| The Husband and Wife connection |
 Amber and Nelson Anderson are a regular couple of gym users. They train at David Lloyd in Essex. They are married and have four kids between them, Nelson works in the Tarmac Industry (back breaking stuff) and Amber stays at home and looks after their four children. In their mid thirties and early forties it would be fair to say that they love to train and have that slight competitive edge between them. What they share in common is that they love to go to the gym.
They discovered X Training (pronounced Cross Training) about four years ago and have competed up and down the country at nearly every event that time will allow them to with their busy work and home schedule. These events are based solely in a gym and involve what you would normally do in any training session , running on a treadmill, rowing, cycling, weights, plyometrics, and abdominal work, but challenged into a race - that's right, all the stuff they normal do has now taken on a real sense of purpose and they can race each other, down a course of a set number of gym challenges. As events are normally run on the weekend , this gives them chance to travel, meet like minded people of equal fitness and train hard as the lead up to the event approaches - you could say on a par with triathlon, except they don't compete in Triathlon , its gym sports they are into and as husband and wife, they can now compete against one another - One on One racing
 That is what happened at this years Gymxtc ™ (Gym X Training Challenge) event supported by the Rochester Health Club, in Medway. Nelson raced Amber in the first ever husband and wife event. Nelson is a very good and accomplished X Trainer and so it would have been unfair for them to have a start time of the same proportion - so TDR (Time Delayed Racing) was introduced so that anybody can race anybody have a really exciting challenge in the process.
Ambers unofficial time was 20 mins
And so the race began 4 min's 34 seconds apart, with Nelson having to gain the time up. If Nelson broke 15 min's he increases his grading to Elite X Trainer, so you can bet he will give it a 100% effort. Husband and wife racing each other - its a first ! And it was great fun with hugs and kisses after meant that the time now decreases in the next race.
 Some partners take it to the next level - Amber and Nelson travel all over the UK - but Steve and Sue Regan Watts - compete in events all over the world and in their street they are known as the fit family. Heavily involved in the gym through most of the lives, Steve a Personal Trainer and Sue a Gym Instructor and Gym Manager in a Manchester College, have seem them for a number of years arrange the very successful Dragons Gauntlet - which was a X Training event run at Dragons (changed to LA Fitness) in Brooklands Manchester.
The X Training scene is such that it is beginning to spread it wings to foreign lands and particularly in Dubai. The fittest gym members in the world are highly respected in the middle east with Ultrafit, having one of their events in Bahrain and DB max hosting it's Best of the Best X Training Challenge in Dubai, to which Steve and Sue competed in both 2006 and 2007.
  Kelly and Simon Friel train out of the Hampshire Racquets and Health Club in Southampton. Both play this sport at the Intermediate level and aim to progress to the Open ( much harder level) when they are ready. They found a love for this sport when Ty Whitlock organised the Xmas Cracker at the Hampshire, initially for the Fire Service and then club as well. Ty, a accomplished X Trainer holds a a fitness title within the fire service and is a great motivator of people and this is displayed every year when the last race of the X Training season comes to a head at The Hampshire - and this is where Kelly and Simon discovered this great sport as they are both members there As often as they can they are now traveling all over the UK to compete - but have yet to race one one another in a WGC event.
  Trudi and Lance Armstrong compete together - Trudi as a master (40+) and Lance often just supporting her but sometimes competing too. Trudi a few years ago introduced her niece to the sport (Sam Saunt) and as a young individual competing for her first event went on to win the Intermediate 2006 Gym Ironman event at the tender age of 17 - it was a remarkable performance and Trudi and Lance played a massive influence in Sam's early appearance in X Training. Since those days Sam has moved on to other interests but Trudi and Lance are still very active in the sport and as with Steve, Su and Amber, Trudi has found herself on the shortlist for worldgymchallenge.com X Trainer of the year award. This award acknowledges those that over a period of the X Training year have contributed towards making the effort and time to compete and be great examples and ambassadors for the sport.
Some of the Elite female that compete have stuck with the sport for no other reason then pure love. Once you start to compete it's very hard to walk away from. What normally happens is that the individual has a massive desire to compete in more established sports, such as triathlon, or duathlon which is a huge shame because X Training is waiting to develop and desperately needs a new influx of competitors and in particular the female entrant. It's not that X Training is a poor mans sport - it relies simply on desire and passion in the gym to train hard and in some cases train very hard indeed. These athletes that perform all over the country are a shining example to each gym as to what is possible when you put your mind to it, because make no mistake, if you have ever entered in a X Training Challenge, your confidence is boosted to a level you would have thought of possible on completion - you have after all just completed a challenge to which the Gym Elite of the UK call X Training and that is a very unique sport to which only those that are absolutely passionate about gym sports, support and compete in.
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