Studio Spotlight: Mindful HIIT And Boxing At The Transition Zone

Behind an unassuming doorway off a side street near Parsons Green Station lies one of London’s fitness gems: the Transition Zone. It’s a light-drenched antithesis to all of London’s underground gyms, extremely well equipped for the HIIT workouts the trainers swear by.

The Transition Zone’s founder, Claire Finlay, is bursting with enthusiasm and a genuine passion for what she does. She swears by the mantra train-eat-recover-repeat, and everything in the studio follows this – from the décor to her team of trainers.

The workouts are an intense 30-45 minute variety of boxing, TRX, power plate exercises and pilates. The trainers will take you through a series of stretches and breathing exercises to make sure you’re nimble and ready to work.

Transition Zone boxing trainer, Steven Dobson, kept our focus on the importance of active meditation. “Think about all the things that go through your head all day every day, when you box you have to be completely focused, completely in that zone where you’re not thinking everything left, right and centre, just the immediate situation before you,” says Steven.

He’ll be there to make sure you’ve come to the workout with the right mindset, the right desire to focus only on your body and its movements. The HIIT boxing workouts create a great space for you to channel all of the quotidian worries in your day towards one goal: working as hard as you possibly can.

There’s no slacking off here, the workouts will only ever cater up to 8 people, and if there are 8 then there will be 3 trainers to make sure everyone gets the attention they need to keep their form and power on target. With one-on-one time boxing against one of the trainers you get to experience exactly what Steven means by “active meditation”.

Mindfulness and boxing aren’t two words that tend to be thought of in tandem, but after the workout you’ll realize how excellent the trainers are at getting you “in the zone” and keeping you there.

The studio is also the only London-based home to the Reformer Pilates Chair. It’s half the size of your traditional reformer and packs a punch with the flexibility to do all your favourite pilates moves and more. Classes on the Pilates Chair are taught in 45-minute segments and mixed up with dumbbells and kettlebells to maximise the use of all muscle groups.

Let’s not forget the most important part of Claire’s mantra (and our favourite part over here at Welltodo): eating! The Recovery Café works alongside the studio and is full to the brim with smoothies, juices and bliss-balls for a pick-me-up.

The Transition Zone gives you one of London’s best spaces to follow Claire’s guiding hand and train right, eat right, rest right, and of course, repeat!

New clients get 10 days for £50. Other pricing options here.

www.transitionzone.co.uk