Sportikon, outdoor gym in Cagliari. How Alberto Fenu reinvented the way of training in the city | Olianas

For the past few years, in Cagliari, a sports association has taken shape that resembles none of the gyms you’ve ever attended. No mirrors on the walls, no rows of machines, no annual memberships to sign in blood. Just open air, ordinary people, and a philosophy that begins and ends with a single word: balance.

Behind it all are Alberto Fenu and Martina Floris, partners in both work and life. He is a coach and kinesiologist whose eyes light up whenever he talks about movement. She is an educator with a personal journey in sport that gifted her a new sense of balance. They met at 21 and 18 in a missionary community for young people, and years later built what is now one of the most compelling and professional sports projects in the city: Sportikon.

Before we begin telling their story, we’d like to invite you on May 30th at 3:00 PM to Tenuta Olianas for the second live edition of Vite. As last year, within the national event Cantine Aperte, Jessica Cani brings her storytelling project from online to offline, set among our vineyards, where we will host Alberto Fenu and Martina Floris with Sportikon.
We have designed an evening that will open with exceptional guests, exploring movement, nutrition, gastronomy, and wellbeing through a series of panels, followed by an extended moment of networking and relaxation, accompanied by our wines and the cuisine of the chefs we have invited.

More details on ticket purchases will be available soon, but in the meantime—save the date.

Alberto Fenu did not grow up in a family of athletes. His father would run occasionally—he was an active man, but nothing more than that. The real influence came from his older brother’s work as a physiotherapist, which Alberto observed with admiration: “I used to watch what he did, and it inspired me. I found his work fascinating, both from a performance standpoint in training people and from a therapeutic perspective”.

His initial ambition was to study medicine, then physiotherapy. But after two or three unsuccessful attempts at passing university entrance exams, life redirected him to where he perhaps should have been from the very beginning: sports science. “What once seemed too simple, too obvious, became my true essence”.
During his studies, he spent years working in bars and in nightlife—years of energy that wasn’t always well channeled. He graduated quickly, because he was already eager to get moving. To take action, in every sense.

When Martina Floris met him, Alberto was 18 years old and full of energy he didn’t yet know where to place. “He was like a whirlwind”, she recalls with a laugh. “He definitely still needed to channel that energy and figure out where to direct it”.

Martina comes from a very different background. She is an educator with a degree in educational sciences, and she describes her adolescence as very turbulent—but not in a sporty way. The world of sports felt distant to her. “I was always an overweight child, and then I became a person with obesity. Movement was always recommended to me because I needed to fix something. That’s also why I never had a good relationship with sport”. And yet, today, she is the one who can truly explain what it means to learn to move not as a form of punishment, but as an act of care.

There’s a sentence Martina said to Alberto on the day of his graduation that says a lot about the way they were as a couple: “I will be, if you want, your project”. It was a promise made with admiration, with the deep respect she had for his perseverance. But time taught them that being your partner’s “project” is not necessarily the healthiest thing in the world. Martina says it openly: “I want to say this because we shouldn’t pretend things are easy. In a relationship that grows over time, sometimes you say things that later become a burden rather than a help”.

Today, Martina trains with another coach, Giacomo, a collaborator at Sportikon. It was a decision they made together to preserve both their marriage and their professional relationship. “I am not Alberto’s project—but I am a project within Sportikon, and I love that”. It’s a crucial distinction.

In the summer of 2018, Alberto is 24 and has just opened his VAT number. He sends a message to a few friends: “on Tuesdays and Thursdays at this time, let’s get some movement in”, and waits to see who shows up.

What defines those early months—and still defines Sportikon today—is the complete absence of selection. There is no ideal body to join, no minimum level required, no goal considered more legitimate than another. The field is open to those with back pain, to those who have never worn a pair of trainers, to those recovering from an injury who don’t know how to start again, and to those who simply feel like moving without quite knowing how. Alberto has no elaborate communication strategy, no advertising budget—but he has an energy he can barely contain and a genuine curiosity for people. Martina describes it with a mix of affection and undiminished amazement: “he was so happy to train people that he would walk up to them and say, ‘hi, do you train?’—and that always started a conversation.” Anyone he met—on the street, at a bar, at a dinner—became a potential athlete, not out of commercial intent, but because Alberto truly believes that movement benefits everyone, and that his job is to help as many people as possible understand that. Their motto, in fact, is: every body matters.

In September, just a few weeks after the beginning, the first real home arrives: the Riccardo Santoru field, an athletics track that feels special to Alberto from day one. “The beach is nice, but the beach is the sea. On the track, you train”. More importantly, the track has a roof—not to stay indoors, which was never the plan, but to remove the last remaining excuse: the rain. “I train outdoors, but I have to do it in a way that leaves people with no excuses”.

