A Few Words from Ultimate Performance Founder Nick Mitchell…

“Sometimes dreams can come true…

All my life I’ve had a vision of creating the perfect gym. I could picture it clear and bright in my mind’s eye. The sun would be 

beaming through high, wide windows and the ocean would be visible on the horizon. I grew up reading about the mystique of California gyms that left the dark and dingy English gyms quite literally in the shade.

I have always judged gyms by their dumbbell racks. Are the dumbbells properly maintained, always in weight order, are they heavy (really heavy, not 50kg BS heavy), is the dumbbell rack so long that you need binoculars to properly see the end? The answer to all these questions has to be a resounding affirmative.The gym floor would be expansive, with lofty ceilings and pristine equipment hand picked for being the best of its class. There would be no compromise. We would have no abductor machines, Bosu Balls, or recumbent bikes. Every piece of equipment would scream “results” and “hard work”. You could walk past each machine, bench or weight and think back to an exquisitely excruciating set that you’d experienced.

There would be an outdoor weights section. Yes, I know this is as likely as a unicorn sighting at a vegan professional bodybuilding Convention, but a man can dream. Almost as cool as my outdoor “Muscle Beach” vision was the idea that we could have an outdoor “play” section to generally step back in time with a bit of primal training. Throwing things, pushing things, pulling things…generally just letting it rip in the outdoors. And of course, as always in our dreams, the sun is shining.

And the people using my dream gym? Maybe the odd pro bodybuilder would come and visit, but I’d never imagined a bodybuilding gym full of monsters. In my daydreams I’d be walking through the gym and it would be filled by regular people, nothing more and nothing less. The difference being they were all training properly. No half rep rubbish. No contra-lateral duck presses with a half pike and anal twist. No talking on mobile phones on the gym floor. A place where people came to throw weights around, not a place where a certain type of person can throw his own weight around!

I love every one of my UP Personal Training gyms around the world, but they don’t tick all the boxes I’ve listed above. How couldthey when they are in prime districts of cities like Hong Kong, Singapore or London? However, when the time came to search for a UP site in Marbella, I wondered if it might be possible, and even sensible, to do something a little bit different and 

open a commercial gym, one that members could use without working with a UP Personal Trainer.

Out of this idea, Ultimate Performance Marbella was born. It is the very first UP gym that opens its doors to members of the public. It is every serious trainer’s idea of a dream gym. The equipment, selected by myself and none other than iconic Olympic Strength Coach Charles Poliquin, is superlative, the atmosphere electric (we will coach everyone who needs it, but if after time and persuasion you still train like an antisocial idiot you will be asked to leave), the classes brutal (car pushing, log lifting, stone throwing, sled pulling…all outdoors on 5,000sq feet of astro turf), and your outcome will reflect our motto – “where the excuses stop and the results begin”!”

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Yours in Health and Wellness,