Clocking up the calories? So 2022. If your workout doesn’t clock up some do-gooder points while you’re at it, you might as well give up before you key in your locker code.
London’s fitness studios have long been battling it out on the green front, but achieving true eco gym status in 2023 involves a whole lot more than resuable water bottles and refillable shampoo bottles. Try spin classes that power the scoreboard at the front and offsetting your HIIT class by planting trees.
And doing good for the planet is only half of it — this year’s hottest gyms are giving back to the community, too, with free classes for abuse survivors and female-friendly weights spaces.
From London’s first B-Corp gym to the charity that builds calisthenics rigs out of confiscated weapons, this is your guide to the most thoughtful gyms in town.
Burn kcals, not the planet
At Terra Hale’s pay-as-you-go fitness studios around the capital, spin classes aren’t measured in calories but the number of watts you’ve generated to power the lights, scoreboard and speakers overhead. The human-powered gym — London’s first — opened its first studio in Shepherd’s Bush all the way back in 2018 and has since expanded to Notting Hill, Fulham and most recently, Chelsea, with a shiny new 2,000 square-foot indoor-outdoor studio on SW3’s Old Brompton Road. Expect recycled monkey rigs, vintage clocks reclaimed from railway stations and reclaimed wood walls covered with plants chosen for their air-filtering qualities.
Founder Michal Homola has long said he hopes other gyms will follow Terra Hale’s lead and finally they are listening. For this year’s Earth Day (April 23), BXR in Marylebone is partnering with plant-based activewear brand Pangaia to let members offset their VersaClimber class against its Tomorrow Tree Fund charity, which plants trees in the rainforest to account for the carbon emitted. Talk about making gains.
Elsewhere, south London studio chain Gymnasium recently became the first B-Corp gym in the UK. Not only does this mean its suppliers meet high sustainability standards (locker room toiletries come in reusable containers and are delivered via electric van), but it’s certifiably ethical across the board, from staff getting annual leave and pension plans — a rarity in the fitness industry — to free classes for disadvantaged young people and free Legends workouts for over-60s. Membership doesn’t come cheap at £85 a month, but at least it won’t cost the earth.
Find your sister studio
“It’s naïve and dangerous to ignore the fact that women get harassed at gyms”. These are the words of fitness influencer Natalee Barnett, 23, who recently announced plans to build a shiny new women’s-only gym, The Girls Spot, after an incident in which a man attempted to slide a mat underneath her backside as she was sitting doing exercises.
Barnett is hardly alone in her frustration at the gymtimidation and harassment that many women experience while working out. Searches for ‘women-only gyms’ have reportedly skyrocketed by 69 per cent in the last year, with 71 per cent of women saying they are harassed in the gym on a regular basis.
Barnett is currently raising pre-seed funding for her new workout space, which she hopes will offer boxing and self-defence classes, and the capital has several female-friendly spaces to offer in the meantime. Among London’s women-only gyms are Beatittude, offering boxing, yoga and pre-and-post-natal training in Earlsfield; Kiss, offering a 24-hour workout space in Acton; The Bridge, offering classes, massages and a modern gym space in Borough; and StrongHer, offering classes, weight training and PT sessions in Bethnal Green.
Affordable gym chain Fitness4Less also has women’s-only spaces at its studios in Canning Town and Cambridge Heath, and Abbey Leisure Centre in Barking has reported a 21 per cent increase in female memberships since opening its women’s-only space in November.
Work(out) wonders for the community
It’s not just the general female population who are finally being given safe spaces to workout. At Milo and the Bull’s studios in Clapham, Peckham and London Bridge, female survivors of trafficking and modern slavery are being offered a free series of private fitness classes as part of the gym’s partnership with local charity Ella’s — the latest in a series of collaborations with humanitarian and educational organisations across the capital. Others include a partnership with mental wellbeing charity The Nest and Harris Academy from next month, offering gym classes and strength training to 16 to 18-year-olds struggling with their mental health.
Milo and the Bull’s charity programme might be trailblazing, but it’s far from the only gym looking to give back to vulnerable members of the community. In south-west London, Tom Hardy’s jiu-jitsu charity Reorg is offering martial arts and function fitness classes for veterans, military personnel and emergency services workers; social enterprise and community boxing gym Storm LDN is offering disadvantaged young people with professional coaching and mentorship in Queen’s Park (it plans to open 10 clubs by 2025); and in Lambeth, outdoor gym concept Steel Warriors is offering young people a place to train and socialise through calisthenics rings made from recycled weapons taken off the streets.
Combat the cost-of-exercising crisis
Can’t afford a ClassPass membership? Don’t sweat it. With 36 per cent of Brits ditching their gym memberhsips due to rising costs, ‘Netflix for fitness’ platform Fiit recently made its group classes free for anyone to join. For once, there really is no catch: just download the Fiit app and search for the Group Classes schedule on the homepage to choose from online workouts three times a day, seven days a week, from 10-minute HIIT sessions to 60-minute yoga flows.
If you prefer your workouts face-to-face, not-for-profit sports organisation Our Parks is offering complimentary classes in parks across the capital from box-fit in Victoria Park to bootcamps in Walthamstow; Everyone Active is offering free one-year memberships for Ukrainian refugees; and Southwark Council is generously offering residents free swim passes to use on Fridays and at weekends across the borough. Just sign up with proof of your address.
