A lot of people who walk into ZeroW Wales don't realise it's part of something bigger. ZeroW was founded in Australia by Jordan's business partner, Thomas Lilley. So how does a powerlifting gym from Australia end up in Cardiff? In this video, Jordan tells the whole story, from the first coaching session to opening day.
Meeting Thomas Lilley
Before COVID, Jordan was looking for a coach. Thomas stood out because he worked from a clear system rather than "pulling random information out", so Jordan signed up for coaching with him.
About a year later, COVID hit. Jordan was coaching tennis and doing personal training at ION, a gym in north Cardiff, trying to grow the powerlifting side of his business. With everything in lockdown, he asked Thomas about further education, and Thomas pointed him to the ZeroW coach development course.
The course ran for 12 months and taught Jordan the methods Thomas used with all his clients. It also gave him a much deeper understanding of the coaching he was receiving himself. By the end, he was fully invested in the brand and the way it worked.
From client to colleague
Once he'd finished the course, Jordan asked Thomas whether there was any work he could help with. That led to a mentoring role on the next intake of the course. Jordan then rewrote the written material while Thomas recorded new lessons, and together they rebuilt the coach development course.
He also started coaching ZeroW clients online and representing the brand remotely from the UK. The relationship had moved on from athlete and coach to two people building a business together.
Seeing ZeroW in Australia
In 2022, Jordan flew to Melbourne. The plan was to compete at Pro Raw alongside other ZeroW athletes, meet Thomas in person for the first time, and spend a couple of weeks visiting the gyms.
He met several of his own online clients and trained in gyms that were nothing like the UK's at the time. They were built around performance, and the communities were tighter. Afterwards, he went to Brisbane with Thomas to see the three ZeroW gyms in Brisbane and on the Gold Coast.
It was eye-opening. Back home, Jordan had been training on his own bars in makeshift racks, nothing like a competition setup. He could see how much a facility like this would mean to powerlifters in the UK, and also to people who don't compete but would value great equipment and proper guidance. By the end of the trip, he and Thomas had agreed to bring the ZeroW model to Wales.
June 2022: ZeroW Wales is born
After some hard conversations about the partnership, the kind you need before putting your life savings into a business with someone, they signed an agreement. Jordan registered the company at Companies House in June 2022.
Then came the big questions: what equipment, how to set it up, and where to put it. Jordan wanted to be in Cardiff. There were already plenty of good gyms in the city, but none doing what ZeroW does.
Two units that fell through
In July 2022, Jordan found his first unit, just off Leckwith Road. It had been a storage and office building. It wasn't perfect, but it had potential, and he couldn't stop designing it in his head. "People that know me know that I'm full send."
Their offer was accepted, so they ordered the equipment. The Eleiko was soon on a ship to the UK, and the machines and dumbbells were in the final stages of being built. Jordan paid for the change of use and solicitors' fees, around £1,500 to £2,000 in total. Then things went quiet. The landlord had been using ZeroW's offer as leverage against another tenant, and pulled out.
In December 2022, a second unit came up: an old Harley-Davidson shop. The offer was accepted, the same process started again, and that landlord pulled out too. Units in Cardiff were scarce, and landlords are wary of gyms. Many close within a year, and they're loud and busy, which can upset neighbouring businesses.
Our home on Pengam Road
In January 2023, the unit we're in now became available. It had been a functional fitness gym, and the owners were moving out before the end of their lease. Jordan wanted a fresh lease rather than taking over theirs, so it took careful negotiation, done before the unit went on the market.
The gym is made up of two units, L and M, and the plan was to knock through the wall between them. Unit M came with an electricity debt that wasn't ZeroW's, and the power was cut off, which delayed everything further. With help from a good team in Cardiff's commercial property world, they agreed a deal that worked for both sides, around three months after starting.
Meanwhile, the equipment was arriving. The Eleiko went into a storage unit around the corner, but there was nowhere big enough for all the machines.
Signing the lease the day before the wedding
Jordan married his wife in Mallorca at the end of May 2023. He signed the lease the day before they flew out, handed the keys to his builder, and went straight to the airport.
The refurb
The unit had become quite run-down, so it needed a lot of work. Jordan designed it around two spaces:
- The powerlifting room has high ceilings and the signature lighting rig over the competition platform. It has eight combo racks, two monolifts and five deadlift platforms. It's laid out so people have the space and quality to lift, and it's sociable, to build the community we wanted.
- The accessory room holds the machines and dumbbells. The ceilings are lower, and Jordan made it moodier on purpose, with black boards on the walls, mirrors across the back wall and spotlights for posing.
The refurb had its share of surprises. The electricians fitting the big LED ring went off sick while Thomas was over from Australia to help, and the scissor lifts meant the new floor had to be protected with temporary boards.
Then there was the smell by the stairs, next to the ladies' changing rooms. A plumber couldn't find the source until he cut open the bottom step and pulled out a huge dead rat. While the unit had been empty, rats had moved in.
Built with the community
Once the machines arrived, clients, friends and family came in to help build everything. Jordan's friend Rob St Ledger gave up a huge amount of time to plaster, fit skirting boards and do the jobs Jordan can't. When it was all done, everyone sat down for pizza, and it was a moment Jordan won't forget: a community already behind the gym before it had even opened.
Opening day: 3 December 2023
After launching foundation memberships, ZeroW Wales opened on 3 December 2023, almost a year after we started negotiating for the unit. Most of that year went on the negotiations, the debt and the legal work, not the refurb.
The first three years
Since then, the gym has done better than Jordan and Thomas projected. The audience is different to Australia, so there was a learning curve with advertising in the first six months. Now we're attracting the people we built it for: anyone keen to get into powerlifting or to use strength training to reach their own goals.
ZeroW isn't only for powerlifters. Alongside them, we have:
- our youth development programme, which builds confidence in the gym and for sport, and parents tell us it's helping at school too;
- Path to Powerlifting, a free monthly workshop introducing the lifts;
- coached members who simply want to get stronger, for longevity, resilience or body composition.
Powerlifting is still at the heart of it. In three years we've run around 12 competitions here, with four more confirmed for 2027, plus a charity event. The gym's layout suits competitions, for lifters and spectators alike.
And it doesn't stop here. As Jordan puts it, you'll "probably see more ZeroWs kicking around pretty soon."
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