Our Story
Two coaches. Twenty years. One community built on the belief that strength changes everything.
Where It All
Began
Dawn and Neal met on their personal training course back in 2006. Both went on to work as PT and class instructors at David Lloyd — building their skills, their passion, and quietly, their future together.
From 2008, they began building a fitness community in and around Aldridge. Not a franchise. Not a chain. A genuine, local community of people who wanted to train hard and be coached properly. In 2015, that community got a home — Phoenix opened its doors.
Today, Phoenix Strength & Performance operates from a dedicated 1,400 sq ft studio in Aldridge, West Midlands. It is an official HYROX Training Club and DEKA Affiliate — and the coaching philosophy that has always driven it remains unchanged: train with purpose, build strength that lasts, and never stop competing.
Meet the Coaches
Dawn Findlay
Level 4 Advanced NASM PT · Female Strength & Performance Specialist · Nutrition Specialist · Mobility & Flexibility Specialist · HYROX Athlete
Dawn has been in the fitness industry for over 20 years. She is a competitive HYROX athlete — she doesn't just coach the race, she races it — and a specialist in helping women 30+ train and fuel with purpose — building bodies that perform, feel strong, and last for life.
Her approach is built on a simple but powerful truth: strength is not optional. It is the foundation of a long, capable, and healthy life. Dawn's coaching focuses on performance, muscle, and longevity — not shrinking, not the scale, not chasing someone else's idea of what a woman's body should look like.
Dawn also runs Phoenix Online Coaching, working with women across the UK who want to train smarter, fuel better, and build bodies that perform for decades.
Phoenix Online CoachingNeal Findlay
Level 4 Advanced NASM PT · S&C Coach · HYROX Athlete · 20 Years Experience
Neal holds a Level 4 Advanced NASM Personal Trainer qualification and is a qualified Strength & Conditioning coach. He is a competitive HYROX athlete with 20 years of experience in the fitness industry — including presenting at fitness expos across Europe.
Neal specialises in sports-specific strength and conditioning for both adults and young athletes. His programming is built on the science of performance — periodisation, progressive overload, and the kind of structured training that produces real, measurable results.
Having raised two competitive young athletes — both footballers who have progressed through professional academy systems — Neal brings a unique perspective to youth coaching. He understands what it takes to develop athletes from the ground up.
Coaches Who
Live It
Dawn and Neal don't just coach athletes — they are athletes. Both compete in HYROX. Both have spent two decades in the industry not because it's a job, but because they genuinely believe that training changes lives.
They've also raised two competitive young athletes. Their eldest, Zach, progressed through the academies of Aston Villa, West Brom, and Derby County, and now plays semi-professionally for Chasetown FC. Their youngest is currently in the Burton Albion academy system.
That family environment — the school runs, the training sessions, the balancing act of high performance and real life — is woven into everything Phoenix does. This is a studio built by people who understand that the people who train here have full lives, real commitments, and genuine goals. The coaching reflects that.
The Phoenix
Philosophy
Train hard. Live easy. Be the example.
Most people train with no real direction. Jumping between workouts. Chasing fatigue. Hoping something eventually works.
We do things differently.
At Phoenix, training isn't random — it's built with purpose.
Everything we do is centred around strength, performance, and longevity. Because whether your goal is to compete, get stronger, move better, or simply feel capable again — those are the things that actually matter.
We don't believe in training just to burn calories. We don't believe in quick fixes or extremes.
We believe in building bodies that are: Strong. Capable. Resilient.
The kind of body that performs under pressure, recovers properly, and holds up for years — not weeks.
This is the home of everyday athletes. People who want more from their training. More structure. More progress. More purpose.
We coach you to train properly, fuel properly, and perform at your best — whether that's in HYROX, DEKA, the gym, or everyday life.
Built strong. Built for life.
The Studio
1,400 sq ft of dedicated performance space in Aldridge, West Midlands. Fully equipped for HYROX, DEKA, strength training, and small group PT.
Ready to Train With Us?
Come and see what Phoenix is about.