SHARE
COPY LINK
PRESENTED BY URBAN SPORTS CLUB

Urban Sport of the Week: Virtual Fitness

Urban Sports Club is the largest, most flexible and diverse sports offer in your city with over 50 types of sports and over 2000 partner venues in 20+ cities across Germany.

Urban Sport of the Week: Virtual Fitness
Photo: Jillian Michaels

*This content is an advertisement. It was not produced by The Local's journalists.

Visit your local yoga studio, go swimming, bouldering, have a gym session, take a dance class or make new friends in Urban Sports Club's team sport communities. All of this in one membership at a fixed cost that you can cancel at just one month's notice.

In the Urban Sport of the Week series, a member of the USC team tries a different sport to encourage members to do the same – because new sports lead to new hobbies and new friends.

As we all know, technology is taking over the world, including the way we exercise. This week, a USC member explored the world of Virtual Fitness to find out what the future holds for the sports industry…

What is Virtual Fitness?

Virtual Reality and fitness training make the perfect partnership.Virtual Fitness uses VR in the gym to create immersive fitness solutions that can range from running through the streets of Tokyo (when you’re actually on a treadmill) to fitness classes from world class instructors projected on to the wall of your studio.

Our Virtual Fitness class was at Holmes Place, Bismarckstraße in West Berlin. Holmes Place is a network of luxury health clubs and spas located across Germany and the Middle East, and this year they’ll be introducing the world of Virtual Fitness to our everyday lives.

What can you expect?

Holmes Place certainly knows how to do luxury. I was greeted by friendly staff at the sleek club in West Berlin, given a fresh towel and directed to the state-of-the-art changing rooms. Today's class was a 45 minute Legs, Bums and Tums workout. The only difference being that instead of a fitness instructor I would be following the class from a film projected on the wall of the studio.

A screen outside the studio space allows you to select your workout of choice on-demand. Holmes Place have pre-scheduled virtual classes, however when these aren’t scheduled members are able to select a workout on-demand. It’s totally flexible – you can just turn up, choose your class, press play and start your workout.

Photo: Holmes Place

Sign up to Urban Sports Club today – get fit, discover new hobbies and make new friends.

How was the workout?

A familiar face popped up on screen – the personal trainer from The Biggest Loser, USA – Jillian Michaels. I’m a big fan of American reality TV so this was a definite plus (Catfish = best TV show of all time).

The class began with a light cardio warm-up of jogging, star jumps and knee-ups. Jillian Michaels is one of the best trainers in the world – having her teach the class was extremely motivating. The video included two other trainers in the background who were doing alternative exercises – an easy and a difficult version. I tried my best to do the difficult one throughout but it was actually quite, erm, difficult.

Jillian started the workout with a leg circuit. This involved a minute of low front squats, then reverse lunges and then a low sumo-squat raised on to our tiptoes (this was killer). We did this for three rounds. Jillian kept staring straight at the camera and yelling encouragement/threats – I really thought she might jump out and whoop my ass if I took a rest.

After this we did an abs circuit which involved a front and side planks. In-between we did hip-lifts. It was painful but Jillian’s yelling kept me motivated.

Then we did more squats, Spiderman planks and lunges and then on to the bum circuit. This involved being on hands and knees and lifting one leg repeatedly, then the other. Then more hip-lifts and on to the next leg. Jillian talked (yelled) us through a few variations of this exercise until I thought I might yell back at her, but by then it was time for the cool down.

Sign up to Urban Sports Club today – get fit, discover new hobbies and make new friends.

How did I feel after?

I wasn’t sure what to expect from a Virtual class – I thought it could be less motivating than having a real instructor in the room. However, it felt just like I was being taught face-to-face. The exercises were just as easy to follow and the way Jillian trained was genuinely funny and very motivating.

I felt just how I feel after a gruelling exercise class with a face-to-face trainer – tired, sweaty and happy.

Benefits of Virtual Fitness

The same benefits of general fitness, except you can take a class whenever you want with this on-demand format. It’s very flexible and fits with your schedule.

The videos provide options for differing levels so you can vary the exercises according to your abilities.

Holmes Place plan to have real-life trainers in every scheduled class to make sure members are exercising correctly. This makes it more like a personal training session and it means that technology won’t be replacing humans (not yet, anyway).

Don’t forget to bring…

Gym clothes, towel, water – and a very thick skin if your class is run by Jillian.

L members have access to Holmes Place clubs across Germany– find a gym in your area. And have a look at our gym partners in France for a similar format near you.

*This content is an advertisement. It was not produced by The Local's journalists.

HEALTH

Lengthy waiting times at Danish hospitals not going away yet: minister

Danish Minister for the Interior and Health Sophie Løhde has warned that, despite increasing activity at hospitals, it will be some time before current waiting lists are reduced.

Lengthy waiting times at Danish hospitals not going away yet: minister

The message comes as Løhde was set to meet with officials from regional health authorities on Wednesday to discuss the progress of an acute plan for the Danish health system, launched at the end of last year in an effort to reduce a backlog of waiting times which built up during the coronavirus crisis.

An agreement with regional health authorities on an “acute” spending plan to address the most serious challenges faced by the health services agreed in February, providing 2 billion kroner by the end of 2024.

READ ALSO: What exactly is wrong with the Danish health system?

The national organisation for the health authorities, Danske Regioner, said to newspaper Jyllands-Posten earlier this week that progress on clearing the waiting lists was ahead of schedule.

Some 245,300 operations were completed in the first quarter of this year, 10 percent more than in the same period in 2022 and over the agreed number.

Løhde said that the figures show measures from the acute plan are “beginning to work”.

“It’s positive but even though it suggests that the trend is going the right way, we’re far from our goal and it’s important to keep it up so that we get there,” she said.

“I certainly won’t be satisfied until waiting times are brought down,” she said.

“As long as we are in the process of doing postponed operations, we will unfortunately continue to see a further increase [in waiting times],” Løhde said.

“That’s why it’s crucial that we retain a high activity this year and in 2024,” she added.

Although the government set aside 2 billion kroner in total for the plan, the regional authorities expect the portion of that to be spent in 2023 to run out by the end of the summer. They have therefore asked for some of the 2024 spending to be brought forward.

Løhde is so far reluctant to meet that request according to Jyllands-Posten.

SHOW COMMENTS