Writer Kate Wills spent a week in LA, where health and fitness is more than a lifestyle choice, it’s practically a religion.
It’s 9am on a Sunday morning at Wanderlust Yoga in Hollywood and tribal drum music thrums from a huge speaker while women around me perform squats, burpees and star-jumps while screaming, grunting and sweating. This is The Class, currently LA’s hottest workout that’s loved by celebrities including Jennifer Aniston and Naomi Watts. Created by Taryn Toomey, who quit her job as a account executive at Christian Dior and Ralph Lauren to become a yoga teacher, The Class is one part HIIT, the other parts spiritual healing and scream therapy and it’s very, very LA.
For decades now, Los Angeles has been the epicentre of new fitness trends. Whether it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger at Muscle Beach (insider’s tip: it’s worth taking a trip to the outdoor gym in Venice to meet today’s iron- pumpers) or every incarnation of the city’s pilates-ballet-barre-boxing hybrids, LA is all about the exercise. So to experience this city like a local, you need to sweat like one. Literally, in the case of Shape House, an urban sweat lodge frequented by the Kardashians where you’re swaddled in an infra-red sleeping bag and left to sweat out your toxins – and burn 800 calories an hour. When I leave my dimly-lit hushed sweat pod my face is glowing like I’ve had a really good facial. I’m sold.
But I decide I should probably also work up a sweat by actually moving around, so I join a BlacklistLA run. Founded in 2013 by Erik Valiente, this group of joggers – sometimes upwards of 300 – run around the city spotting street art spots and making friends. It’s a great way to meet locals, Instagram some cool murals and get your fitness x at the same time. I stop for lunch at Cafe Gratitude, a vegan restaurant where Beyoncé and Jay Z recently celebrated the rapper’s birthday. To order from the plant- based menu, you say “I am…” and then the name of your dish. For example the kale salad I order is “Dazzling”. Saying “I am dazzling” to my waiter with a straight face is tricky, but the food is so tasty it’s worth it.
Dazzling is an appropriate choice of words given the next trend I’m trying – LazrFit. The rest of its kind – anywhere in the world – this brand- new workout combines the game Laser Tag with HIIT. Each player gets a target to strap on, which lights up when you get shot and a ‘laser gun’ to re at opponents as you move through the multiple levels of the gaming area. I’m so engrossed in ring my lasers that I don’t even notice how out of breath I am – or how much I’m sweating – and at the end my fitness tracker tells me I’ve burnt 600 calories. And most of that was probably from laughing.
LA may take fitness seriously, but the most popular workouts here come with a side- order of fun. At Cirque School, Hollywood, they teach a range of acrobatic skills, from contortion to trapezing, and everyone from Reese Witherspoon to Neil Patrick-Harris is a fan of its body-strengthening and toning abilities. I take an Aerial 101 class, and while not flying through the air with the greatest of ease, I do manage to hang upside down in the silks and balance somewhat gracefully in a trapeze. I also develop a newfound respect for Cirque du Soleil, because the following day my whole body aches.
Fitness fads are all well and good, but the tried and tested ways to exercise are classics for a reason. I drive over the hills to Surfrider Beach, Malibu for a ‘board meeting’ with Aqua Surf School. After squeezing into a wetsuit, which is a workout in itself, and posing for a selfie with the board (naturally), it’s time to take to the waves. Even though I only manage to stand up for a grand total of three seconds, it’s such an immense rush. I spend the night at the Malibu Beach Inn, a boutique hotel with a balcony that’s so close to the sand I could touch it. A roaring re, plush robes and a heated toilet seat that opens when you enter the bathroom takes this room to next levels of luxury.
The next morning I’m up with the sunrise and head to SunLife Organics for a Billion Dollar Meal. It’s a smoothie containing raw cashew butter, chlorophyll, Vitamin C crystals and aloe vera (among a million other ingredients). And it’s AED 103. I sip it as I stroll over to Zuma Beach for a rock-climbing lesson with Rock N Rope adventures. For someone who’s only ever done indoor bouldering before, scaling a real-life rock jutting over the ocean is certainly a challenge, but the views of the crashing Pacific take my mind off of how high up I am. Once down on rm sand (and still full from the most expensive milkshake in the world) I head for lunch on the pier at Malibu Farm Restaurant. The organic farm-to-table menu features some LA favourites – raw brussel sprout salad and salmon tacos.
It seems like every supermodel from Gigi Hadid to Doutzen Kroes swears by boxing to get their knockout bodies, so the next day I join the ght club at Lb4Lb Boxing. Trainer Terry Claybon got Jake Gyllenhaal in shape for his role in Southpaw (2015) and he takes no prisoners, leading us through a gruelling skipping warm-up into the ring for a series of uppercuts and jabs. It’s exhausting, and it’s all I can do to drag myself to Moon Juice, a beauty and wellbeing cafe loved by Gwyneth Paltrow for their ayurvedic dusts. I treat myself to a delicious Strawberry Rose Moon Juice for muscle recovery. I think I’m going to need it.
I nally head (or hobble) back to my hotel in Hollywood, the newly-opened and very hip Kimpton Everly, where I order a broccoli juice at the buzzing bar (well, this is LA) and relax by the rooftop pool. The bartender encourages me to hike the nearby Hollywood sign at dawn the next morning. But I opt to look at it from my window instead. I’ve done enough exercise for one week.
