A look back at the year of 2010.

In 2006 WGC created a database and web site to record the split timings and report on events and the Gym Athletes who take part in the sport of Gym X Training. For the first years it acted as a free web site, visiting events, photographing and reporting on the Gym X Training calendar, so that members could see clear defined leader boards and easily track results. But its overall game plan was to try and get more people, doing more Gym X Training events in more gyms. And in 2011 there are four brand new events to add to the Calendar, with the added inclusion of two Cross Fit Challenges thrown in.

World Gym Challenge gives opportunity to thousands of members of gyms  and personal trainers to engage in a sport and see real results published in fitness. It is about finding the unique quality of somebody who trains in a gym , but wants to see their training for a reason , whereby they will actively see a measure of fitness and work on improving it or maintaining it at a very high level.

2011 sees a new chapter in Gym X Training finding six members who represent Team Fitness from any one gym. And you may ask your self why why just six? It's fairly easy really , six is probably the amount from any one gym of over 4000 members who are fit enough to compete and have the motivation to train for Gym X Training events. The rest , well lets just say they can watch and return to whatever training plan they do - they just will not get the results that those who compete in Gym X Training do.

2010

The Camberley Ice Breaker

In the first part of 2010, the Camberley Ice Breaker took part. Run by Lloyd Millichap who had been featured heavily on the WGC web site because of his passion to see clients perform to their max in Gym XT events. This was the second year the challenge had taken place and one that had found itself a new location in Collingwood College 's new Sports Hall, a brand new custom built spacious and well laid out gym, with changing rooms and plenty of room to compete. A far cry from the previous year in the very cold surrounding's of Collingwoods School indoor sports hall, which had no heat and was the coldest day of the year in Feb. Due to the weather and it being the first event of the year 'The Ice Breaker' was initiated into The UK Gym Challenge Fitness Series.

Physique TV showed extensive coverage for a solid month in Dubai, from the footage captured by WGC and interviews with those who took part and members could watch this on line at that time.

This event will be remembered for the clever introduction of shuttle runs, which had been used in Dubai's Fitness Challenge the previous year, but not as far as I am aware in a Gym X Training event before, and surprisingly everybody commented after on how hard they were and what a difference it made to the treadmill.

This will also be the year that saw Rich Vint begin to dominate the Gym X Training scene. The absence of Chris Lord had left a void in the top seeds taking part in events and the sport was struggling a bit to promote the fittest Gym Athletes in the UK. Rich had been climbing the ranking steadily in 2009 and 2010 seemed that after an achilles operation he had recovered significantly to train and conquer the events for 2010.

A successful day was remembered by all and The Ice Breaker returns to us this year at New Romney in Kent at the Marsh Academy on 6th Feb, where online applications will be available soon.

The Brighton Nut Cracker

In his last year as a competitor in X Training Jamie Spencer set up the second of his Nut Cracker events at Coral Health and Fitness in Brighton. With a Course record being set the previous year by Chris Lord of 13.59, there was one questioned that needed to be answered this year - could Rich Vint claim a new record?

The day progressed and we saw a welcome return to Gym X Training from Claire Boyce and who raced Penny Bunton in a thrilling back and forth race, with Penny coming out on top. Top three place between Kelly Friel, Rebecca Nicholas and Sarah Connolly was far closer with only 30 seconds separating the female leader boards. But everyone was asking could the record be broken?

Racing for the first of their scheduled clashes Richard Vint and Alex Woods set off at a lightning pace on the bike and the final time had Rich winning on most stations with a just under a minute lead at the finish. Lordy's performance could not be bettered on this occasion with a very tired Richard Vint having to rest on the final 'shoulders' and the result being a 37 second lead.

It is such a shame that 2011 will not see the return of The Brighton Nut Cracker and Lordy's Course record as I am informed by Jamie that he was unable to secure the venue.

The Marlow 'Tough Enough' Gym Challenge

The turning point for regular Gym Challenges, was initiated by well respected personal trainer Daryl Fitches. Introducing jumps and combination compound exercises into a very cleverly thought out race. Initially this met opposition and in some cases, regular competitors turned away disagreeing with its format, but WGC was intrigued. Was this going to be a very costly disaster. or a new approach into a fresh outlook in how to create a new look into the Gym X Training Challenges?

Well the proof the pudding was in the eating as they say and a small band of devoted Gym Athletes set out to try this new challenge.

