ONE-MILLION-STRONG WORKOUT TO MARK FITNESS INDUSTRY PHENOMENON

One million exercise fans are expected to take part in the world’s biggest workout on 14 January 2017 to celebrate the 100^th release of BODYPUMP™.

Using light to moderate weights with lots of repetition, BODYPUMP is a total body workout created by global fitness pioneers Les Mills. In partnership with Reebok to rejuvenate the category of studio fitness, Les Mills is working with thousands of fitness clubs around the world in an attempt to create the world’s biggest workout.

Les Mills International CEO and BODYPUMP originator Phillip Mills says thousands of certified instructors will be running workouts all day long, all over the world in acoordinated global launch for BODYMPUMP100.

“This is an opportunity to celebrate with everyone who loves BODYPUMP,” says Mills. “It’s an incredible milestone, and a lot of people have worked very hard over the years to make this possible.”

When Phillip Mills had the idea of combining resistance weight training with group fitness classes in the early 1990s, he never imagined the result would eventually become a global sensation.

Every day hundreds of thousands of people now take the workout in 15,000 licenced gyms across the world – a far cry from BODYPUMP’s humble origins in the Mills household and a small gym studio in Auckland, New Zealand.

“Within a year or so of launching it we were in a few hundred gyms, and we just realized that we had a model that worked,” Mills says. “And it just took off around the world – it became huge in the late 90s and early 2000s globally.”

With four updated and musically refreshed versions released every year, the BODYPUMP workout is always evolving and improving. The celebration of release 100 on 14 January 2017 marks 25 years of revolutionising the group fitness market. Now in partnership with leading sportswear brand Reebok – like Les Mills, a market leader in studio fitness – the aim is to create life-changing fitness experiences for consumers worldwide.

“We brought resistance training to the masses,” says Les Mills International Head of Research Bryce Hastings. “People who wouldn’t normally want to lift weights on the gym floor are now doing BODYPUMP.”

The combination of contemporary music, scientifically-proven exercise techniques, and quickly observable physical results that have been the key to the workout’s inter-generational appeal.

Most of all, says BODYPUMP Creative Director Kylie Gates, it’s what is known as the “group effect” that lies at the heart of the program’s success.

“There is just such a connection that comes from being in a group. As humans we actually want to feel like we belong to something or somewhere. There's a really big connection that comes with group fitness. People are doing it together. They're all going towards the same goals, and there's a real unity that comes with that.”

Nowhere will that unity be better demonstrated than on 14 January 2017 when a million BODYPUMP fans around the globe come together to celebrate – and sweat.

For more information: lena.holmberg@lesmills.com

http://www.bodypump.com www.lesmills.com/aboutus

EDITOR NOTES: WHAT IS BODYPUMP AND WHY DOES IT WORK?

• Research has confirmed that BODYPUMP™ has strong calorie and fat-burning effects and it improves aerobic fitness, muscular strength, and muscular endurance
• There is also evidence that BODYPUMP classes can have positive psychological benefits
• The key to BODYPUMP is the “Rep Effect”, a breakthrough in weight training that has been proved to deliver a total body transformation. The Rep Effect throws traditional thinking about lifting weights on its head. It exhausts muscles using light weights, while performing high repetitions
• Using the Rep Effect, BODYPUMP classes give participants sculpted shoulders, defined biceps and triceps, strong lean legs, firm glutes and a tight core
• Choreography in each of these areas is specifically targeted to burn fat, burn more calories and achieve more meaningful fat loss and muscle fatigue. The ultimate result is that participants build strength without building bulk
• In a typical BODYPUMP class participants perform between 800 and 1000 reps in a single group workout. That’s more than four times the amount a person can achieve when training alone.