Cork entrepreneur embarks on new challenge with fitness business 

With his fledgling business, Impact Health and Fitness, entrepreneur and fitness coach Ian Murphy is hoping to bust the myths surrounding physical and mental health for women between the ages of 35 and 60, and is determined to lure them into the gym.

As summer approaches, you can set your watch by it. The glut of ads drowning our social media feeds for slimmer bodies, summer bodies, low carb, or no carb.

Throw in the hormonal fluctuations of menopause, the debilitating and demoralising belief that the outcome of the body battle is a foregone conclusion, which we have already lost, and the incapacitating fear of crossing the threshold of a gym in that state, and it is sometimes a wonder any woman over a certain age goes to the gym at all.

These are the challenges that Impact Health and Fitness coach Ian Murphy is hoping to tackle head-on.

Last year, Ian and business partner Cian O’Flynn sold their hugely successful gym business, ATP Fitness, which had been up and running since 2016, with gyms in Douglas and Ballincollig.

After the sale, the entrepreneur didn’t sit on his laurels but, within a few short months, had launched a brand-new business.

He admits to being both scared and excited by the prospect.

While this solo venture is new and risky, Ian has been training women in the gym for the past 14 years, and feels a passion and determination for the new venture.

“Change is one of the few constants in life, and a lot of people struggle to adapt to that,” he explains.

At the start of 2025, Ian had no intention of setting up a new business, but, as a dad of two small girls, he was feeling pulled away from them each day by the demands of running two gyms.

So, when Cian voiced similar feelings, it seemed the right time for both young dads to take the proverbial leap and sell up.

“We all have to have a plan. But plans change, goalposts move, and we always need to be adaptable,” said Ian.

“It took me a while to figure out whatdirection I was going to head in after ATP, but I have never been clearer in my goals than I am in my new business.

“I am loving coaching people with my 1-1 Online Coaching in Nutrition and Training course and excited to build on this.”

Ian is actively developing his Workplace Wellness programme, where he is “working with companies to bring practical workshops and challenges through an app that actually make a difference, rather than just ticking the HR box.”

He also recently launched an 8-week Strong Woman strength programme and app, the goal of which is to get more females training in commercial gyms with structure, support, and sustainability.

“Most of my clients are relatively new or intermediate trainers,” he says, and they report that a huge impediment to their training in a gym is a lack of training structure or feeling overwhelmed by the choice of weights machines they don’t recognise.

“My Strong Woman app is like having a PT in your pocket,” stresses Ian. “I create a bespoke plan specifically tailored to my clients’ individual needs and designed for the specific gym in which they are working (he researches the gym beforehand).”

The app gives them nutritional advice, programmes, feedback, answers questions, and also includes videos of Ian demonstrating correct technique on all exercises/machines.

The dream is to have women exercising 1-2 times per week for the rest of their lives. Knowledge and understanding are the key to progress.

An inveterate goal setter in his own day-to-day practice, Ian takes a more cautious approach to setting goals with his clients.

He cites a client who insisted she wanted to do four gym sessions a week. Laudable? Sure. But this sort of ambitious goal can often set someone up to feel like she’s failed, if she only gets there three times.

Ian adopts a more holistic approach to his individual clients.

“Diet, exercise, and stress levels all impact. I take a tactical approach when looking at training strategies for each individual client who could be battling post-partum, menopause, peri-menopause, etc.

“I urge my clients to factor in all the things that could potentially derail the goal. I say: let’s pick the low-hanging fruit first. Aim for two sessions, and if we get in a third, it will feel like a score, and you’ll feel great.”

His theory is that if you aim for four sessions a week and only get two done, then you could feel like you’ve failed, and that leads to people throwing in the towel.

“We are our own harshest critics, and when looking back, we gravitate towards the things we didn’t achieve or do well, without acknowledging all that we did do,” he explains.

“As long as we learn and keep taking steps forward, it becomes a lesson, not a failure. It only becomes a failure if we stop trying.

“I am in the industry of strength and fat loss for nearly 14 years now, and when I speak with clients, their goal is almost always ‘fat loss’.

“This is great. I’ve spent my entire career helping people to lose body fat. But I find that most don’t have an end result in mind.

“Any time we set goals, especially performance-based goals, we have to have a clear end in mind. I employ that mindset myself.

“When I ask clients when does the fat loss stop and the maintenance start, a lot cannot answer that.

“Fat loss, like performance-goals, is multi-layered and should be approached in phases. You shouldn’t always be in a calorie deficit.

“Depending on how much you intend to lose, choose a period of time in which to work and commit to that time in your fat loss phase.”

Then, Ian insists that clients take a break, eat to maintain their weight, and train hard, before starting again.

However, before planning the next phase of fat loss, Ian advocates determining the point at which his clients will say ‘I am happy here’.

He insists our personal happiness should not be tied to a number on the scales, but aligned to a feeling and a recognition of the journey process.

“If you took an approach to eat well (most) of the time, trained a few times a week, improved your sleep, stress, mood, and ultimately felt better overall, but the scales do not reflect the number you hoped for, it’s important to celebrate. Because it has worked.

“People live in this ‘all or nothing’ mindset, but life is a continuous rollercoaster and some weeks will definitely be better than others.”

As a father to two daughters, aged one and three, Ian knows well that there are sleepless nights that leave you feeling “crap” the following morning.

“This is real life. Sometimes your nutrition and exercise will fall off a cliff as a consequence. But that’s okay. This doesn’t define the outcome. It’s about what we do most of the time that matters.”

There are no quick fixes for people to train, eat and become healthier. No extreme dieting.

Without coaching and understanding, clients end up repeating cycles of actions that are not working.

Ian’s approach is more about mindset, sustainability, generating habits that can be maintained and developed, and, ultimately, long-term healthy living.

Ian advocates radical responsibility in his own life and urges his clients to “recognise that all choices are within our control”.

“You don’t need to be an expert nutritionist, but we do need to have a base level so we can understand it is the foods and alcohol we eat and drink that are the main contributing factor to our weight gain.”

When Ian sold ATP Fitness back in August, he gave serious consideration to the many offers of work that came his way.

“I thought to myself, if money were not a consideration and I got to work on something that truly mattered to me, what would that be?”

While money clearly has to matter, with a wife, two daughters, a dog and a house to look after, Ian gave himself permission to interrogate his life-purpose.

“Helping women improve their health is what I love doing and, after 14 years, I’d like to think I’m pretty good at it,” he said.

“I am in this game to genuinely help people to train with confidence, eat with clarity, and live with lasting results.

“I have a fire in my belly for this business.

“I don’t know what Impact Health and Fitness will grow to be just yet, but I am truly excited by the clear vision I have for it.”

• For more information, contact ian@impacthealthandfitness.ie.