FIT AND WEALTHY
Is an £18,000-a-year gym membership the preserve of those able to throw money at looking good without the graft, or a wise investment to future-proof your health?
Step inside London’s exclusive biometrics-driven gym to see how the 1% train
Acamera is trained on me, recording my every movement, as I lay cocooned in a white coffin-like contraption inside a room that could have been blueprinted by NASA. The slick machinery whirs gently around me like surround sound. I’m having an
MRI – an abbreviation that, under normal circumstances, would induce an anxiety spiral about the state of my health. But these aren’t normal circumstances. For starters, there are no red flags about the state of my health. And from the soft-navy PJS protecting my modesty to the samba music pulsing through my noise-cancelling headphones, this luxury reimagining of an MRI experience couldn’t be further removed from the NHS equivalent. As it happens, the former has been designed to ensure I don’t end up needing the latter.
This is the new London outpost of Lanserhof, the latest offering from the iconic German-austrian medical spa empire beloved of Victoria Beckham, Gwyneth Paltrow and Cara Delevingne. In an industry rife with fads and pseudoscience, few wellness brands elicit quite the same respect as Lanserhof. Since the famously futuristic health group was founded – fittingly, in 1984 – it’s become synonymous with scientific kudos, luxury and longevity. Those in the know, and with the requisite
bank balance, flock to the three existing outposts – rural resorts in Austria’s Tirol and Germany’s Tegernsee, as well as an urban branch in Hamburg – to experience a unique and rigorous approach to looking after the body. Now, Lanserhof has brought its reputation for revitalising the tired limbs of the rich and the weary minds of the A-list to the red-brick walls of London’s Mayfair. It’s set up shop within exclusive members’ club The Arts Club to offer a Lanserhof At The Arts Club package (herein referred to as LATAC, because time is money), offering an annual bespoke health membership fee of £6,500, rising to £18,000 for the ‘ultimate’ package – that’s on top of the £1,500 joining fee. Incidentally, if you just want to use the facilities and join the studio classes without the tailored approach, that’ll set you back £4,000 a year. It’s the promise, printed on goldembossed promotional material, of a ‘healthier, happier and more energetic, longer life’ that drives me to enter into negotiations worthy of a Hollywood talent agent in a bid to land a free trial.
Success: a few weeks later, I’m greeted at Lanserhof’s spanking new Dover Street fortress by communications manager Nazrin Ibadova in a slick reception that feels more luxury hotel than gym. Youthful, preened staff glide around the minimalist space as if on air; one takes my coat, another hands me a ginger shot. For a self-employed journalist who usually begins a self-care session punching in a code at a local 24-hour gym, it’s a welcome that makes me feel like I’ve arrived. Ibadova leads me to the ground floor members’ lounge. ‘This was all shot at our Tegernsee location,’ she says, gesturing at floorto-ceiling photos of Bavarian woodland so in-focus I can all but feel the pine cones crunching beneath my feet.
A ‘no phones’ sign, presumably to preserve the serenity with maximum efficiency, and menu of ‘energy cuisine’, featuring a £21 ‘fitness chicken burger’ and £5 ‘happy sleep tea’, confirms this is no place for casual catch-up cappuccinos.
Wallpaper-worthy interiors and serene surrounds aside, it’s the medical promise that seems to set LATAC apart from its high-end rivals, such as Equinox (£4,200 annual fee) and Third Space (£1,800). There’s an impressive roll call of experts on the payroll – from GPS to physiotherapists; nutritionists to osteopaths – many of whom are ex-harley Street or poached from rival companies – covering sports science, orthopaedics and cardiology, as well as functional and naturopathic medicine. They use state-of-the-art equipment and groundbreaking research findings to interpret reams of data to diagnose strengths and weaknesses in the way a client’s body is functioning, before translating this data into a bespoke training plan. ‘We use medical precision to tell our members exactly how to exercise,’ Dr Sebastian Kunz tells me in his all-white office, which wouldn’t look out of place in the pages of Architectural Digest. A former footballer turned orthopaedic and trauma surgeon – now LATAC medical director – Dr Kunz came around to the Lanserhof way of thinking after conducting a string of identikit knee replacements in a German hospital, all of which could have been avoided had the patients been advised to strengthen certain muscles years prior.
And so back to my MRI, which is part of the LATAC induction. The machine flags ‘deficits’; my muscle levels are good, but I’m told my right leg contains more muscle than my left, an imbalance that’s also reflected in the way I move. And while my visceral, liver and subcutaneous fat levels are in the healthy ‘green’ zone, there’s room for improvement. A 3D body scanner calculates my basal metabolic rate in just 35 seconds before creating a physiological avatar, which resembles a podgy character from The Sims. The assessments get more surreal in the Spine Lab with biomechanist Michael Baedorf, where a pod – developed by the aerospace industry to measure curvature of the spine – tips me upside down. In the similarly space-age Movement Lab, dozens of high-speed cameras analyse my gait as I walk, then run, on a treadmill loaded with sensors. My core strength is deemed good from most angles, but Baedorf identifies an instability in that area, which it would be beneficial to correct, and my hip abductor is ‘moments’ higher on the right side, meaning one side of my body is working harder than the other, reiterating the diagnosis of lopsided. It sounds unconcerning, if not a little funny, until I learn that such snags affect both my everyday movement and my training and, if ignored, could manifest in long-term injury. A couple of hours later –
‘We use medical precision to tell our members exactly how to exercise’
‘That longevity can be bought at a price leaves me feeling uneasy’
and well and truly inducted – I feel like I’ve spent the day in hospital, albeit a luxury one. ‘The word “medical” can have negative connotations – people worry they’re ill,’ says Dr Kunz. ‘But what we’re doing here is using tools to improve an already “well” person’s health. Conducting lots of tests before our members even enter the gym means we can guide the programme that’s designed and put into action by our PTS.’
