IN FOCUSAMP ATHLETIC
on-one training, each 50-minute session is capped
at four people, with an emphasis – as I quickly learn
– on mobility (or in my case, immobility) and full-
body strength.CONSISTENCY IS KEY
But the diff erences between AMP and your run-of-
the-mill gym membership extend beyond the way you
train, to how often. At AMP, accountability is the name
of the game. “Lots of coaches can assess you, build a
programme, tell you to do it, then reassess you in six,
eight, 12 weeks and so on,” says Mellor. “But the hardest
part in all of that is working tirelessly to make sure
people do what’s required to make change. Some people
will do what you say and get good results, however lots
of people will struggle to fi nd time and motivation to
make exercise a key part of their life.”
AMP’s solution to the problem of consistency is to
make it as easy as possible for its clients, so excuses are
kept to a minimum. “We've built a gym around making
sure people attend, and we run a report twice a week
to check attendance. If people aren’t booked in then we
call them and do everything we can to make it possible
for them to train. Th is is also why we run sessions on
the hour every hour from 6am: to make training as
accessible as possible for busy people. We also work very
hard to make sure the 50 minutes they spend with us isthe best and most eff ective use of time possible through
our exercise programming.”WEAK LINKS
Th e aforementioned AirBike marks the end of my fi rst
session – a heart-pumping ‘fi nisher’ consisting of two
minutes all-out eff ort on that particularly nasty bit of
kit, the rower and the ski erg – but the majority of the
workout is based on honing in on your weaknesses and
understanding how they can be improved.
“Your fi rst visit to AMP is centred around you
and your body,” explains Mellor. “We run through an
assessment: looking at your passive and active joint
range, activation and strength of key movements, along
with body composition and your fi tness. From here we
build a plan for you that is communicated to you and
the whole coaching team.”
If, like me, you’ve spent much of your lifting
life turning a blind eye to mobility and any kind of
consistent core work, this assessment provides some
much-needed home truths. Some basic warm-up
exercises in the fi rst 15 minutes – thoracic spine
extensions, controlled ab moves, and crab walks with
a resistance band – reveal my lower back is particularly
tight and I’m about as mobile as a breeze block.
“We start a session with spinal and key joint
mobility,” says Mellor, “then once mobilised we look