Steam Up To Tackle The Body Corpulent

Sydney Morning Herald

Wednesday April 3, 1996

By BRUCE JAMES

THE Hyde Park Club is the QE2 of Sydney gyms. Entering the 170 Castlereagh Street institution, which opened in 1983, is akin to boarding a luxury liner.

One is surrounded by a sense of privacy and - it must be admitted - privilege. This is not a joint where you flaunt your daggy gym-shorts to the passersby. Discretion was built-in with the heated pool. Staff members are as unobtrusive as British butlers, and better looking.

Yes, your correspondent is a member. For me, a daily trip to the sumptuous site is a respite from writing. With a mind befuddled by art and burdened by adjectives, even with a hangover from one of Edmund's openings at the Art Gallery of NSW, I can count on the club for reprieve.

Juice and sympathy are a specialty. Feel like a dry sauna? Steam? A massage? How about something more energetic, boxercise perhaps, squash, water sports or even line dancing? The Hyde Park Club lays it on. You can train with free weights, take aerobic classes or just slump in the bar and watch CNN. For the brave, there's that curious foam-rubber exercise Jeremy teaches in the wet area.

It doesn't matter if you're not among the actors, models, journalists, athletes, lawyers and bankers who frequent the place; everyone's on the A-list. The club hosts conferences, has a fine cafe and serves as a rendezvous for those intent on business, pleasure and sometimes intrigue.

The high point of the Hyde Park regimen is to pelt along on a treadmill, eyes scanning all eight of the overhead television monitors. Oprah Winfrey and Bert Newton merge into one mesmerising hybrid as the kilos fall away. Well, they would fall away if I took more advantage of the extensive personal training program.

Club World of Fitness, at 167 Castlereagh Street, is by general agreement the largest and busiest gym in the city area. It is a high-energy venue that pumps with action six days a week. It's run by the no-nonsense Angelo, a man who takes his clients and his business seriously. Angelo turns flab to muscle just by looking at it. Club World has atmosphere to spare and no time to waste - get down!

Fitness To Perfection at Shop G18, Westpac Plaza, 60 Margaret Street, is another seriously pumping place, along with the aptly named Aerobic City at 327 George Street, entrance from Wynyard Lane. Apart from sheer visual excitement, these gyms provide the full range of aerobic and circuit classes, free and fixed weights, personal training and other health facilities, plus a hard-to-resist energy level that's part of the package.

Many of the larger prestige hotels have gyms open to general membership, for example the Observatory Hotel's Health & Leisure Club at 89-113 Kent Street, Miller's Point, which has access to the largest indoor heated pool in the southern hemisphere, or the Renaissance Hotel's The Fitness Centre, Level 4, 30 Pitt Street, up from Circular Quay.

Also exclusive and highly personalised is the Regent Hotel's Regent Sydney Health Club at 119 George Street. If you fancy an unbeatable view while you sweat on the rowing machine, try the Hotel Inter-Continental's Clark Hatch Fitness Centre at Level 3, 117 Macquarie Street or the ANA Hotel's Fitness Centre at 176 Cumberland Street, The Rocks.

An equally aerial venue is the Goldspear Fitness Club on the 12th floor of the BNZ building at 333 George Street. Nearby Contours at 301 George Street is one floor up, but a world away in style. It's one of the few women-only gyms in Australia - secure, safe and unjudgmental.

City Tattersall Club's in 198 Pitt Street operates a splendid gym, available to members of the club. So does the NSW Leagues Club at 72-80 Elizabeth Street. Called Headquarters, it is popular with legal and office workers in the areas, has a younger clientele and a high energy level.

At opposite ends of the central business area are the well-known Broadway Gym at 154-60 Broadway and Sydney City Council's delightful community-based Abraham Mott Gym at 15A Argyle Place, Miller's Point. Between them can be found all the aforementioned gyms and the many smaller and specialist clubs that make the city an iron-pumper's paradise. Flab begone!