The premier of Fitness With Friends took place at Treehouse Studio Pilates & Yoga on Saturday April 26th, 2016.
There is no better way to start off your Saturday than to meet with other people in a studio for a challenging workout, followed by a big healthy lunch and a nutrition seminar!

I kicked off the event at 12.20pm with a 10’ warm-up, followed by a 60’ full body circuit workout. The participants all came from different backgrounds and had different experience with functional training equipment like kettlebells, steps, TRX, bosu balance boards, dumbbells, barbells and medicine balls that we used. All of them had one thing in common, however: they were determined!

I split the studio in 11 stations and the participants worked in pairs. I took them through a full body workout, including exercises for the quadriceps, glutes, hamstrings, calves, core, upper back, chest, shoulders, biceps and triceps, as well as HIIT drills to get their heart pumping. The spirits were high and there was a lot of sweat shed while the music was pumping. We finished up with some planks and plank variations for the core and a nice and easy cool-down so that their body could gradually return to the pre-exercise state.

I then left the boys and girls to treat themselves to an epic salad from Foodie Funk. Katerina Meintani had prepared a healthy mountain of food for each one of us, which included fresh spinach, rocket and grated carrots, brown rice, grilled chicken, orange chunks and some roasted almonds, along with a healthy and tasty dressing made of lemon, honey and ginger. Lunch also included energy bars, which were packed by Katerina in bags of two, perfectly suiting the “fitness with friends” message of the event: you had to share your bar with another participant!

Marianna Papakonstantopoulou was up next with her nutrition seminar, where she took us through nutrition 101, highlighting the importance of carbohydrates in order to sustain athletic performance, the necessity to drink adequate amounts of water and the positive impact that having small frequent meals has on our metabolism, to name a few. We then opened up the discussion for questions and touched on various things fitness, nutrition and foodie!

We called it a day at 15.00pm, having taken over Treehouse Studio for 2.5 hours! I sent the participants away with a healthy goodie bag from Bacharopoleio. This is an organic products shop run by Nikos Doxastakis in Heraklion, Crete, Greece, which has all products everyone who is serious about their health needs to know about! The goodie bag included an “athletes’ breakfast”, organic pea protein powder and guarana-ginseng tea! I couldn’t wait for next morning to try everything out!

All in all, it was the best start to Fitness With Friends, introducing participants to circuit training, squats, lunges and other compound exercises, feeding them with healthy food, educating them on nutrition and encouraging high spirit for the summer season 2016!

Thank you so much for your ongoing support and trust! You’re the best.
Looking forward to the next one!

Evi