when my own fitness went for a toss. I know... how ironic.
That's when we got a love letter at The Whole Truth. We get so many of these, which keeps surprising us, but this email was so special that the team shared it on our "Love x TWT" WhatsApp group. A twenty-something woman wrote to us about her transformation journey. She'd been going to her gym 5 days a week for over a year, finally seeing muscle gains, and partly crediting our whey protein as part of her success. She attached her InBody scan—"the fittest I've ever been"—while raving about how the gym got her there with specific details.
(The email then took this delightful turn about her rescue kitten named 'Tom Cruise' who'd been pooping nonstop from roundworm and ended up pooping in our protein sachet box because it was "the perfect size, truly"—but that's another story.)
The gym she was raving about? The Space.
Reading that made our hearts warm, and for me, it was the final nudge I needed to stop making excuses and actually show up at the studio I'd been circling for a year.
In the first two weeks after starting, I trained with all coaches at different slots to test it out. I figured the 8:30 slot is what worked for me—because there's a fastest-fingers first competition (LOL) for the 7:15 batch, which I didn't want to engage in. And showing up for 8:30 gave me time for deep reading and writing in the morning, when the world hasn't exerted its demands yet.
It's been three months now. I don't skip workouts except when I'm not in town, or on Mondays when I have a 9:30 meeting, or if some genuinely urgent work requires me. I love cycling to the studio even when Mumbai monsoons offer me a good reason to skip, just because my day starts well if I am there.
Looking back now, I can pinpoint exactly what I like about this place.
The coaches, for starters. There's no one-upmanship happening between them, and all of them seem to have fun being there, and they show up as a team, which says something about the warmth the staff creates. The energy is noticeable.
Specifically for Apoorv, who takes the 8:30 on Monday Wednesday Friday, there is one distinctively underrated quality: there's not one second of the hour-long class where Apoorv is not fully present in the class. Not exaggerating. Even Personal Trainers I've hired previously get lost in their phones momentarily, or group class instructors drift to daydreaming or whatever. But Apporv is always just there, with you.
Beyond the people, the approach clicked with me. The Space is vocally a studio which says it wants you to be stronger—and their fairly consistent approach to muscle mass (and not just weight loss) is a sign of the kind of space this place is. Turning attention to this requires education.
This is slow burn work. It's not intuitive, this is still not the common language, and there's always the easy dream of weight loss to be sold. When Gigi—the other co-founder—told me the story of how they started, and what their goal is, it checked out with what I was experiencing. Both founders are so knowledgeable and yet so grounded, and I genuinely root for them to make this a business success.
And then there's the community they've built. The single biggest factor for a group class to work is that you need to know this is not a competition—all are at different fitness levels, and all are there to get better at their baseline, and no one is judging how much you lift. This partly comes from the sensibility of the people, but also from how the coaches conduct the class, and how you accommodate and make everyone feel at home. The studio does that so well.
Of course, I'm singing praises because finally, after this long, the novelty-seeking monkey inside me is not asking for any change, and add-whatever-hormone hit is coming from progress: on what is visible on the scale (I am on a mild calorie deficit) and how my body feels.
But it's more than just the physical progress. A few days ago I posted on LinkedIn about how much of my everyday learning about enduring discomfort and getting things done comes from my fitness routine.
I strength train from 8:30-9:30am. I love my studio. And my trainers. It makes me want to go there every day. Because that's a space where I know everyone is rooting for me to get better—we're playing on the same team, and so yes, if I'm not able to really pull off the bar dips reps my trainer wants me to, it's okay.
Sometimes it's funny: this morning, in our last round—an insane one—he said no rest between sets. Endurance test. I thought he had gone nuts. But then I tell myself, I pay money to come here because I trust this guy's judgment on what my body can do, and so I follow what he asks for, and do my absolute best, which basically involves me cursing myself for those eight minutes because why can't I get all the reps. Then it gets over. I lie down on the mat. Breathe. And feel so so good.
I do this again and again. Never easy in that moment. Always great when you're done.
This is also what happens at work: everyday discomfort about just so many tiny things, but you just shut that mind up, and do what needs doing, because you've learned that enduring will make you feel great afterwards.
That's what I find at The Space: no judgment, just "let's try again tomorrow."
I get why that woman wrote us that email.
This team gets what most people building in health and fitness often miss: our bodies aren't machines that need drilling to hit some optimum Huberman-esque measurements. They need care. Especially for average-fit people like me, where fitness serves both the aesthetic purpose of wanting to look good in the mirror (vanity... never goes away, sigh!) and the meditative purpose of knowing I'm doing my bit to care for the body that's held me all this while.
If only more studios had less testosterone-infused energy and more gentle care, more of us would show up feeling joy instead of reluctant torture, which absolutely nobody deserves.
P.S. Wrote all this, and I wonder if I'm jinxing it, because I need at least six months of consistency for the compounding math to do its thing and get me to my aspirational baseline. Let's see. But honestly, this is the Jerry Maguire moment where I have to say they just had me at good coffee. And I was a hundred percent right about the coffee. The studio now proudly has a coffee shop, with an actual barista, and you can pay and get a solid Americano before your workout. See ya!