By Morissa Lindsay
Fitness enthusiasts in Barbados and the world can look forward to a unique and exciting workout program called Zombie Fit being launched in early August.
Olivia Gittens, a business development consultant and the brainchild behind Zombie Fit said they have already launched an online gym store and by summer the public can expect videos of the workout routines.
“In the next couple of weeks, we will be sitting down and doing different types of routines that anybody can do.
In the sense that you don’t have to go and get a gym membership, you don’t have to go buy equipment.
“Obviously in these hard economic times one of the things is staying mentally healthy and physically healthy and a lot of people wouldn’t have money to go to the gym.
Also, a lot of people wouldn’t even have the money to buy weights or even the extension bands. So, we want to create a platform where people could watch these videos and do the exercises while having fun,” Gittens said.
As she described how the idea came about and the reason for launching this online fitness program, Gittens explained, “It is funny how I registered the brand Zombie Fit because I was talking to my friend and I was like you know they got fit, then they got Paro Fit and Zombie Fit.
She was like what you mean by Paro fit and Zombie Fit? I was like, I saw a Paro being run by the police and this man was knee-high, not panting and the police were behind him panting. I was like that is a level of fitness no one can get.
“Then I was like there is a Zombie fit because you have to be like mentally strong. When you watch these Zombie movies you see people chopping off people’s heads and running all the time.
So, I like the idea of Zombie Fit and said you know what, I am just going to register it. So, I did that and I know it sounds weird but this is a level of fitness that is not normal.”
She added: “I met with my friend and I said I know you are really into fitness and I want to design a fitness routine for people that is not boring.
The reason being one of my struggles with fitness is that I end up having to pay
to go to a gym because I know if I don’t pay to go to the gym I don’t go.
And the only reason I pay to go to the gym is that I spend this money, I ain’t got no choice but to go exercise. But I don’t enjoy it. “Even though they got all these other options like Crossfit, Zumba, it never really appealed to me because I didn’t have a fun aspect to it.
But as I was talking to him about how funny these Zombie pictures are and how these people are running, so he was like, you know what, we could create a routine that is fun and would get more people into exercise.” In addition to finding a fun way for people to train, Gittens also shared how people can be part of Zombie Fit.
“The way the website is set up, we can upload the videos to the website and also social media. So social media would have shorter clips but the website will have longer videos. So, we would put up longer videos that are free so anybody could go watch. But then a person can also sign up for a small fee to have at least twelve videos a month sent to them that they can exercise.
“People are working remotely, they have funny schedules and they still have to take care of their children. So, we realised everyone is not going to be able to leave home. And because you can do it online, it is a fun concept and the whole family can take part in it.
“The reason I am working with two trainers is that we want to have a training manual so that if someone is interested in having this in their gym, they can come to us.
Schools could send their physical education team to us so we would train them and it would be a more exciting way for children to train,” Gittens said.
morissalindsay@barbadostoday.bb
