Fitter Than Your Average

It used to be all about rappers and rock stars but, as Giselle Wainwright finds out, it’s the wellness influencers who have our attention now…

You can do this! C’mon! Push yourselves!” A handsome young man, the colour of a digestive biscuit and with a six-pack that glistens under the strobe lighting, bellows at the room. As the beat kicks in, he suddenly breaks into a round of burpees, and the 20 or so women in his class drop down beside him, their topknots jiggling in excited unison. It’s Tuesday night and this HIIT workout is his favourite of the week. And judging by the fact that this 60 minutes of cardiac-arrest-inducing aerobics sells out within 10 minutes, his clients clearly agree.

As the hour draws to an end, and Rich* doles out high fives, a petite blonde in forestgreen leggings and a matching cropped top holds his gaze that second longer.

“Could I get your number… for private training?” she asks. He whips out his phone.

That night she texts. The following day, they’re having sex on her living room floor.

  This scene. On repeat. But with a different woman, plucked from a different class, is how Rich spends his Tuesdays. And Thursdays. And Saturdays. Across the country, his female counterparts are doing the same – and if they’re not, their clients are wishing that they would.

“Clients hit on me all the time,” Ashley*, 27, a personal trainer for a well-known nationwide gym chain, tells me. “I meet most of them on the gym floor, but we train at theirs and that’s where it turns into something else. Recently, a client disappeared upstairs, then called my name. I found her in the shower with the bathroom door open – I was happy to go with it.”

“One time, a girl from my class waited outside the gym for me and offered me a lift home,” adds spin instructor Luke*, 31. “She told me she lived a 45-minute drive away, but loved coming to my class just to see me. Fast forward about 20 minutes and we were at it in her car.”