The F word
Katie Gregory looks at the fitness trends set to storm UK gyms this spring
As we move in to March, with January’s New Year fitness resolutions a distant memory and February’s guilty conscience for breaking them all now long-forgotten, it seems the population is looking for something a little more enjoyable at the gym. It’s all about the F word – putting the fun back in to fitness – and gyms around the country are doing just that.
London-based Gymbox opened their second centre in Covent Garden at the beginning of the year. Billed as a “lifestyle gym” there are cinema screens, live DJs, an olympic-sized boxing ring and a timetable that’s bursting at the seams with innovative classes. These range from dance-based ballroom blitz and Bee Gee Boogie (as the title suggests, it helps if you’re a fan of the Bee Gees) to some fairly bizarre re-inventions of yoga, including Disco – less meditation, more preparation for a night on the town, and Twisted, where participants are able to put their skills to the test on a giant Twister mat.
Another class on the menu is Hula Hips, which is set to catch on in a big way this year. Whether it’s hula aerobics, cardio hula or any of the other hula derivatives, they all involve using hula hoops to tone the body, and you’re probably going to be hearing more about them since London-based radio station Heart launched a new campaign promoting hula hooping in the UK. The trend has already amassed a big following in the US, although there are a fair few of the more obscure ideas that haven’t yet caught on over this side of the Atlantic.
Stretching in the park with your dog for Ruff Yoga might be OK in sunny LA, but isn’t as much fun when your trainers (and your dog) are sinking ever deeper into a sludge of soggy mud; and while exotic dance, pole dancing and cardio striptease have taken off in various incarnations over here, I suspect Whipped – where the class is taught by, yes, a whip-brandishing dominatrix – will have a more limited appeal on these shores thanks to good old-fashioned British reserve.
But, it’s worth shaking off your inhibitions along with the stresses of the day for Nike’s new Rockstar Workout – this time it’s Dancehall, and it’s got to be one of the most enjoyable ways to tone up this season. Madonna’s choreographer Jamie King has created a Carribbean-inspired routine that Nike Master Trainers like Victoria Igbokwe (pictured) teach section-by-section in selected UK gyms. So, each session builds on the previous until you’re dancing a full routine that wouldn’t look out of place on MTV.
There really couldn’t be any more reasons to go to the gym. Unless, of course, chocolate fountains were installed as standard.
www.gymbox.co.uk
www.heart.co.uk
www.nikewomenuk.com
