If I’d known what Bartendaz - a new style of body toning, hailing from the USA - was before heading down for my sample session, it’s pretty likely I would have ran (jogged) in the opposite direction. I hadn’t exercised for months, the gym had become as alien a place to me as a classroom, so when, upon arrival at Gymbox’s Bank branch, I was met with a large, looming yellow frame (think monkey bars in the park, except higher and more overbearing), I was certain it was game over for me.
That was, until Arleigh - a 45year old man with the style, strength and poise of a 25 year old, responsible for spearheading Bartendaz across London - and Matt, an ex-pro footballer known to his counterparts as the ’king of cardio’, put me at total ease. I say total ease, Arleigh made it refreshingly clear that this brand of workout was no picnic. He assured me that following the session, every muscle in my body would have been rigorously exerted and would be howling to prove it, all of which made me oddly determined to master it.
I began by harnessing my right knee into an industrial sized elastic band looped around the bar above me. Mercifully, the band acts as an assistant in hoisting my body up over the bar, (handy if you’re not one of those people that feels the need to do chin-ups against any bar that they come across) it’s hard - really hard - but I managed five reps on both sides of my hands through grunts and gritted teeth. I felt genuinely powerful for a few seconds.
Arleigh tells me Bartendaz works by using your body weight in place of traditional weights to tone muscle and burn fat simultaneously; incorporating glutes, abs, triceps - interspersed with quick bursts of floor movements; I puffed my way through press ups, sit ups and lunges. It wasn’t until the fiftieth minute, when my upper arms refused to hold my bodyweight any longer, that Arleigh learnt the true extent of my lack of gym-going. Kindly, he noted that I had done well for a total novice, which was just the kind of encouragement I needed to book in for my next class.
