World first city wide fitness challenge starts 3rd edition in Dubai

The financial hub of the Middle East, Dubai, is set to transform into the world’s first and only city gym starting 18 October to 16 November.

Titled ‘Dubai Fitness Challenge’ (DFC), the all-inclusive fitness movement was launched in 2017 by His Highness Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai and Chairman of Dubai Executive Council,  to bring health, wellness and active life to all its people visitors in the city. 

Returning to this year’s edition are two flagship Fitness Villages at Festival City Mall and Kite Beach, supplemented by 10 community-focused Fitness Hubs, over 40 fitness events and more than 5,000 fitness and health programmes spread across the city. 

This years challenge makes use of innovation with introduction of ‘Find your 30’, a virtual platform on the DFC website, which reflects the Challenge’s 360-degree approach to health and wellness – spanning highly relevant topics like social health, stress management, nutrition and preventive medicine to complement an extensive source of fitness-based content. 

Another new innovation added to 2019 Dubai Fitness Challenge is ‘City is a Gym’ – a personal training virtual map that highlights 30 free workout zones at different venues across the city. Each location has a bright locator that houses a special QR code, which upon scanning, takes participants to a 30-minute video unique to that location. Participants can screen shot the workout and join others from across the city as they complete their 30 minutes of exercise. 

In a one-of-a-kind global first, DFC is teaming up with world-renowned ‘The Body Coach’ Joe Wicks as he attempts to set the Guinness World Record for the world’s largest high-intensity interval training (HIIT) class on Saturday 26 October, at HIIT30X30 with Joe Wicks at Skydive Dubai. Aspiring participants aged 18 years and over can register for free on PlatinumList, and complete the full 30-minute workout without stopping in order to be considered as part of the record-breaking attempt.

By setting a global gym, Dubai is setting a trend for other countries with similar aspirations, such as Latin America which seeks to set a similar endeavour.

The fitness centre is just among the achievements that will put Dubai on the global map. The 2019 World Green Economy Summit held in the Middle Eastern emirate also was a meeting point of how Dubai can aim to the the investment hub of global investment hubs.

An example is the green bonds, which according to media reports, has grown to be worth $ 200 billion today as compared to nothing in 2014.

” Despite the hurdles in regulation and access to finance, the Middle Eastern financial technology landscape, comprising of sectors such as banking, the stock exchange market as well as payments, it has been able to raise $ 237 million worth of investments, ” states the 2019 report from Magnitt.