CTRL// Sarnia: A Studio Where Movement Feels Good
Last Updated on 21 August, 2026
How a Sarnia athlete and brand strategist built a community fitness and wellness studio around a simple idea — and chose WellnessLiving to power it.
Not a Gym. A Holistic Fitness Studio.
Julia Struyf spent years as a spin instructor and competitive athlete before she started to notice something. The wellness industry was changing. Clients were not just looking for a hard workout anymore. They were looking for connection, for movement that felt sustainable, for spaces that understood hormonal health and recovery as part of the picture. The punishing-by-default approach to fitness was losing ground to something more human.
She also noticed that Sarnia, Ontario did not have the kind of studio she had in mind. So she built it.
“We are not a gym. We are a studio where movement, music, and connection come together to support whole-self wellness.”
The CTRL// studio is Julia’s answer to the gap she identified — a community wellness centre built around spin, yoga, hot yoga, mat and hip Pilates, hot Pilates, a strength-based format called Ignite, and an infrared sauna. The name reflects the philosophy: create, reset, focus, reignite. Show up and take control of how you feel.
What CTRL// Offers
The studio runs a full class schedule across six formats. Spin delivers high-energy cardio with music at the centre. Yoga and hot yoga give members a practice focused on breath, flexibility, and presence. Mat and hip Pilates build core strength and mobility. Hot Pilates adds intensity in a heated environment. Ignite is the strength-based offering, designed for members who want resistance training in a group setting.
Beyond the class floor, CTRL// includes an infrared sauna as a recovery amenity. Members can book sauna sessions alongside their class schedule, keeping recovery built into the same experience rather than something they have to seek out separately.
The studio also has a coffee lounge featuring a local Sarnia supplier, and a smoothie partnership with Macro Foods. Julia kept retail operations intentionally simple, using a separate point-of-sale system for coffee, smoothies, and merchandise so the studio’s membership and class booking platform stays focused on what it does best.
Memberships come in Unlimited, Mix, and Elite tiers, alongside class packs, drop-ins, and gift cards. The cancellation policy includes an eight-hour window before class, and a flat admin fee applies after repeat no-shows — policies Julia designed to protect class capacity while staying fair to her local market.
Why Julia Chose WellnessLiving
Julia came from corporate communications, marketing, design, and brand strategy before building CTRL//. She notices details that others miss, and she held the platform to a high standard: it needed to look and feel like the brand, not like generic booking software with a logo dropped on top.
A custom branded app was the clearest expression of that requirement. Julia wanted members to open an app that felt like CTRL// — not a third-party platform’s interface with the studio’s colours applied. WellnessLiving’s white-label app gave her that.
The operational requirements were equally specific. Memberships and class packs, client self-service booking, digital waivers, staff check-in access, and payroll tracking for a team of eight independent contractor instructors and one part-time receptionist. Each instructor needed the right level of system access to support check-ins without exposure to the full back office. Julia tracks clock-ins through WellnessLiving to validate hours and pay accurately and without hassle.
The demand was already there before the studio opened. Julia collected more than 184 expressions of interest through market research and surveys. That early momentum told her the concept had real pull in Sarnia — and that the platform running the member experience needed to match the expectation she had already created.
What Julia Is Building
CTRL// entered the Sarnia market with something specific: a studio built around the idea that movement should feel good and that people should want to come back. Not a gym with classes. A wellness community where spin and Pilates and sauna and a coffee lounge and a local smoothie bar all coexist under one roof.
Julia brought a marketing and brand background to the build. Every touchpoint — the app, the booking flow, the class formats, the partnerships — was designed intentionally. The 184 people who raised their hand before CTRL// opened its doors were not responding to a generic gym offer. They were responding to a brand that felt different from anything Sarnia had seen.
She built the studio she was looking for. Sarnia now has it too.
Want to see more of their journey? You can follow CTRL// on Instagram!
Want to see how easy it can be to build your dream fitness studio? Book a free, no-commitment demo of WellnessLiving today and see our automated Marketing Suite!
