You’ve committed to keeping fit, you’ve considered setting up a home gym, you’ve downloaded a few fitness apps.
Basically you are ready to get and stay fit in the UAE, even in the summer when its HOT outside.
How can you do that? We are here to give you all the advice and resources you need.
What are your options?
Here’s a few to get your brain ticking:
- Follow the best workouts on YouTube, we’ll list some of the best later
- Use an app to get fit
- Subscribe to a virtual workout program
- Set up a home gym
- Join a gym
- Start a sport, maybe one you’ve never considered before, we are going to give you some ideas later on in this article.
There’s plenty of options and I know it seems hard in the UAE in the summer when its 43 degrees outside, however, all you need is a dose of inspiration and a few ideas and then you’ll be off, on the part towards having a body and energy levels you’ve dreamed of.
YouTube Workouts, the best on the World wide Web
- Barry’s live workouts (this one is a paid option)
- Joe Wicks – The Body Coach TV YouTube Channel
- HASfit
- Jessicasmithtv
- Fitness Blender
- Blogilates
The Best Apps to Get Fit
- My fitness pal
- Steppi – a great local provider
- Inkin – another awesome UAE based company that you can use to do steps and activity challenges
- The 7 minute workout app
- Sworkit
- Daily Wkrouts Fitness Trainer
The Best Virtual Workouts
- Peloton – amazing interactive workouts on a bike, treadmill, body weight or a rower
- Ifit – super tailored workouts from famous international personal trainers and coaches in scenergy to die for
- The Mirror Workotus – you have to buy a standing mirror for this one, however, the mirror has a trick up its sleeve, when you turn it on it transforms from a mirror into a virtual lifesize personal trainer.
- Tracy Anderson Live
- Daily Burn
- Best for cardio – Booya Fitness
Set up a Home Gym
If you are into fitness, there’s one thing I know you’ve dreamed about…setting up a home gym.
If its time to make that a reality here is our quick start guide so your money, time and effort is spent wisely.
Your plan
You need to figure out, how much space you have, what you can fit it, what you can spend and what is important to you. You can either have new gym equipment or any rental basis gym equipment in Dubai to setup your own gym in the home.
For example, do you want a workout that is primarily cardio based, if you have got the money and space for cardio equipment then great, if not you’ll have to do cardio workouts with your bodyweight+/simple fitness equipment like a TRX, medicine balls and kettlebells.
Budget, what do you want to spend?
It’s a key consideration, we see so many people that want to save money buy something cheap and regret it for the next 3 years, its not that they are using the equipment, its more likely being used as a place to dry their clothes.
If you are buying a piece of cardiovascular equipment then please do not spend less than 3000 AED unless its heavily discounted in a real sale.
It will break down, be horrible to use and put you off your workouts faster than knowing your machine was infected with coronavirus!
Here’s the quick start tips for each main type pf cardiovascular equipment
Treadmill:
- Make sure if you want to only walk on it that the treadmill belt/walking area is 127 cm. If you want to run and you are under 191 cm then you will need a running area of 139 and if you are taller than 191 cm you will need a running area of 152cm
- Make sure its sturdy and firm on the floor when you are running, if its not it can damage the knees.
- Again make sure its over 3000 AED, treadmills below this will cause you more problems than your Ex-partner.
The Sole Fitness F63 is an example of a brilliant home treadmill that is practically indestructible, it has a 3.0 hp motor, super high durable build quality, great running length and width and a very absorbent treadmill cushioning system.
Home Gym Bike:
- Make sure you get the workout programs you need, saying this people very infrequently use more than a quick start program, but lets say you have a heart condition and you want to ensure your heart rate does not go over a certain BPM (beats per minute), you’ll want to make sure it has a heart rate function.
- Make sure the seat goes high enough if you are tall
- Normal screens where you can see digits usually last a lot longer than an LCD screen, so if you want to have something that will last a lifetime without having to get the LCD repaired then forget an LCD screen.
Elliptical/Cross Trainer:
- Typically a center drive or rear drive elliptical is better and make sure you spend more than 3000 AED.
- You need an elliptical with enough resistance, the levels mean nothing because you could have 40 levels that don’t provide enough resistance at its maximum or you could have 10 levels which would provide an extreme amount of resistance at its peak. Look for something that you can do internval training on so that the maximum level is one that you couldn’t do more than 3 minutes on without stopping.
Join a Gym
What are your choices? The best place to start is somewhere like this site, it has a quick but thorough article of the best gyms in the UAE: https://goodness.me/city-guides/3992/best-gyms-dubai
Some of the ones I like the best is Gym Nation for budget gyms with great equipment minus the fluff.
Fitness First if you want to go to different branches, maybe you travel round the UAE all the time or maybe internationally and you NEED a gym in the part of the city where you are, the Fitness First is then perfect for you.
24/7 Fitness has a very impressive gym and then there is Binious gym for serious weight training.
Start a Sport – Maybe One You Never Thought Of
If you want to do a traditional sport and you’ve been working too hard to have friends, or is that only me!
Here are some interesting things you can try in the UAE to keep fit.
1. Parkour
Now doesn’t that look interesting? You Bet!
Parkour DXB do some great classes and coaching if you want to explore this funky way to get fit.
2. Salsa classes
What a great way to stay fit, have fun and maybe find some romance!
There are loads of options; you can just google ‘Salsa Dubai’ and multiple options pop-up.
3. High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) with Floats
This cool workout is great, you use a mat that is on the surface of a swimming pool, then the super trainer pushes you through a HIIT mega workout. Check out floatuae.com for more info.
4. Trampolining at Bounce UAE
Ur friends at Bounce will provide you with one hell of a time and you can get fit and lose weight at the same time.
There is a structure to this awesome and super fun workout, they don’t just put you on a trampoline and leave you, there’s a coach and a system they use to help you get progressively better at trampolining and help you achieve your health and fitness goals.
5. Cycling at Al Qudra
I know the summers are hot but maybe you are an early riser, so get out of bed at 4 or 4.30 am and get to Al Qudra.
There is bikes to hire, changing rooms and everything you will need to hit the road.
6. Kitesurfing
What a wonderful thing to do, exercise and be at one with nature. Did you know natural water like sea and lakes have a very positive stimulatory effect over your parasympathetic branch of your autonomic nervous system, that’s the part that helps you create health and recover from stress.
