Fitness professional Corey Oliver is a man on a mission to get Abu Dhabi moving and with this cause in mind, has set up fitness solutions firm The Original Fitness Co
Fitness fanatic Corey Oliver has set himself the task of getting Abu Dhabi fit and healthy. Having established Physical Advantage in Dubai three years ago and built a reputation as the boot camp guru, he has now turned his attention to the UAE capital where he believes there is a need for fitness solutions targeted at nearly every sector of the market, from kids to corporates. Leisure Manager trotted down to Abu Dhabi and put Oliver through the paces firing him some questions about his new venture, which he claims is a one-stop shop for the emirate’s fitness requirements.
LM: What’s the background to Physical Advantage and The Original Fitness Co?
When we set up Physical Advantage we wanted to get people out of the gyms, the air conditioning and out of the normal boring circuit classes and get them outdoors on the beaches, in the fresh air. We wanted to give them different and innovative ways of exercising that they hadn’t experienced before.
We created boot camp fitness — a mix between boot camp and a fitness training session. In Dubai we have military boot camps but because Abu Dhabi is a military city, we drop ped this and re-branded it.
LM: What do the sessions entail?
It’s basically fitness training on the beach. It’s a four-week course, three sessions per week and the first session of every course is a testing session — maximum sit ups, push-ups and squats in a minute and a maximum bridging (plank) timed test. We’ll do a timed one-mile run as well. It’s hard evidence so we can tell how they’ve improved during the one-month course. We gear our training to improvements in all those areas. We use weighted bars filled with sand for lunges, squats, sit ups, push ups, bicep curls etc and we might make them run holding them or with the bar above their head.
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What other tailor-made programmes do you offer?
The boot camp is a unisex programme, but we also plan to launch a female-only programme called Wonder Woman Boot Camp Fitness. We are in talks with Abu Dhabi Helath and Fitness Club [regarding this programme] at the moment and hope to launch it to the public in September. The programme is similar to the unisex boot camp but designed to target female problem areas plus we only use female instructors.
LM: What about kids?
We have PhysEd Bootcamp Fitness for kids that runs twice weekly (afternoon sessions). They play games, sing songs, do relay races and they use the weighted bars, but with less sand than for the adults. We teach them discipline too and they get a lot out of it — it builds their confidence. We also educate the kids on what to eat, how to warm up and cool down and how much water they should drink when exercising.
LM: Why did you decide to set up a new venture when your Dubai business was going so well?
In Dubai I own half of Physical Advantage and that’s still going, but I’ve stepped away from that and done this on my own. I just have some different ideas, so this is an opportunity to do it Corey’s way.
LM: Why did you choose Abu Dhabi?
I have seen a niche in the market — we are the first fitness solutions company to establish ourselves in Abu Dhabi. At the moment there are only gyms — people see their trainer for an hour and that’s it, so we are providing people with focus and support for their health and fitness.
Our solutions include a nutritionist, body composition assessment testing, raw food supplements and we also have a GP here that we affiliate ourselves with, as well as a physiotherapist and chiropractor. We are a one-stop-shop for the consumer.
LM: What else can you offer the people of Abu Dhabi?
We have a mandate to get the people of Abu Dhabi moving and that includes the Emirati population. I really believe in introducing them to the fitness ideas that we in the Western World take for granted. We are looking at rolling out a government [fitness/wellness] strategy that will involve developing programmes for Emiratis who are obese or have metabolic syndrome or diabetes.
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Nov 11, 2009 , United Arab Emirates
its really great what you do at OFC, its exactly what a lot of people are missing here: working outside gyms, great working out instructiins, interactions with other people. It gives a lot of people a chance to realise that they could become strong, more fit and more motivated cause as you are al...