Welcome to WellWithin,
Our new virtual space for the honest conversations, questions, and quiet truths that live in our world as women. We’re starting where every good story should: at the beginning.
Since opening our doors in April 2023, ClubWell has grown into a team of over 40 women, caring for more than 1,000 women a week. But before any of that, there was just one woman with a lease and an idea.
There’s a version of ClubWell most people meet first: reformers lined up under soft light, a packed Saturday hot pilates class, familiar faces that were once just strangers. That version is easy to love. It’s just not the whole story.
So we sat down with Alexis, the founder behind it all, to ask what we don’t think enough people have asked her directly: why this, why now, and what is ClubWell actually trying to be?
Let’s start simple. What is ClubWell, in your own words?
“A women’s-only space built around one idea: movement, recovery, and expert care shouldn’t be scattered across five appointments with five people who never talk to each other. They should live under one roof. That’s genuinely the whole thing.”
Where did the idea come from?
“It wasn’t one moment, it was longing. I remember driving all over the GTA in a single day, between my GP, my naturopath, and my chiropractor. None of them talked to each other. I told the same story over and over, with no solutions in sight. I was exhausted, and honestly, I felt hopeless.
That’s the day I said out loud, for the first time, that I wished a one-stop shop for women’s wellness existed.
I ended that same day at a local yoga studio, and for the first time in hours, I felt like myself again.
What I felt, more than anything, was a gap. There wasn’t anywhere offering real, whole-person care that was actually accessible, especially for a 22-year-old. So I built it.”
Take us back to the day you made ClubWell real?
“You can’t get more real than signing a lease. I signed ours at 22, and I had no idea what I was doing. I was terrified. But the idea wouldn’t stop calling to me, so I poured myself into it completely. I still do, if I’m being honest.”
Who was in your corner along the way?
“My father-in-law Rob is my co-founder. He’d built his own business in his twenties too, so there was real mentorship there, though he didn’t hold my hand. I learned most of it fast, and the hard way.
I also leaned hard on the people I hired, a lot of them twice my age, who somehow believed in a 22-year-old with a lease and an idea. Several of them are still some of the most valuable people on our team today.”
You’ve built a strong reputation in Pilates. Is that the whole story?
“It’s not the whole story, though I understand why it looks that way. Fitness fairly earned that reputation, it’s the thing that made me feel like myself again on the day this whole idea started, and it’s still a beautiful front door into everything else we do. But recovery matters just as much as movement, and that’s the part of the story people don’t always see, who’s actually helping your body recover, not just work harder. That’s the part I’m most excited for people to discover next.”
What do you want a woman to feel the moment she walks through our doors?
“Relief. A sense of belonging. An invitation to be fully herself, no performance required. I want her to feel like her care is actually connected, like the people helping her are on the same page instead of five strangers who’ve never compared notes. That’s been the whole point from day one.”
What are you most proud of, looking back?
“That we’ve never coasted. We’ve never stopped asking how to be better, the space, the team, the way it feels the second you walk in. That matters more to me than any number.”
If ClubWell disappeared tomorrow, what would be lost that couldn’t be replaced anywhere else?
“The level of care in every touchpoint. You can copy a service menu. You can’t copy a team that actually knows and cares about you.”
What do you hope ClubWell continues to be each day moving forward?
“A place that changes women’s lives for the better. Not just a gym, not just a spa, somewhere the whole woman is taken care of and can build genuine connections. Most of us have never been offered that kind of care in one place before. It’s time that changed.”
That’s the why behind ClubWell, from the woman who built it out of her own search for something that didn’t exist yet.
This is WellWithin, where we’ll keep having these conversations: what movement and recovery actually do for a woman’s body, what it means to feel well and not just look well, and the honest reality of taking care of yourself in a way that lasts.
Consider this your invitation. We’re happy you’re here.
