Michael Crichton and Christina Boutros, Business owners

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Residents of Yarraville

Business owners of Melbourne Fitness && Performance and Melbourne Zen Space.

Michael – “I have been in the health and fitness industry for about 12 years. I am a big fan of custom Nike shoes and fancy socks. I currently have around 20 pairs of Nikes, but wear only about 7 pairs.

Until recently, I was an Exercise Science lecturer at Victoria University (Footscray Campus), whilst working as a strength and conditioning coach. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with elite sports organisations in both Australia and China. Over the last three years, I have been toying with the idea of opening my own facility and finally was in a position to do so.

I was living in the South-East of Melbourne but realized the area was saturated with similar concepts. I couldn’t do it on my own, and had floated the idea out to a few friends but they all lived in the South-East and weren’t interested in the west.

I looked to the West, and saw the biggest gap in what I was going to create. A complete training facility with everything from yoga to boxing and rehab to strength and conditioning. The Inner-West is still within proximity to the CBD, has minimal specialised training facilities, with many developing housing projects, now on the rise.

In August 2016, I made a passing joke to Christina “Do you want to be involved in my facility?”. To my surprise she said yes and so we began the research process and started looking for a space within Melbourne’s West.

We spent the best of three months looking for a place. Our location in Indwe Street, we actually overlooked it for a month. We somehow came back to it and asked ourselves, “Why didn’t we come here from Day 1?” as it’s perfect for what we had in mind.

Melbourne Fitness && Performance allows people to be the best they can be in. Whether you are a weekend warrior or aspiring elite athlete, our training programs use the latest methods of strength and conditioning tailored to the individual to optimize their performance, no matter their background.

We have an onsite sports medicine team, who work with clients who have sports, work or bio-mechanical pain related injuries (pain related to poor movement). We integrate our rehab programs with their treatments, to ensure our clients return from injury feeling stronger and moving better than ever.

I am lucky to enough to have a strong network of good coaches and professionals from my time at Vic Uni. Four of them were in my class then, and are now part of my coaching team. Having people you know and trust shaped my dream, as I know this is going to be a place where people come and get the highest level of coaching they can get.

With the high calibre of coaches we have at MFP, our social media presence is all about sharing the wealth of knowledge to people all over Australia and the world. We are keen on providing awareness, and aren’t just focused on getting people to join our facility. Our goal is to educate the local community with unique workshops (often free), providing them with knowledge to use in their daily life to improve their health and wellness.

Our short-term goal is to make sure MFP stays sustainable, with new members starting each week, it’s exciting to see the business get there in our first month of operations. Key to a growing business is ensuring the staff are looked after as without them we can’t run MFP. We want to have our programs up and running, providing services to the community such as rehabilitation services and strength and conditioning classes. It’s important people know this is the place to go to.”

Christina – “I am an Interior Designer/Project and Construction Manager for my family business Pipers International. I too have a fitness passion, but more so along the lines of living a healthy lifestyle, practicing yoga and surrounding myself with wellness. I believe in eating organic food and making my own raw organic treats. Being of Greek background, I grew up on home cooked food, fresh produce was picked from the gardens of family or purchased from local markets. Nutrition is something my family bond over with three sisters all health conscious, supporting and sharing together.

I have a love with Arabic culture and travelling. By the time I was 30, I had already been to 40 countries, some I’ve returned up to five times. Dubai and Greece are places I have visited the most, I have family and friends in both countries.

Mike and I have been friends for probably more than seven years. A few years ago Mike offered to take me for 1 on 1 training to assist with strengthening my injured shoulder and also introduced me into Crossfit training.

For two years I trained most days so naturally my passion grew more with fitness. In the past we have had some random conversations about opening a business, basically throwing around ideas. So, when Mike was serious I knew I had to be a part of this. I’m the one who loves a challenge, and wanted to support Mike as I knew he would work hard and do all that’s needed to make this business be successful. But more importantly I knew the culture Mike would create to my local community so I wanted to share my knowledge and bring a positive influence to the space.”

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