If you’re following me on Snapchat (nikthakkar) or Instagram – you’ll see that for the last five months, I’ve been working out sporadically at Equinox – in London, NY, LA, Toronto etc. So, there’s only one in London in High Street Kensington and it really is worth the drive/tube over if you live within 30 minutes. Hopefully more will open soon in London.
One particular benefit from training at Equinox (aside from the incredible service, cold towels in mimi-fridges on the gym floor, a cafe with ideal high protein and low calorie food and so much more is the fact that the personal training service is so brilliantly personal. I’ve experienced personal training sessions in blocks at other gyms and nothing really compares.
Firstly, the Equinox proprietary Three-Cycle System is designed to keep you continuously stimulated. Once you finish 3, you return to Cycle 1 at a more advanced level. No plateaus allowed.
Trainers also have to complete 150 hours of education at the Equinox Fitness Training Institute (EFTI), which is apparently quite rigorous according to my trainer Andrea Pucci. Who guided me through my six classes and induction pushing personal body boundaries with me at least until I was like “no, we’re just doing 10 not 12 reps of this”. Sorry about that Andrea.
Either way, the last six months has yielded some pretty great results for me – across my core and especially tone – a lot of that is probably due to diet too. Granted I kinda always had a six pack, what Equinox has taught me is the power of open spaces – one of the company’s biggest USPs with regards to maximising it through free-form training and multi-joint movement. Equinox is leading the way with this type of ground-based exercise – and if any gym has the potential square metres of space to host this type of activity, it is Equinox.
I also have to thanks Caitlin McGowan for the introduction to open spaces, and letting me attend her classes that focus around them – and also being the most charming and inspiring trainer – everyone who meets her falls instantly in love.
So with that said, I’m sharing shots by Dimitris Theocharis that were taken after my six personal training sessions with Andrea a couple of weeks ago in aid of my grooming adventure/box project to raise money for homeless LGBT young people. Also for the record, because someone asked me the other day, these aren’t photoshopped or enhanced. It’s really down to good lighting and good effort.