A CLASS ABOVE
These trainers occupy the gym floor, though to call it such is a disservice because it feels more like a penthouse suite. The latest Technogym equipment is pristine and, while the rest of London is queueing for a cross trainer or wiping someone else’s sweat from the handlebars (cheers, Dave), I suspect I won’t need to bring my own wet wipes to LATAC. The changing rooms are another level. Single-setting hairdryers? I raise you Dyson. Phone on 10%? Charge it in your locker. Stinky kit? If you’ve opted for the ‘ultimate’ package, you can use the butler service, which will launder it and return it to you smelling fresher than a Bavarian pine forest.
With headspace freed from the tyranny of exercise admin, I’m already feeling 50% more chill than usual when heading into my first training session. My plan is designed using LATAC’S next-gen diagnostics and, given my experience so far, I’m concerned it’ll be complicated. Happily, my worries prove unfounded. The machines see me coming, via a personal microchip containing my bespoke training plan, which means when I log my arrival, I’m immediately directed to the chest press, which automatically adjusts to my height and tells me how many reps to do at the set resistance. Next, the machine tells me, I’m to head to the free weights area to complete weighted hip thrusts, squats and crab walks – complete with video demo guidance. As well as telling me what to do, the machines record my movements and form, which will be fed back to my assigned PT, who’ll monitor my progress. Mine is called Samson, one of the top PTS working the luxury London fitness scene, who’s intent on keeping his client list disappointingly under wraps. Spoilsport.
It feels like an episode of Black Mirror, but by weeks two and three, any concerns I have about being recruited for the first series of Big Brother: The Fitness Edition are steamrolled by my fitness gains. I’m lifting heaver, I’m running faster – and I have the microchip data to prove it. It makes sense, of course. Previous fitness streaks have seen me squinting at my phone with a weight in one hand while attempting to execute a move, or replicating the reps of an instructor in a dimly lit, packed-out HIIT class. But Lanserhof does the thinking for you; summon the motivation to make it through the front door (the ginger shots don’t hurt) and you can disengage your brain completely.
AT WHAT COST?
It’s easy to baulk at the numbers that get thrown around here. I calculate that my cryotherapy sessions for muscle recovery – during which I stand in a chamber at -60°C for 30 seconds, followed by a period of 90 seconds at -110°C – work out at an eye-watering £33 per minute. And my ears prick up, post-facial, when a 30-something woman with a haircut best described as ‘expensive’ drops £250 on a pot of face cream without blinking. ‘Do you guys take Amex?’ she asks in a transatlantic drawl, before whipping out her gold plastic. Clearly, there’s a market for this. It seems indicative of a move by the fitness industry to offer services grounded in pioneering science, but wrapped up in a luxury package. While the London scene is becoming more premium by the year, gym-goers are becoming evermore discerning, less sold on hip-hop and wacky classes and more concerned with guaranteed results. When boutique studios like 1Rebel are charging £250 a month for unlimited classes, paying roughly double that for a service that also promises to futureproof your form and perhaps add years to your life doesn’t seem so much of a stretch.
Thinking of the overstretched NHS, while such preventative healthcare for the super rich is commendable, it’s perhaps more needed by the have-nots. That longevity can be bought at the right price leaves me feeling uneasy. During our training sessions, I can’t help but feel that Samson – who has a family member working as an NHS midwife – agrees. He speaks of his hope that Lanserhof technology will filter down to
the masses, though that may well be a pipe dream. The ICAROS – a machine that allows me to ‘fly’ through the Austrian alps using a virtual reality headset while strengthening my core through a range of modified planks – costs £6,000, and Samson points out that it can only be used safely with a member of staff present, meaning it’s unlikely to become a fixture in budget gyms or the living rooms of the average exerciser.
As my brief membership nears its expiry, I’m aware that I’ve been mollycoddled in luxurious fitness bubble wrap; the hard work of thinking about what moves or exercise type to actually do is carried out by others, giving me the headspace to focus on my form. But a shift in mindset from viewing my health as something I’m solely responsible for to one delegated out has been a welcome change. And I’m returning to my code-punching PAYG gym with a better knowledge of my body, lopsided flaws and all. A month isn’t long enough to see this preventative approach bear real fruit, and there’s a presumption rather than concrete evidence that taking such a route will garner the rewards claimed by advocates. Indeed, there’s no refund if it doesn’t. But we need companies like Lanserhof to prove that a preventative approach works if it’s ever to be rolled out to the rest of us. If this is the future of fitness, I’m keen to join the one percent club.