Where our outdoor fitness company started: Highgate Wood

Pull up bars at Highgate Wood

From the late nineties up to 2005, I lived in Highgate Village, N6. This quaint adjunct to Hampstead Heath, is often overshadowed in people’s minds by the glitzier, more celeb-dominated Hampstead proper.

Whilst living on North Road, I would cross Archway Road and walk up Muswell Hill Road to go for  a run in Highgate Wood. The park contains 70 acres of ancient woodland, a cricket pitch, a children’s playground and the Pavilion Café.

This is the location where I first developed my outdoor fitness ideas. Little did I know, at the time, that it would lead to the the creation of Muddy Plimsolls!

Stations:

The wood has a mini-trim trail of three stations: a push up platform, parallel bars and a set of three pull up bars. A modest collection, however I feel that the one essential element of any trim trail is a facility for completing pull ups.The rest of your workout can be improvised from the surrounding landscape. As the Wood is a rougher environment than other outdoor gyms I’ve used, you can use numerous tree stumps as step up boxes and fallen trees can be hurdles during a run. The wood is dense with oak and hornbeam and provides many little private areas that you can utilise for bodyweight exercises.

Public Facilities:

There are two sets. One is next to the children’s playground and the other is found behind the Pavilion Café. There’s a drinking fountain within the Wood, roughly located behind the Café.

Advantages:

The tree-lined trail that circles the Woods affords a good deal of protection from inclement weather. This path is about 2 kilometres long and offers a picturesque running track plus a few inclines (particularly one at Bridge Gate).

Want to learn more about outdoor exercise?

Outdoor fitness company Muddy Plimsolls outdoor personal training across London. This valuable, one-to-one experience introduces the basics of outdoor exercise to those wanting to make the most of their local trim trail or park. We teach this individualised workshop in either Regents Park or Primrose Hill park. Details can be found in our online shop here.

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