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Forget sweaty gyms, swipe cards and impersonal clubs with thousands of members. Exercising in the noughties is becoming a more personal and boutique experience. Not only are training sessions today tailored specifically to your needs, they're also being performed in the privacy of your very own home - either one-on-one or with a select group of friends.
Hot on the heels of mobile phones, mobile laptops, mobile music players and mobile pet pooches are mobile trainers; they're the latest chichi must-have of 2009. And because the trainer comes to you, there are no traffic hassles, no parking problems and, best of all, no pervy guy in the back row checking out your butt.
Personal trainer Simone Rank, who has qualifications from both New Zealand and Australia, has been visiting clients for individual sessions in their homes for nearly four years. She charges $60 an hour. While some of the houses she works at have their own purpose-built, fully-kitted-out gym, most training sessions are simply held wherever there's space - in lounges or even carports.
Twenty-four-year-old Rank, whose business is steadily growing, believes people's busy schedules are driving demand for such bespoke exercise programmes.
"Time management is definitely one of the main reasons," she says. "People don't have the time to travel to a gym and exercise and go back home. If a client has someone coming to their house for a half-hour session then it only takes half an hour of their time."
What's convenient for customers also happens to be cost-effective for the trainers. Working at private houses means they can keep their overheads low since they have no need to hire and fit-out premises. All the necessary equipment - free weights, boxing gear, Swiss ball and so on - fits neatly into Rank's car.
Desire for privacy is another reason people want to sweat and burn at home. "You get a lot of people who don't really feel comfortable in a big gym with lots of strangers looking at them," says Rank. Her Remuera-based client Vikki Maclean is one such person. With a been-there-done-that attitude to gyms, she was ready for a more intimate experience. "I'm not body-beautiful, I'm 49, I've had kids, I've got lumpy bits," she says. "I don't like parading in front of people."
In November Maclean, having decided she didn't want to be "fat and 50 and unfit" and with the goal of running the 2009 New York marathon, employed the services of Rank, who trains her twice a week - three times if Maclean's finances allow. "We do weights in the living room and boxing out in the garden," says Maclean, who books early-morning sessions to fit with her busy job as a head-hunter.
The fact that she knows Rank will turn up rain, hail or shine gives her the motivation she needs to exercise. "If she's going to be standing outside my door at 5.30 in the morning I don't think I can be slumbering in my bed," says Maclean, who admits she couldn't be trusted to journey to a gym at that hour of the day.
Jeannette Armstrong, of Westmere, was well ahead of the trend when she engaged a home trainer to keep her and husband John, 47, fit. For three years they've been working out together in their rumpus room twice a week at 6.30am. The Armstrongs find that by getting their supervised exercise out of the way at the same session in the morning, the evenings are free for some quality couple time.
Forty-four-year-old Jeannette, who's never had much luck persevering with gyms, subscribes to the theory that there's no wriggling out of exercise when your trainer pays personal visits. "He turns up at your doorstep and keeps you honest," she says.
It's not just gym-style fitness workouts that are supervised by mobile personal trainers. Disciplines such as Pilates and yoga are slowly moving out of the studios and into suburban living rooms and basements.
Katherine Bryant, 45, of Mission Bay attends weekly home-based Pilates classes with five other mothers from her daughter's year at school. The bespoke sessions, which have been running for two years, were initially timed to fit with the morning sleep of the hostess' youngest child. The social factor is also important; it's a guaranteed Wednesday morning catch-up for the six firm friends.
Bryant loves the "casual feel" of the group which costs $20 per person for the hour-long class and is usually held in the lounge once all the furniture has been moved out of the way. Weather permitting they may exercise outside or even beside the swimming pool - always under the expert guidance of their Pilates instructor Nicki Fussell.
Yoga instructor Asunta Ananda takes her lessons into private homes around the Mt Eden and Mt Roskill area when required; she charges $70 for a 90-minute personal session. Ananda, aged 44, says that often arthritis, back problems or old injuries cause people to feel they're not up to attending an off-site yoga class. One of her clients requested one-on-one lessons at home so she could practise her yoga privately while heavily pregnant.
The streets and parks of our more upscale neighbourhoods have also been colonised by fitness gurus intent on delivering a boutique experience. Sarah Tuck is a Fitness Institute of Australia-qualified personal trainer who has been energetically leading small packs of runners and walkers through the hills of Remuera a total of 10 times weekly for the last five years. She also gets her customers doing dips, lunges, press-ups and squats along the way.
For $18 per person, per hour, she aims to deliver a social fitness experience where people actually bond with each other. "No one would even say 'boo' to you," says the 41-year-old of her most recent stint at a gym. The camaraderie that builds up among Tuck's clients is enhanced by their commonalities; the typical early-morning runner is a city lawyer while it's the "after drop-off" private school mums who dominate her 8.45am walking sessions.