The overall of verdict was a resounding success, although trying to encourage more locally to join in the fun of Gym XT Daryl found that it takes a certain breed to compete, nonetheless a great day and the numbers that attended were quite low, but on the high's saw a certain Cat Trentham emerge and race Louise Head in a thrilling toe to toe - edge of the seat race, with Cat winning in the final drive of the legs on the Versa Climber.

Gorton Grueller

Due to previous engagements WGC could not attend the Gorton Grueller. It was as always run with slick precision by the club that brings Gym XT to Manchester in one of the UK's most famous events The Gorton Grueller.

Topic of the day was could Rich Vint beat Ben Strouds existing WGC Hall of Fame record of 17:07 and all eyes were fixed on that time. Ben was known for his incredible upper body endurance and Rich for his running, could he narrow his previous years result of 18:56 ? Well for those who were there I was informed it was a brilliant attempt, but with an extra minute on the 60 shoulder press (Ben's time was 1.26 and Rich's 2.17) The two second differential went to Ben keeping his record and Rich finishing on 17:09.

The Ultimate Gym Athlete

In early 2010, I started ringing up gyms in the midlands to find a venue suitable to host the Ultimate Gym Athlete. It seemed like a thousand phone calls later when eventually Abbey Sports and Leisure finally agreed to host the event. A new pricing structure of £10.00 was also introduced to encourage people who may way travel several hundreds of miles to ease the burden of costs. In fact this had a good effect from three guys (Graeme Acheson, Greg Lucy and Neil Weir) who flew in from Belfast to compete and it was great seeing Gym X Training extending out and finding new and very able Gym Athletes from other corners of the UK.

Claire Boyce and Cat Trentham were the only female entries and they both pitched in time keeping and judging and showing basically a whole industry that to be fit and get results in fitness, you have to take part in events - only then can you really take the title UK's Ultimate Gym Athlete - and Claire Boyce from Basildon David Lloyd took the title this year.

Alex Woods came down from Edinburgh and if we had had a few entries from Wales, then this truly would have been a UK event embracing all UK Gym Athletes

Much has already been said of Richard Vint on Latest News over the last year, his steady progression into dominating this years leader boards and much talk of the UGA record being broken; set in 2008 by Neil Cameron and one that could possibly be broken this year - unfortunately this was not to be the case , no matter how good Richard was, he could not compete seriously using the older version Life Fitness bike. This didn't stop a classic race taking part between Alex and Rich, which saw two finely tuned gym athletes battling it out to see who would become The Ultimate Gym Athlete 2010 and one that did not disappoint - anybody who knows about treadmill running will note the final time for these two athletes that saw a fitting finale to the year end for WGC.  Rich's finale run of 3.47 is the fastest ever recorded on any WGC event.

Bootcamp, Kettlebell, Tornado Ball, Vipr Training, TRX ....

The list goes on ! However you want to get fit in 2011 there has to be a measure of fitness to show that you are getting results. In the years of training in a gym, unless you are competing in Body Building, there has never been a sport for fitness and the above mentioned are good training tools, but pure results and competition? Then no - if you use one piece of equipment long enough then you will be excellent in that one piece of kit - I'm not convinced of Vipr as a revolutionary change in direction in getting the ultimate workout, but I am convinced new and innovative products will advance Gym Challenges to produce an overall high performance of training - so use these products to enhance your overall performance, but please do not make them out to be the industry's saving fitness tool, because in ten years from now, there will be another, yet to win a Gym X Training event, you will have to be versatile in all the elements of fitness, not just one product and not in a training program that does not produce results within the area that you train - the gym.

2011

So what of 2011 ? It remains to be seen. Gary Nicholas from Calso in Kent has reopened the Grand Prix which sees the very successful Fitness Extreme event in Luton resurface, also included is The Hampshire event which Ty Whitlock (right) very successfully ran this year and is looking in to its 20th year celebratory event at the end of 2011.

WGC goes on to break new ground in new events and new challenges in bringing to Gym X Training Team Events and fitness points, which are aimed at the more serious gym athlete wishing to represent their gym on a new exciting scale and the reason for this is quite simple, there is no where that the gym athlete can gain more exposure than on this web site. This is the reason the web site was built to expose the gym industry's best - The Gym Athlete.

New events will create a sport for gyms.

Moving on ...

