Here are a few tips to help you get ultimate hang-time;

Stretch…

Make sure you warm up your muscles by increasing your heart rate, and stretch thoroughly before attempting to hang from the bar. Make sure you stretch your biceps and triceps, and loosen the muscles around your shoulders.

Arms and Shoulders…

Your arms should be straight above you, spaced just outside your shoulders. Push your shoulder blades together until your back feels tight. Don’t let your elbows spread out wider than your arms, the tighter they are to your body, the less stress is places on your arm muscles.

Lower Body…

Keep your legs cross and squeeze your glute muscles together, tighten your abs so your lower body feels like it’s not just weighing you down. Make sure your legs are aligned with the rest of your body, this way your body weight stays more compact.

Well there you have it, I hope this helps on your quest to conquer the Hang Tough Challenge, and don’t worry, if you want to hang like a child from a climbing frame, that’s fine too, the competition is open to people of all fitness and skill levels.

Remember, you can enter as many times as you like until the 31^st June, so there’s plenty of time to get those times up!

Inside Pure Gym you will find a vibrant and spacious gym floor, excellent changing facilities, modern showers, and our functional training zones with Kettlebells, Power Plate ® & TRX Suspension Trainers! Plus, Pure Gym Gateshead is filled with over 220 pieces of the latest gym equipment to cover all of your fitness requirements!

So get on down to Pure Gym Gateshead today, and experience world class gym facilities at an affordable price, with no contract!

At Pure Gym, we like to reward our members who refer their friends and family to join one of our gyms, with an exciting prize. Since starting the competition, we’ve given away high street vouchers, holidays and more recently a brand new Ford Fiesta!

Our new Refer a Friend competition is a two week all-inclusive holiday to Jamaica!! To be our next lucky winner and escape this brutal cold weather, all you have to do is refer your friends! Log into the members area, click on ‘refer a friend competition’ to get your unique referral code and pop in your friends name and email address.

The refer a friend competition, aimed to reward existing customers for recommending the gym to friends and family, has included some fantastic prizes such as holidays abroad and now a car.

Yvonne, 36, from Manchester said “I’m so happy to have won the fantastic prize of a new car! It’s such a surprise and perfect timing with Christmas just around the corner. I am a big fan of Pure Gym and their team, so I referred one of my friends recommending them to join and I ended up a winner! I am over the moon and it has definitely made my Christmas.”

Yvonne joined Manchester Urban Exchange Pure Gym in July 2011 in order build up fitness and maintain a balanced lifestyle whilst losing a few pounds. “I have been using the gym 3 times a week and have seen a definite improvement in my overall fitness.”

Pure Gym Urban Exchange gym manager Richard Annetts said:“We like to thank our members if they recommend us to friends and this was a great prize to be able to give Yvonne. We’ve got some equally exciting prizes coming up in 2012 so if you are a member, do come and speak to me or a member of the team.”

Look out for the refer a friend competitions in 2012 for your chance to win!

We understand that this is the time of year where everyone wants to get trim for Christmas and food temptation is all around us, but that doesn’t mean we have to forget about our fitness goals.

Here’s a scary fact for you! An average person consumers around 8,000 calories on Christmas Day!

We at Pure Gym we want to make sure that you enjoy Christmas, but also stay healthy…we wouldn’t want all your hard work to go to waste! Here are our Top 10 festive tips to keep you going:

1. Plan ahead. If you know you are going to have a heavy night or a lot to eat just make sure you balance that out with a detox day or a session at the gym in between.

2. Food swaps or alternatives are always a good way to keep control of what you’re eating. If you’re baking a Christmas cake, why not use a lower calorie sugar or decorate it with some seasonal fruit such as clementines?

3. Include some food swaps on the buffet table such as carrot and celery sticks. We’re not saying you can’t eat certain food types or have them available, we just want you to keep it balanced so there are options available for everyone. We all know that carrot and celery sticks doesn’t want to make you do cartwheels, but why not try something out with it?Add some flavour and spice to them? Soft light cheese is always good for a dip and to cook with and can be a supplement to cream, or if you don’t like soft cheese, natural yoghurt is also good to play around with as a dip, why not try making a Greek Tzatziki dip…

Greek Tzatziki
Quick and easy and takes 10 minutes to make.

