Fitness is a combination of cardio-vascular efficiency (your heart & lungs) and an optimal balance of muscular strength & endurance.

Whatever your current level of fitness, the equipment in a good gym when used properly will enable you to develop & enhance your cardio-vascular system as well as improve your muscular strength & endurance, i.e. Improve your fitness level.

The big challenge is how to use the equipment in a gym to gain maximum benefit.

Many people, especially those who have trained for years, believe they are sufficiently knowledgeable to totally control their own training regime. In reality, very few understand how to train to improve their fitness, let alone how to maximize their potential.

Running a gym for the last 14 years has proved to us that, however well intentioned & hard working clients are, very few of them significantly improve their fitness as they train.

Successful training is dependent on all 5 of the following :-

1. Regularity - you need to train on a regular basis
2. Intensity - you need to train at levels of intensity appropriate to your goals
3. Variety - you need to challenge your cardio-vascular & muscular systems in different ways
4. Progression - you must make your training progressively more challenging
5. Recovery - you must factor in sufficient recovery time between your training sessions

Very few gym users (or non gym users who train) get the balance of these 5 key factors right.

The Ideal Training Regime

In our view, the ideal training regime for the vast majority of gym users is to include one weekly gym training session targeting CV power & muscular strength, plus a further weekly gym training session targeting core strength & muscular endurance.

This is the training regime we offer by combining two of our Group Training classes (see the separate page on Group Training)

We would then encourage everybody to get out in the open at weekends, fill your lungs with fresh air, & enjoy your fitness through whichever sport or active hobby that appeals to you.

There are so many options available, from walking, running, cycling, horse-riding, swimming, tennis, football, rugby, hockey, kayaking, canoeing, wind-surfing, paddle-boarding etc.etc.

All those over 30 would also benefit immensely from a dedicated effort to maintain & develop their flexibility.

This could simply be a regular & comprehensive stretching regime, or a regular Yoga/Pilates class