As I was scanning Instagram, I came across a picture that caught my eye.

It was a picture of the first beach gym in the UK, and it was on Canford Cliffs in Bournemouth, which just happens to be where I lived for a few years when our family left London (long story). So I followed them @WhoDaresGyms and noticed that they have a few events that take place throughout the year.

We are big on social events at OnPoint, from fitness to nights out and gym BBQ's, and since the last visit to Farm Fitness, I have started looking into the more competitive events which will give our members an opportunity to put all their hard work to good use, and see and feel the benefits of exercise, beyond the obvious of weight loss and how one looks.

The message was put out from the team in Bournemouth that the weather is looking good and they will be hosting their last event of the year... NEXT WEEK!

Yeah, it was a bit last minute, but I know we have a few members at OnPoint who would be keen to do it and more importantly, could get the pass to come last minute! So, I put the message out and a handful of members came back to me, which eventually became 3 and so we made plans to meet at the gym on Saturday morning at 7am, ready for the 3 hour drive to the coast.

The team consisted of our coach Ryan, our member George and myself. Luckily, George had managed to fill up with petrol the night before and so the drive was smooth, no traffic, and we were flying, so we decided to stop at Fleet services to grab some breakfast and make sure we had the energy for what we knew would be a long day of exercise.

In case you're wondering, we had a foot long each at Subway because carbs are life!

We arrived at 10am, giving us enough time to park up and have a little walk along the beach before getting changed and ready to compete. The teams are supposed to be made up of 4 people, so we knew we would have someone random joining us for the day and when they started to split the solo entries, we saw there was a young lady on her own so we asked her to join us for the day.

Savannah was a bubbly character, she was new to the area and had entered the event all alone, despite being injured. What a trooper. So we knew straight away that we would all get along fine. Admittedly, when she told us she couldn't run, and seeing that most of the events included running ON BLOODY SAND, us boys knew we would have to put in a shift, but so be it, here for a good time!

Now for the workouts... Bloody hell!

The coaches were all military linked, which meant it was always going to be a physical and mental test, and when they started to demo the stations, all you could do was laugh.

In fairness, the exercises were not too dissimilar to what we do at OnPoint but there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that can compare you for doing those exercises on the sand. It literally ate us up and made everything 10 times harder, but we weren't there for an easy ride, we wanted to see what it's all about and see what's required to compete at these events. So, in true OnPoint fashion, we just got on with it and made sure our newest member Savannah, felt as much part of the team as any of us boys.

I have to say, she had the heart of a lion. Despite not being able to run, she refused to stop and would not sit out of any event, which became the driving force of our team and was what got us the respect from the coaches and fellow competitors. The day became less about competing with others and more about competing with ourselves and our motto was "no matter how hard it is, we finish every round, together". And that's exactly what we did. In fact, we got to play to our strengths in a few events and actually placed quite high, in fact, I think we won the odd event which meant we didn't finish last at the end of the day.

Despite being a long day, it was a lot of fun. We got to test our strength, our fitness and our mindsets, and even got to go for a swim, which was one of the events, so all in all, it was a huge test of character. We made a friend, we earned respect, we watched and admired some of the athletes and we will definitely be coming back next year, only this time with a lot more members.

Thank you to the organisers, thank you to Savannah and thank you to George and Ryan for joining me and representing Team OnPoint in our first ever event.

Before we left, we had to make a quick stop at my favourite restaurant Urban Reef in Boscombe. This place is set right on the promenade, overlooking the beach and sea, and the food is lovely. 

Considering we had just burned 3000 calories according to Ryan's watch, we all chose pizza and literally inhaled it before heading back to the motorway for the long, but also smooth, drive home to Hertfordshire.

Road trips are always fun and when we stopped off at Fleet services again, we were still hungry, so a KFC and a few Krisp Kremes were the choice of the hard working team, which caused a few laughs as I have never ate a Krispy Kreme before, so Ryan felt the need to write to them on Instagram which created a funny hour of back and forth banter.

All in all, it was a great day out and despite being in unbelievable pain writing this, I would do it all again next week.

Thank you lads for making it happen and thank you Savannah for being part of the team for the day.

To find out more about joining OnPoint and taking part in our future events, please visit our website www.onpointfitness.co.uk