As well as our running club, BOOMCycle and Rumble at 1Rebel, the Be:Fit team also sorted us girls out with a free session at Barry’s Bootcamp in Moorgate which I was so excited about because I’d wanted to try it for so long but didn’t want to hate it and feel like I’d wasted money! Also with these type of gyms, you get the best value for money when you guy class passes (for example, 5 class packages at a discount) but I didn’t want to spend £100 on one of those and then discover after my first time that I didn’t like it!
The night before the class I didn’t get to sleep until gone 4am so I wasn’t feeling too confident about how I’d hold up, but a few coffees and a lot of breakfast I jumped on the tube and ended up sitting opposite my friend Georgina from run club all the way there from Clapham.
We arrived, gave great big hugs to Rachel from The Telegraph and took a few pre-class instagrams before ordering our shakes and heading downstairs to the studio to face our worse nightmare on the Barry’s treadmills!
What I love most about boutique gyms across London is the attention to detail they give to things like lighting and music. At Barry’s Bootcamp they dim the lights and turn up a cracking playlist, so even when you catch sight of yourself sweating to death in the wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling mirrors the flattering lighting and uplifting music keep you going.
The treadmills at Barry’s are the nicest I’ve ever run on in my life, and I’d probably sell a member of my family to own one, which made the running parts of the workout such a joy rather than the torture I’d initially thought they be! When we arrived I’d been allocated to start with the floor workout and so my session went weights-treadmill-weights-treadmill, and since then, every class I’ve done at other gyms I’ve always followed that routine and started with the floor based part of the workout to ease myself in! I think if I’d started on the treadmill I would have been too tired to give it my all when it came to the squats, presses and lunges etc we were doing on the floor.
I really enjoyed Barry’s Bootcamp but haven’t been back since – watch this space!