A Walthamstow gym founded for people who never felt welcome in one has been shortlisted for a national award.
Misfit Gym, on an industrial estate in Walthamstow, is a finalist for Regional Gym of the Year (South) in the National Fitness Awards 2026 — an event often described as the Oscars of the UK fitness industry.
For its founder, Sam George, the recognition caps a journey that began a long way from any gym floor. As a child he wanted nothing to do with them. Bullied at school and dreading PE lessons, he grew up believing gyms were places for other people, not for him.
That started to shift in 2010. Rather than joining a gym, Sam began training alone in his back garden with a homemade medicine ball and a sandbag. Over time he lost more than seven stone, and what began as a quiet attempt to reclaim his health turned into a career. He qualified as a personal trainer and, in 2019, was named PT of the Year.
But the feeling of being an outsider stayed with him, and it became the question behind everything that followed: what would a gym look like if it was designed for people who had never felt comfortable in one?
His answer opened in 2022. The name was deliberate — Misfit was built for people who had spent years assuming gyms weren't meant for them.
"I opened Misfit as the gym I wish had existed for me," he says.
Three years on, that idea has grown into a community. Misfit offers group personal training alongside specialist coaching in women's health, pregnancy, postnatal recovery and menopause. Its coaches are trauma-informed and have worked with The Movement Charity, reflecting Sam's belief that getting fit "shouldn't require conforming to a particular type of person or gym culture".
People tend not to arrive because they were shopping around for a gym, he explains. They arrive because someone they trust already trains there. That word-of-mouth approach has turned a small industrial unit into something that feels less like a traditional gym and more like a "supportive network".
The gym's reach extends past its own members, too. It has donated its space for private exercise and yoga sessions for women supported by Solace Women's Aid, and each Christmas it contributes to Waltham Forest Secret Santa, which collects presents for survivors of domestic abuse and their children.
It has also raised £3,500 for ELOP, east London's LGBT+ charity — including by completing 24 workouts in 24 hours — and has supported Waltham Forest Pride, Trans Pride Walthamstow and Walthamstow Women's FC.
Asked about the nomination, Sam hands the credit straight back to the people who train there.
"Almost everyone who trains here came because someone they know told them about us, and they're the reason we're a finalist."
Misfit Gym is at Unit 14, Ravenswood Industrial Estate, E17 9HQ. More details are at beamisfit.com.
