Dubai’s Quest to Be the 'Most Active City In the World'

The city is becoming an epicenter for global fitness trends.

Dubai is home to the world’s tallest building (the 2,717-foot Burj Khalifa ), one of the world’s most expensive spa treatments (the $6,800 24-carat gold facial at the Jumeirah Zabeel Saray's Talise Ottoman Spa), and one of world’s priciest cocktails (the $4,000-plus "Birth of an Icon" at the Burj Al Arab Jumeirah ’s Sky View Bar). Now, Dubai’s tendency towards superlatives is extending to the wellness world.

With a predominantly young, international population, the city has become a new epicenter for global fitness trends—following the example of cities like New York and Sydney, where fitness has become a lifestyle; as a result, there has been an influx of boutique fitness options and gyms unique to the city in the last few years. And that doesn’t just mean basic Pilates, yoga, and spinning studios.

“Dubai is a city where you can do literally anything, and fitness is no exception,” says Faisal Jamil, who helped open Dubai’s first Barry's Bootcamp studio in 2017. Besides Barry’s Bootcamp, other international fitness brands like Flywheel, UFC, and F45 Training have set up shop in Dubai, seeing the city as an entry-point into the United Arab Emirates market.

This fall, Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the Dubai Fitness Challenge, asking all citizens to be active for 30 minutes every day for 30 days, to make Dubai “the most active city in the world,” according to the Khaleej Times. The goal was to set an example for the rest of the world by prioritizing health and fitness; a quarter of the population participated in the daily challenge, according to Dubai’s Department of Tourism.

“Without a doubt, the importance of health and fitness across the city is increasing at a rapid rate,” says Loren Holland, co-founder of GymNation, which opens in Dubai in April. The gym offers monthly memberships for under $45—making it not just Dubai’s largest gym to date, at 45,000 square feet, but the city’s first “affordable” gym.

Warehouse Gym's beachfront workout.

Other get-fit options? Industrial-chic Warehouse Gym opened its third location in Dubai this year, and is the sort of gym where you’ll Instagram your beachside workout. You can train with Emirati CrossFit athlete Shaikha Al Qassemi at Platform, opened in 2017, which hosts ladies-only nights as well as workshops and well-being talks. If that’s not hardcore enough, try Base 3, offering strongman-style conditioning classes but no heavy training equipment, or 1SIX8, a graffiti-covered home to a number of exclusive high-intensity, interval-based classes. There’s also Curvalicious, which, despite its name, takes fitness seriously. The female-only gym offers three exclusive weekly classes that each activate a different muscle group.

Better still, fitness proponents say, you don’t even have to go to a gym to exercise in Dubai. Hike 6,000 feet up Jebel Jais, the tallest peak in the United Arab Emirates, just an hour north of Dubai through the Arabian Desert, to catch the sunrise. Or ski down 200-foot slopes in sub-freezing temperatures at a 22,500-square-foot ski park inside one of the world’s largest malls. If your body isn’t exhausted already, you can hit the Persian Gulf, just a few miles west, to swim, kayak, paddleboard, or even surf. Soon, you won’t even have to leave your hotel to get fit: Dubai recently announced construction of the world’s largest wellness center, the MAG Creek Wellbeing Resort, which will feature a 96-room luxury hotel and nearly 200 vacation villas—with advanced air purification and "enhanced sleep environments"—that will have access to a high-tech health clinic and fitness center. Because of course.

“I actually think the fitness world here is growing to be the perfect complement to all of the other luxurious things people normally associate with Dubai,” Jamil says. “Even our gyms have that Dubai ‘wow’ factor.”

Editor's Note: This article was originally published in Conde Nast Traveler on Wednesday April 18th, 2018 http://bit.ly/CondeNastDubai