With fitness craze after craze, it’s hard to know what class is right for you nowadays. Do you prefer a spinning class? Yoga? or are you brave enough for some Insanity?? Well this week, Frost tried out Scott Ashley’s revolutionary fitness class HOLIXIR right on the exclusive, still to be finished London City Island by Ballymore.

I must admit i’m an absolute fiend for trying out new classes and anything to do with working out but straight away this was going to be a workout like no other as we were not working in a simple gym studio in a soul-less gym but the setting was on the site of the new London City Island development. We were driven to the site which is currently being dubbed, ‘mini manhattan’ and after passing through the dust and the builders, were greeted by the gorgeous Scott Ashley in a stunning showroom.

Scott Ashley the Celebrity Personal Trainer has worked with everyone from Duncan James to Valentino and coming from such an athletic, hardworking background it’s no surprise that he has such a host of loyal clients. As well as working with celebs, Scott explained he had lots of experience working with people with eating disorders to Type A personalities creating a bespoke approach to each individual. As well as having his own pool of clientele, Scott is also resident trainer at Café Royal on Regent Street.

Living in fast-paced and constantly evolving times, what I was most intrigued to know about was the question of how to keep motivated and stay on form when you’re on the road. Scott explains that staying diligent as to what your consuming is the most important thing. With a lot of his clients on tour all the time he explained that the hardest thing is to stay away from the allure of a fast-food restaurant or rest station goodies. If you can’t find any healthy options then it is worth carrying healthy snacks with you. In terms of diet, I wanted to know what Scott absolutely stayed away from, refined sugar and wheat were at the top of the list. With wheat increasing bloating and triggering huge spikes in insulin it’s no wonder someone who’s looking to improve tone and fitness would curb the wheat intake. Before we took Holixir for a spin, we were also interested to know what it was all about, described as a holistic body weight workout Scott went on to explain that this is a multi disciplined workout which will stretch you and go on to improve posture, strength, flexibility and give you a better metabolism. With that, we were lead to an open roofed terrace on a lovely sunny day to try it out.

So the class begins with a Yoga flow sequence designed to stretch out and warm up your muscles followed by core strength group exercises, Tabata training, Pilates and double stretching. Let’s not be deceived by the name which suggests it to be a gentle, holistic class, this class will really get you working up a sweat and setting your core on fire within 5 minutes. Some of the moves I found were similar to Insanity especially during the Tabata section, which is basically a High Intensity interval workout, but it didn’t make you shudder with dread at the thought of there being four more rounds of the same to go! The Pilates roll down exercises and double stretching to finish will save your sanity and this is a great way to end a workout if you’re working with a partner. The whole class was very social and also allowed you to motivate each other and everyone was left with a great sense of achievement after!

If you’re interested in giving the class a go, details on Scott Ashley and HOLIXIR can be found here;

http://www.scottashley.com/holixir/

London City Island by Ballymore, will be a new neighbourhood in London located a stone’s throw from Canary Wharf, the development will have 1700 homes as well as a host of restaurants, bars and private members club. More details can be found here;

http://www.londoncityisland.com