A confession: there’s a small problem with this article. This is normally the slot where healthy writers try out a new, crazy or extreme fitness trend and report back (usually) on how hilariously bad they were at it. We hope to make you laugh, as well as decide if this might be a trend for you.
My problem is, the GoodGym isn’t crazy, extreme or (especially) funny. Fun, certainly. A surprisingly good workout, yes. A chance to feel like you’ve done some good? Yes – it’s a mental boost as much as a physical one. But a belly laugh at the crazy things people will do in the pursuit of abs of steel? Not so much.
I meet up with my local Lambeth group in PAPA’s Park community centre in Brixton, south London, on a Tuesday evening. If you’re used to glossy gyms, PAPA’s Park – a colourful, scruffy, urban community playground – is not it. The GoodGym actively reject traditional gyms as ‘a waste of energy’. Set up in 2008, this not-for-profit company aims to get people who would use that energy in gyms, peddling, running or rowing nowhere, to use it on neglected tasks and people in our communities instead. It’s one of those ideas that seems blindingly obvious in hindsight.