Forging a Fitness Family

Shane began his mission for change by utilizing his skills to personally train clients, impacting his community one life at a time. In 1994, after four years in the Marines and participating in Operation Desert Storm, Shane Davies was eager to return home to Hawai‘i, where he grew up surfing, skateboarding, and training in Jiu-Jitsu. Shane’s time in the military had taken him around the world to places like Africa, Australia, Thailand, the Philippines, and the Middle East. His experiences had provided him with a fresh perspective on his island home, and upon returning to the islands, Shane felt determined to make a difference in his community. He began his mission for change by utilizing his skills to personally train clients, impacting his community one life at a time. However, it wasn’t long until Shane realized that he could connect with his clients on a deeper level, establish a tight-knit community, and make a greater impact if he started his own business.

Shane realized how impactful a caring trainer or support group could be to one’s healing process and self-esteem after dealing with his own spinal degeneration. His family experiences also taught him that healthier habits, positive stress outlets, and supportive communities were extremely helpful in repairing family dynamics and making people happier. “Most locals have to work all day and that destroys marriages, deprives parenthood, and causes anger,” says Shane.

For years, Shane owned and operated the Kahala CrossFit gym, where he followed the industry trends of functional muscle and circulatory training. Such training teaches that everyday use of muscles and cardio is essential to staying alive, as the heart and blood vessels carry oxygen, nutrients, hormones, and more throughout the body. Shane’s success with his CrossFit gym proved that health and wellness was indeed his calling. Yet, as trends in the industry shifted, Shane looked to satisfy his clientele with a more well-rounded training style than CrossFit could offer.

Developed in Australia, and with well known names like Mark Wahlberg investing into the chain, the fun and modern style of F45 caught Shane’s attention. After some research and testing, he found that F45 gyms matched what he and his team were looking for, and they soon transitioned Crossfit Kahala into the first F45 gym in the islands.

Now the owner of numerous F45 Training gyms, Shane is making a big impact on his community by providing facilities that serve as safe, trusted, and positive environments to help individuals achieve their goals in exciting and satisfying ways. Shane consistently stresses the importance of smiling, listening, positivity and to “love the members so that they will have the heart to change their lives.” As Shane notes, many people want to incorporate more exercise into their life, but they need a support system to keep them committed. The F45 Training program offers that much needed support system through high-intensity, functional fitness in a small group environment. The concise workouts are also highly appealing to many of Hawai‘i’s residents who live a high-stress, high-traffic, multi-job lifestyle, and as Shane points out, “the F45 Training system helps to relieve that stress within a short 45-minute time period.”

Although gyms are often just seen as a place to go workout, Shane ensures that his facilities are more than that. He sets up group activities for his members outside of the gym, like lo‘i (taro patch) restoration, to encourage them to continue to better themselves beyond the workouts. Such group activities also help to support the physical and mental well-being of the members, as working the land is a grounding activity and “when we take care, it will return the favor,” says Shane. In the near future, Shane will also be starting lā‘au lapa‘au, or Hawaiian medicinal classes, at his F45 locations to help teach members how to maintain a healthy life balance. Shane’s ability to combine Hawaiian cultural values and practices with F45’s unique training style into a tight-knit, supportive family is what makes his gyms attract so many professional surfers, news anchor celebrities, University of Hawai‘i football players, local TV stars, and many more from all ages. “To work here, you gotta love the person across from you. This is not a gym, this is a committed ‘ohana,” he states.

With COVID-19 shutting down gyms across the island for some time, F45 has recently reopened with the required 6-10 foot spacing between members. Shane and his wife have ensured that the gym has carried out full precautionary procedures as required by law and requested by members. As they adapt to the global pandemic and its effects on their business, Shane continues to focus on his long-term goal: to provide a safe, fun, nurturing environment for at-risk youth with a moral, loving, adult community, fostering Hawai‘i’s future. His wife’s work as a clinical psychologist exposed him to the horrors of child sex-trafficking and domestic abuse, and—by expanding gym locations, health centers, and leadership around the islands—Shane hopes to stop child sex-trafficking and domestic abuse in Hawai‘i, providing at-risk youth with an accessible community of trust and health. While the goal may be a work in progress, his expanding locations are currently underway with the next gym opening in Hawai‘i Kai in August, and Ward, Mililani, and Kaneohe gyms planned to open in 2021.