INSIDE ENGLAND'S FINEST MEMBER'S CLUB

In convo with Andy Walters - Head of Fitness at The Club by Bamford.

The Club by Bamford is an exceptional place. It is a private members club set within 3,500 acres of organic farmland in the Cotswolds and founded on the belief that we need to live consciously, in harmony with nature and to respect the land that provides for us.

The founder, Carole Bamford, designed The Club to immerse its members in nature - a place where you can have a swim looking out onto the orchard, take your fitness outside with your trainer or enjoy some nourishing food on the terrace overlooking where the ingredients were grown.   

It feels as if anything is possible at The Club. It offers members a vast array of options to maximise their health proactively, while also being a secluded sanctuary for restoration and recreation. They even have a carefully curated retail offering, which includes our fine British sportswear.

We sat down with Andy Walters, The Club's Head of Fitness, to discuss what makes the Club such an enticing and unparallelled experience for its members. Andy is a veteran in the fitness and wellness industry, with a mindful and conscientious approach to maximising health both physically, mentally and emotionally.   

MF: How do you start your day?

AW: I like to get in nice and early for an infrared sauna while watching the sunrise. I just love that peace. We're all about 360-degree wellness at the Club, with a large emphasis on relaxation and recovery. 

MF: What's your approach to fitness and wellness?

AW: It has developed a lot over the years. As someone who worked with professional athletes, where it's all about winning, I am now much more interested in movement efficiency and effectiveness. I believe everyone is an athlete with potential that we can discover, so I try to support our members to maximise their natural ability. I also consider heart health to be of great importance, so I encourage a balance of aerobic fitness, which can be as simple as enjoying a long walk, combined with some lactate threshold training (i.e. high heart rate, high-intensity exercise) and anaerobic training - using weight to build strength.

MF: What makes The Club the club..?

AW: We have an unparalleled location, set within Daylesford Farm, overlooking the dairy paddocks and heritage orchard. When you arrive, there's an instant calm and serenity - we think it’s because The Club is located on fault lines, which envelops the Club in a special peace. We enhance that calm with the most advanced facilities from ice barrels to our infrared sauna, indoor cold plunge pool, and PBM - photo-biomodulation. This last one stimulates cells via red and clear light frequency to reduce inflammation, whilst working on your nervous system. It's great for your skin, increasing collagen production, and also creates a deep state of relaxation.

MF: How do you break up the 360-wellness offering at the Club?

AW: We have two primary offerings - the holistic and therapeutic sessions in the spa alongside the physically active and dynamic sessions in the gym. The spa is equipped with three studios all offering something different. We have a pilates studio, a large yoga studio and a smaller studio for our sound-therapy. We run over 100 classes across our studios - we want to offer the very best place for recovery and for physical adaptations through training. We have amazing in-house expertise from an array of physical practitioners, and we also bring in freelance experts to ensure our members have access to a rich diversity of physical disciplines. 

MF: Tell me about some of the freelance expertise that you choose to bring to your members?

AW: We strive for a balance and we have a plethora of experts who come to the club, from breathwork practitioners to cold-water therapists, 5-star trainers who do one-off sessions, to physiotherapists, masseurs, kinesiologists and chiropractors. 

We are however very proud of the expertise we have in-house and we invest in our team, giving them opportunities to further their expertise and develop their skills.

MF: How does your team apply their know-how to give your members the best results?

AW: I am a big advocate of consultations and assessments, which we do with all our clients individually from the moment they join. Everyone is striving for something different, so it's key for us to understand that and support our members in achieving their goals. We like to give our members 80% freedom to choose what they want to do, while we manage the other 20%, applying our expertise to ensure they're on the path to success. But it's that freedom to choose that breeds motivation in our clients.

We also use a PT platform called ‘1Fit’ - any of our members who opt in to this platform, have their habits and behaviours, including steps, nutrition and output, measured against the training program we've curated for them. At the end of every week we do a check in, meaning we have more contact with our clients than just the few hours they may choose to spend with us in-person.

MF: How do you ensure you've got the best team?

AW:  We focus on hiring a team who are a great fit for our members and who can uphold the values of The Club. 

The Club, by Bamford