Gymshark grew by dressing the YouTubers lifters watched.
Free gear for gym YouTubers in 2012, one sold-out expo in 2013, then meet-ups, stores and now its own gym. FY25 sales hit £646M, its 13th straight year of growth.
BLOOM10X did not work with Gymshark. This breakdown uses public sources only, linked below.
- 2012Stringers sent to lifting YouTubers, who become the first athletes
- May 2013BodyPower expo: £30,000 in 30 minutes
- 2018First Lift event, in Birmingham
- Aug 2020First outside money: General Atlantic, valued at over £1B
- Oct 2022First store, on Regent Street
- Jan 2027First gym due, in Miami
Big sales, thin profit, on purpose.
Five plays behind the growth.
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Gift the creators your buyers already watch
With no ad budget, Ben Francis posted hand-made stringers to the lifting YouTubers he followed. Lex Griffin, Matt Ogus and Chris Lavado wore them, shared them, and signed as the first Gymshark athletes (Gymshark, 2023; Guy Raz, Nov 2025).
The roster still sells product: gymshark.com lists a Whitney Simmons collection, and a 2024 video calls Chris Bumstead “Part-owner. All athlete.”
Copy this: list 30 creators your best customers watch. Send product with no ask, then sign the ones who post it unprompted.
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Put the creators in a room with their fans
In May 2013 Gymshark emptied its bank account for a stand at BodyPower in Birmingham and brought its athletes. Sales went from about £300 a day to £30,000 in the first 30 minutes the site was live after the show (Gentleman’s Journal).
Copy this: pick one live event where your creators can meet buyers, tie a product drop to it, and email the list the moment it opens.
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Run your own events
A 2016 world tour dropped meet-up locations on social, from Times Square to Dublin. Lift events started in Birmingham in May 2018, then Dublin, Toronto, Frankfurt, Houston and Amsterdam (Gymshark). Its Miami Lift events drew 20,000+ people (Athletech News, Apr 2026).
Copy this: host a quarterly meet-up in your top city by orders and film it. That footage becomes next month’s ads.
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Stay the gym brand
The official story ends on “built by lifters, for lifters,” with former athlete David Laid as Creative Director of Lifting. In Nov 2026 the Edge leggings ads still read “Made for lifting,” and July’s Onyx V1 re-release was a lifter’s throwback.
Copy this: name the narrowest customer you can and put that word in every ad headline.
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Open stores, then a gym
The first store opened on Regent Street on Oct 29, 2022: 18,000 sq ft, with a floor that turns into a gym in 15 minutes (Forbes, Oct 2022). Manchester, Amsterdam, Dubai and New York followed, and a Miami gym opens in January 2027 (Athletech News). Pre-tax profit fell from £11.9M to £7M as it invested.
Copy this: test a pop-up before a lease, and give people a reason to come in besides the till: a class, a meet-up, a fitting.
Creators, events, then places to meet.
Yearly sales
The loop
“We did more in revenue in half an hour than the entire history of the business.”
The top ad sells a gym, not clothes.
Sorted by impressions, Gymshark’s leading US ads on Nov 10, 2026 were waitlist ads for its Miami gym. Tap a number to see what each part does.
- 1Two months earlyStarted Nov 2, 2026 for a gym that opens in January 2027.
- 2No price, just first access“Want to be the first to know when GSLC Miami Founding memberships are available?”
- 3The news is the creativeA drone shot of the building with “Our first ever gym opens January 2027.”
- 4Its own listThe link goes to member.gymshark.com, a waitlist apart from the shop.
- 5A small ask“Sign up,” not “Shop now.” An email is easier to give than a card.
Black Friday builds a week early.
About 510 active US ads on Nov 10, 2026. Next to the gym ads: a teaser for a Nov 15 sale, price-led product ads, and one creator video run as a partnership ad. Pick one to see it.
“Shorts from just $14”
One template, many products: the same line runs as “Tops from $17,” “Pants from $19,” “Leggings from $25” and “Sports Bras from $15.”
The price floor is the hook; the link goes to the Black Friday page.
“Prep your basket now.”
A 15-second video six days before the sale, with the start time to the minute: Sunday Nov 15th, 11AM EST.
It asks for a saved basket, not a purchase, so buyers arrive ready on day one.
“Gymshark with Madeleine abeid”
A 25-second creator video for the new SoftSense fabric, run from the creator’s name and the brand’s, with the link “New Pilates fits just dropped.”
It is the old athlete play in today’s ad format.
Screenshots of active US ads in the Meta Ad Library, taken Nov 10, 2026. Creator video frames left out. Click an image to enlarge.
The store list is printed on the tee.
“A lot of people always assumed we owned gyms, purely because of the name.”
Athletes as the content.
Read it with three caveats.
- The timing was 2012. Lifting YouTubers took free stringers from an unknown brand. Today the same creators charge, so budget for fees.
- The founder was the customer. Francis lifted with the people he sold to and knew which creators mattered. Without that, start with your customer list, not your taste.
- Stores and gyms cost profit. Pre-tax margin was 1.1% in FY25. A $5M brand can’t carry a flagship; it can carry a pop-up.
- What we’d change: of the top-impression ads we read, the only partnership ads were three copies of one SoftSense video. With a roster this deep, we’d run far more athlete content from the athletes’ own handles.
Seven moves for a $1M–$10M brand.
- Send product to 30 creators your customers already watch, with no ask. Creator seeding
- Run the videos of the ones who post as partnership ads. Partnership ads guide
- Film every meet-up or pop-up and cut it into ads. Creative
- Tease a sale a week out and ask for a saved cart, not a sale. Meta ads
- Trade a discount for an email on the homepage, then sell to that list. Retention
- Price a creator or event like media before you pay for it. CPM calculator
- Check what a returning fan is worth before you fund events. LTV calculator
Where every number comes from.
- Sandra Halliday, “Gymshark sees another year of sales growth despite investments denting profits,” FashionNetwork, Mar 12, 2026. fashionnetwork.com
- “Gymshark hits record revenue in FY25,” Sporting Goods Intelligence Europe, Mar 13, 2026. sgieurope.com
- “Gymshark secures investment from General Atlantic valuing company at over £1 billion,” General Atlantic press release, Aug 14, 2020. generalatlantic.com
- Harry Foley, “The Official Gymshark Story,” Gymshark, 2023. gymshark.com
- Joseph Bullmore, Ben Francis interview, Gentleman’s Journal, 2021 (page undated; four months into his CEO term, which began Aug 2021). thegentlemansjournal.com
- Guy Raz, “The 7 Lessons Behind Gymshark’s Billion-Dollar Rise,” Guy Raz Newsletter, Nov 20, 2025. guyraz.substack.com
- Mark Faithfull, “First Look: Gymshark Hits The Floor With London Flagship Debut,” Forbes, Oct 26, 2022. forbes.com
- Ani Freedman, “Gymshark Is Making the Jump From Retail to In-Person Fitness,” Athletech News, Apr 13, 2026. athletechnews.com
- Gymshark, US homepage and offers, viewed Nov 10, 2026. gymshark.com
- Gymshark, official YouTube channel (@gymshark), videos dated Sep 11, 2024 to Jul 14, 2026. youtube.com/@Gymshark
- Meta Ad Library, active US ads for the Gymshark page, viewed Nov 10, 2026. facebook.com/ads/library
