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W10 Personal Training

Personal Training at W10 Performance

The Blurb:

‘All-inclusive gym membership that guarantees results.’ All-inclusive – don’t all gyms offer that? Well, not personal training sessions they don’t. There are no long-term contracts and you pay for a month at a time, which, though it sounds hefty at £237, does include four ‘semi-private instructional coaching’ sessions. What that means in practice is that you’ll probably share your instructor with someone else. The gym is a small business unit under the Westway and members have to book their time so that everyone has the room they need to train. To tempt you in the door they’re offering a 15-day trial for £69.

The Process:

Getting your blood pressure and weight taken is par for the course at gyms but here they also take a posture photograph, assess your flexibility and measure your body fat at several points of your frame. While it was no surprise that my shoulders hunched forward (that will be the eight hours in front of a computer every day then), I was shocked I didn’t breeze through the fat measurements as I expected. It turns out my embryonic paunch is likely due to too much sugar. I’m a bit of a beanpole but the amount of sandwiches and pasta I eat to keep weight on weren’t doing me any favours – both are high on the GI index. An exercise plan was drawn up for me that included working the shoulders to correct my posture and a food diary, along with advice on what to eat, was handed over.

The Result:

Such physical and anatomical scrutiny was enough to shock me into going back, if only to stop me turning into the writing equivalent of a battery hen. Alongside familiar machines there are also fun innovations. The last part of your routine is ‘roll the dice’, with various tortures assigned to the numbers. Mine involved a tug of war against some weights, pulling them towards me on a rope and then shoving the weights back across the floor to their original position several times. If you’re bored of the same old gym routine, W10’s holistic view and innovative approach should prove refreshing.

W10 Performance, Unit 3, 69 St Marks Road, London, W10; www.w10performance.com; 020 3489 5428

Tried & Tested |