So you live or work (or both) in London and want to find out how to balance out all those great cultural and social events and opportunities with something a little more active?!
Well you’ve come to the right place, and I'll be writing a regular piece here to try and help you make the most of your spare time and stay fit and healthy at the same time...or simply have more fun at the very least!
As it’s my first post I'm going to do a bit of shameless advertising as I explain why I'm qualified to be your guide in all things activity and fitness based. I set up sport, adventure and social club 8th Day Adventure about 10 years ago, which is basically a membership club aimed at making the most of your spare time with a heavy emphasis on activities. So whether it's going to a climbing wall on a weekly basis, running, trying your hand at banger racing, or having a go at any number of different sports then we do it all. We also do loads of cool weekend trips and holidays, but that's not London so no more of that!
On top of that I'm also a qualified personal trainer, so I've got a pretty good grasp of what's going to help your fitness too.
So some weeks I'll focus on the fun stuff and on others more on the fitness side of things, but always I'll try and make it relevant and informative, and please do respond with questions or requests, which if relevant I’ll try and work into subsequent posts. To help me keep some focus I’ll break it all down into an A-Z blog, dealing with a new letter every two weeks which will take me nicely through the year, along with anything new or current that can’t wait for another time.
Making it Social...
So if you're interested in doing more stuff and getting more active in London then if I’ve not dropped a big enough hint already, my first pointer would be to find a club that can do it all for you! I've always found that if you make something you enjoy more social too then you're more likely to keep doing it and get roped into other stuff too. If you're just looking to get more healthy then you don’t have to start going fitness crazy, just by getting involved in a few more activities and enjoying it with others then you're far more likely to keep it up and then take on other more challenging activities in due course, and the fitness will take care of itself.
Of course 8th Day Adventure is by no means the only such club, there are other ‘all purpose’ clubs like it around, as well of course as more traditional sports clubs aimed at specific sports. Alternatively why not simply get your mates or work colleagues together to form a team to enter a league, or simply to make use of one of London’s many parks and meet up regularly for a game of football, softball, volleyball, touch rugby or just an evening’s hike around the parks? By getting the group together you’ve done the hard part, and then there’s much more incentive to get out on a regular basis if you’ve got the social element to it and the peer pressure of not letting the side down too! Who knows, your friends and colleagues may really fancy it and are just waiting for someone to make it happen...
So that's tip number one, if you want to get more active then make it social.
I'll get a bit more specific on things in my next post starting with the letter A, but feel free to start with any specific requests or questions too.
See you out there!
Ross
Founder, 8th Day Adventure
