Anytime Fitness, Bow’s new 24 hour gym
Anytime Fitness is to open in July next to Tesco on Gladstone Place bringing a 24 hour gym to Roman Road. We speak to the guys in the purple t-shirts about Netflix, yoga and personal training.
Those empty units next to Tesco Bow that have been empty for over a decade since Safeway was closed are finally opening their doors to the public with a new 24-hour gym.
Anytime Fitness is a multinational chain of gyms that give the user 24-hour gym access. Between the hours of 8pm and 7am it is not staffed and members will need to use their card to access the services. One of the benefits of this is that once you have membership to one gym you have membership to them all.
Olu Awonugal, Club Manager at the gym and his team have been on Roman Road Market every day for the last few weeks meeting local people to get an understanding of local needs.
While they wait for the building works to be completed, Awonugal and his team have made sure that the service they want to provide has already begun. They are running twice-weekly bootcamps in Victoria Park and exercise classes for Diabetes UK. You may also have spotted them doing impromptu classes in Tesco and on the Roman Road car park.
‘I love the community round here, and the people. Everyone is so friendly, and so far, we have got a pretty amazing response from the locals’ he says.
Weekly classes and brand spanking new machines (to which you can connect your Netflix account meaning you can get gym time and catch up on your favourite show) are available at Anytime Fitness, as well as one personal training session and a training plan when you sign up and the option to book regular training sessions in bulk.
The classes are expected to be hugely popular and are included in the cost of membership. ‘Bow seems like a yoga area’ says Awonugal. ‘I don’t know why, but yoga is going to be hugely popular and so is spinning. I think people like the guidance and the sense of community that come with classes.’
As well as yoga and spinning, Anytime Fitness offers a whole range of classes including Boxercise, Ab Blast, Circuit and five ladies only classes per week. The classes take place in a studio room at the gym and have a capacity of between 10 and 14 people, depending on the equipment needed. For the full class timetable, visit their website.
Awonugal himself will carry out personal training sessions. He focuses on functional fitness and high intensity training. If you need to find a way to fit the gym into your life, Awonugal recommends going in the morning. ‘When you get home from work, you’re not going to want to go to the gym. The morning is the best time, and it invigorates you for the rest of the day’ he explains.
What really makes this gym great is its accessibility. For people who work split shifts or anti-social hours, or for those who want to go to the gym in the middle of the night or at the crack of dawn (not us) you can go to the gym at any time, day or night.
The changing rooms and showers have individual cubicles so are suitable for even the most shy among us.
The gym is staffed during the day, and the staff have a policy not to over-subscribe membership so they can offer personalised services where possible to each member. Apparently, if you haven’t turned up to the gym in a while, Olu will call you up to find out what’s happened. Now that’s commitment.
Find Anytime Fitness Bow at 62-64 Vernon Road, E3 5GS and keep up with them on Facebook and Instagram.
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