Pure Gym has become the latest major gym chain to capitalise on the UK’s insatiable demand for extreme fitness challenges by announcing a new tie-up with the 2015 Reebok Spartan Race series.

The growing popularity of extreme fitness challenges such as Obstacle Course Racing (OCR) and triathlons has led to a raft of new training tie-ups, as health clubs scamper to offer their expertise and facilities to a booming market.

Endurance events have become increasingly prevalent in recent years, with extreme fitness identified as a major trend in the Fitness Foresight section of the 2015 Health Club Management Handbook (p.20)

Since then, the industry has seen Virgin Active announce an exclusive partnership with Tough Mudder, while low cost gym chain Xercise4Less recently unveiled a new tie-up with Total Warrior.

The latest tie-up between Pure Gym and Reebok Spartan Race sees Pure offer its users discounted entry to Spartan races and Spartan participants receiving discounted gym memberships. Spartan will also host up to 300 workout boot camps in Pure Gyms nationwide.

Reebok Spartan Race includes three options: a 5km ‘sprint’, a 13km ‘super’ and a 20km ‘beast’ course. To encourage competition Reebok Spartan Races feature chip timings and global rankings. Organisers have recently announced an extensive programme of events to run this summer, including Spartan’s first UK stadium-based event at the Allianz Park stadium in London, with competitors racing over 15 obstacles at the home of the Saracens.

“The Spartan Race Series is a fantastic partner to have as they are one of the leading obstacle event companies in the world. Participants of their events are big fitness enthusiasts which is obviously a great match for PureGym,” said the gym chain’s marketing director Paul Kirwin.

“PureGym is continuously looking at new ways to enhance our member offering, and we are looking forward to members taking advantage of the benefits that the Spartan Race Series partnership will provide”.

In addition to the workouts and discount offerings, the new collaboration will see Pure Gym and Spartan Race harness opportunities for cross-promotion across email databases, social channels and websites.

An exclusive interview with Humphrey Cobbold on Pure Gym’s future plans can be read in the April 2015 edition of Health Club Management magazine, pp. 30-34.

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