His goal is for people to train all year round, in any weather, in any season. To make that happen, he needs to remove obstacles, and the roof becomes a tool in service of the outdoors—not the other way around.
From there, Sportikon grows: new classes, new locations, new seasons. The number of members increases, and the field becomes a recognizable home made up of a sports community that moves, that deliberately changes locations. “We’re building a dynamic and active sports community. We challenge our athletes with constant change because we also want to train their mental flexibility”

In 2025, Sportikon expanded its offering by opening a studio—an indoor space that initially triggered a moment of identity crisis for Alberto: “it put me in a difficult position at first, because I thought: I promote the outdoors, and then I open an indoor studio. How is that consistent?”

He later realized it wasn’t a contradiction, but a natural extension. The studio was created to welcome people who need a more personalized approach—something that is impossible to achieve in an outdoor group setting. People with specific needs, particular vulnerabilities, or goals that require a more focused and close-up perspective. “Having more tools makes us more complete and strengthens our role as a point of reference". 

This new phase was made possible by the arrival of a new collaborator, Giacomo, who trained with Sportikon, then specialized in Turin, and upon returning found the doors open to help bring this new space to life. Alongside them are Alessia and Nicola.
Five people now. A small professional core that shares such a clear vision that even the most complex challenge—blending indoor and outdoor spaces without losing their philosophy along the way—feels achievable.

People who train with Sportikon are ordinary people. Sportikon athletes (they call everyone “athletes”, regardless of level) include the person who works at a bank, the older adult who comes back year after year, the young guy who discovered them on social media and fell in love, the person recovering from an injury who doesn’t know how to start again, and those who have never worn a pair of trainers in their life.

There are no predefined targets, just as there is no ideal body to achieve. Instead, there is the idea that every body is different, shaped by its own life, and that movement is not meant for aesthetics but for health—although the two can coexist.

“We would never say a sumo wrestler is fat and not functional. That body is functional to his life”, Alberto says. “An endurance athlete is lean, with low muscle mass, because that body is functional to theirs. Every body should be respected and helped to become stronger”.

Alberto does something that few personal trainers do: before building a training program, he asks what kind of relationship that person has with their body—how they experience it, how they feel it. What they need, emotionally as well as physically, to feel better.

“I ask myself what kind of communication I can use and what kind of attention I can give, because that’s what makes the difference—we need to feel safe when we move”. For him, sustainability is not just about loads and recovery, but about meaning and continuity. “There is a way to never stop, and it doesn’t lie in an intensive three-month program, but in a habit that lasts over time—even when you’re injured, even when you can only manage ten minutes. If you move for ten, that ten is worth a hundred. But you have to know that. That’s where sustainability begins, where balance begins, where a consistent path takes shape—and above all, where working with someone who can guide and support you truly matters”.

One of Sportikon’s most unconventional choices is its refusal to offer annual subscriptions. In an industry where gyms sell yearly memberships at discounted prices—knowing that after three weeks you’ll stop showing up—Sportikon does the opposite: it offers a monthly plan, renewable month by month with no strings attached. It’s an ethical choice before it’s a commercial one.

“Convincing people and guiding them into a sustainable path is risky. We could easily run a big promotion and sign up 50 people in September, but that’s not what we want, because I know how people’s minds work: you need to take small steps”.

“The monthly plan”, Martina explains, “works like a double mirror. On one side, the athlete who chooses to renew each month is confirming to themselves that they’ve put in the work. On the other, Alberto and Giacomo know exactly who’s there, who’s missing, who might be going through a tough time. Every person has to be truly seen, both visually and emotionally. You don’t disappear if you’re struggling, because our job is to make movement accessible to you, even when it’s harder. One month you might attend every class, another you might only manage something at home. But we know that—we follow our athletes along a path of movement adapted to their lives”.

Those who choose Sportikon truly choose it—not because they’ve signed a contract, not because they’d lose money otherwise. “If people choose you freely, they stay”. It’s a bet on trust—and judging by how the project has grown, it’s a bet that has paid off.

Sportikon includes within its project a network of restaurateurs, bakers, and pastry chefs from Cagliari who share the same care for raw ingredients and the same artisanal attention to their craft. This is no coincidence.

Alberto and Martina reached a balanced approach to nutrition through a journey that led both of them to question their relationship with food. Alberto, with a body the world would define as athletic, imposed strict rules on himself—food had to be earned through training. Martina, with a history of being overweight and living with obesity, had internalized decades of punitive messages where food was something to deserve or to avoid.

“We rediscovered ourselves by observing how we approached food. We were both very strict. Everything had to be measured against how much we had trained and whether we could ‘afford’ it”. The change came gradually—through conversations, reading, and above all through spending time with people who treated food as something beautiful.

One of the words they have now removed from their vocabulary—and ask their athletes to remove as well—is “cheat meal”. “It’s a punitive term. Going out for pizza is not a cheat”. If you’re going to eat pizza, eat a good one. If you go to a restaurant, choose places that respect their ingredients. Not to be virtuous, but because quality educates the palate—and the palate shapes habits.
The care a chef puts into a dish resonates with the care a coach puts into the program designed for you. It’s the same philosophy, applied at the table.