With all matters concerning fitness WGC acknowledges that Gym X Training plays its role in forging healthy competitions within gyms. For a sport to be forged within in its own walls and create a platform to excel and expose those that train in a gym. It is why a certain individual contacted me from the Lebanon and through reason has explained the importance of healthy competition to clear a pathway ahead in creating a sport of 'Fitness' and Nadim Nassif will play an important role in WGC and its direction for creating a sport for gyms. Nadim will contribute as a writer to the WGC Blog Page in the new year. But essentially what we are agreed on is that Cross Fit Championships capture the World's Fittest Athlete and the role of WGC is to create competition within gyms, which will drive more individuals into competing in gym based sports and ultimately towards The Cross Fit Championships to see the title 'The Worlds Fittest Athlete'

Lightning Profile Nadim Nassir

Nadim Nassif, Lecturer and Advisor of the Physical Education and Sports Department in Notre-Dame University (NDU) in Lebanon

RESEARCH AND PUBLICATIONS

Nassif, N. (2010). Sport Policy in Lebanon, 1975 to 2004, LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing GmbH & Co.KG. PROJECT NUMBER: 12391. ISBN: 978-3-8433-6682-3.

Nassif, N. (2010). Sport in Lebanon from 1991 to 2010: Interference of Politics and Absence of Policy, World Congress of Middle-Eastern Studies. Barcelona, Spain.

Nassif, N. (2010). Submission of 2 entries for the Encyclopedia ABC-CLIO: “History of Basketball in Lebanon” and “Ethnicity and Sectarianism in Divided Societies in the Middle-East”.

Nassif, N. (2009). Submission of the chapter “Sport Governance in Lebanon” for the book (publication in progress) “Sport Governance in the World” (Author: Claude Sobry).

Nassif, N. (2006). Sport in Lebanon from 1920-2004, British Society of Sport Historians Annual Meeting. University of Lancaster, United Kingdom.

Fitness, does not know languages, colour or creed. It does not discriminate in gender, but it does acknowledge that events can operate on a world wide platform and input from other areas, not just the UK were important into a creation of a sport. Nadim's objective views from extensive research , make well for objective opinion to cast subjective thought into the creation of a sport of fitness and I would like to thank him on behalf of all WGC members for his contribution and expertise in such matters and look forward to working with Nadim in future months.

Who to look out for in 2011

WGC is always looking to discover the raw talent laying behind bars in the industry. Not being given the chance to perform and not recognised by the industry that created it The Gym Athlete is in many ways the very best of any gym - and the up and coming very best are going to be featured on WGC in 2011.

Sanny Taylor from Scotland will make an impact this year.

Troy Russell - Body & Mind Leisure in Canterbury.

Cat Trentham - Fitness Model and Gym Athlete

Craig Horsfield - Gorton Fitness First

Richard Vint - Dominating performance of 2010 - Fitness First Fleet

Gary Nicholls, Mike Jones, Paul Morton - The best of the Vet Category

Claire Boyce - From David Lloyd Basildon

Paul Smith - Does not belong to a gym

Doug Harris - LA Fitness (Canary Wharf)

Ben Williams - Hampshire Esporta

Sarah Connolly - Calso

Kelly Friel - Hampshire Esporta

Rebecca Nicholas - Calso

Trudy Hawksworth - LA Fitness Derby

There will be many others who will emerge and World Gym Challenge.com is there to give them a platform and recognise their sporting achievements throughout the year, with continued reports. photographs and don't forget our increasing popular You Tube channel too. All of the above are members of WGC and have dominated events in 2010 , or who are showing passion and determination in helping to forge a sport for gyms.

And finally ...

Few people will realise what it takes to create the words that go into a news release. I am not a journalist and I do not proclaim to be very good at what I do, but nobody can take away from me the passion that I have to see a sport develop for gyms and I have one person to thank for her endless support and energy in her relentless devotion to the sport of Gym X Training, entering results into Leader Boards and providing the admin qualities that are needed in pushing this sport forward and I thank Jill on behalf of those who have witnessed somebody who gets the job done, yet takes no reward. Thank you Jill and here's to another successful year in Gym X Training.

To anybody who competes in a Gym X Training Challenge and has had the courage to perform in front of a crowd and race in a one to one non contact physical challenge which is as hard as any Marathon we salute you. Gym X Training is not about dancing and swinging your hips its about getting results in fitness, which only a very small and determined set of spirited gym members can do. It is about the training and about the rewards you get. It is about maintaining your fitness and improving it. It is about being there to support your friends and gym training partners. But importantly it is about you the gym athlete who needs a platform to perform.

From everybody at World Gym Challenge.com, may we wish you all a very Happy New Year and keep posted on all events that will be posted on the events page of World Gym Challenge.com, because even if you can't make the event, the database is there for you to try them at your own gym and see how you would have compared against those that have dared to enter.

Best wishes to you all

Sean Blyth

Managing Director

World Gym Challenge.com Ltd.