What you need:
Natural Greek Yoghurt, cucumber, mint and garlic and a touch of lemon juice and olive oil.
What you have to do:
Peel and de-seed the cucumber, finely chop them into small pieces or grate (squeezing out any excess water).
Finely grated / chopped garlic.

Add the cucumber, garlic and lemon juice to the Greek yoghurt, with a dash of olive oil and mix together. Add the cucumber, garlic and lemon juice to the Greek yoghurt, with a dash of olive oil and mix together.

4. Stay active with the games! Got a Nintendo Wii, Xbox Kinect or PS3 Move from Santa this year? Use this as an opportunity to burn calories, have fun and get those dodgey dance moves out with friends and family.

5. If you’re off to a party in the evening, eat well during throughout the day to cut down those party cravings.

6. Hosting a Christmas party? Why not include healthier food choice options to reduce temptation. It is always good to know you’re eating good even if you’re a hosting your own version of Come Dine with Me.

7. Try not to socialise around the buffet table as you will be more tempted to pick at the food when you’re not hungry and put on some tunes to get the guests in the party spirit and bust some moves!

8. We’re all guilty of enjoying a drink or two at Christmas, but try to limit the amount of alcohol consumed, as they too have unwanted calories in! Make some fruit, non-alcoholic punches.

9. Enjoy your food and don’t rush what you’re eating! This can make you fuller for longer.

10. Pop into Pure Gym for a workout! Don’t forget that we are open 24/7 including Christmas Day, so there are no excuses not to burn off those Christmas calories, giving you a kick start into the New Year.

Pure Gym would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2012!

With all the festive good-will out there, we will be leaving Scrooge at home and keeping our gyms open as normal over the Christmas period.*

We all use Christmas as an excuse to over indulge in luxury and delicious food…but here at Pure Gym we would also like to make sure that you are still achieving your goals (whilst enjoying Christmas of course)…so we will remain open 24/7 in case you needed some time out or a good seasonal workout to burn off those mince pies and of course the turkey!

Whatever your plans are over this festive period, we would like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year for 2012!

We hope to see you at the gym during this holiday ready for 2012!

*Please note that Pure Gym Edinburgh Ocean Terminal will be closed from 5pm on Saturday 24^th December until 7am on Monday the 26^th December, as the shopping centre will be shut.

Great news, on Wednesday night we attended the Health Club Awards at the Hilton Metropole in Birmingham, and found out that we not only won the silver award for Best Medium Chain, but also Gold for Northern Irelend (our Belfast club) and Bronze for Scotland (our Glasgow club)

Eight of our clubs were shortlisted in the awards, and it is great being recognised for all of the hard work we have put in over the last few years – we are priveliged to have such a dedicated and passionate team of staff working for us across the country!

The awards are unique in the health industry as winners are decided by members of health clubs who are asked to complete a questionnaire rating their own club on the level of service, facilities and value for money. Over half a million pieces of data were crunched from over 16,000 customers earlier this year, and we thank all Pure Gym members who voted for us!

Simon Brown, MD of Awards For Business who run the scheme said “Belonging to a good health club is a rewarding experience. Members probably spend more time there than they realise and it’s become an integral part of their lifestyle. For the club it’s not easy to get every aspect just right. It requires a lot of hard work from staff and a belief that members should have a great experience each time they visit. We maintain that clubs who truly offer the best service and experience are recognised and rewarded”.

As you can see our fantastic prize is in fact a brand new Ford Fiesta. To be in with a chance of winning this car, all you have to do is refer a friend…simple as that! You have until the 12th December 2011, so that’s three months.

Good luck from Pure Gym!

*Terms and Conditions apply; see members’ area for details

Guess the prize…

Pure Gym is running a new competition, which will run until the 12^th December 2011! However, this time it’s different… Instead of us telling you what our amazing give away is like previous competitions we’ve ran, we are letting you, the members guess!

Since our competitions began, Pure Gym has had over 70 winners for all of our referral competitions. These included, fantastic holidays to New York, Las Vegas, Mexico and most recently Jamaica! On top of this, we have given away £1000 cash and vouchers but this is the big one!

What do you think is next?? All you have to do is post on our Facebook page or tweet your answer with the following hash tag – #PureGymPrize with your best guess!

Latest Tweets via #PureGymPrize:

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