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You are here: Home Health & Fitness Healthcare Wrapping up for a workout

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16/07/2008Wrapping up for a workout

Wrapping up for a workout It may seem counterintuitive to many, but for the Islamic clients of one Cologne gym modest attire is as crucial as an Mp3 player and a bottle of water

A gym that caters specially to Muslim women is doing so well after its first year that others want to imitate its combination of modest attire and tough workouts.

All the personal trainers at Hayat in the melting-pot Cologne district of Ehrenfeld are women, but rather than fulfilling make fantasies, there is a serious reason behind it all.
Hayat offers the full range of gym machines, including exercise bikes and devices to encourage firmer thighs.

Crucially it also offers the Muslims a prayer room for the Islamic practice of praying at set times of the day.

A modest workout

This is one gym where you  definitely won't see skimpy shorts, figure-hugging leotards and lots of bare skin. Many work out in head-scarves and joggers

Proprietress Emine Aydemir, 39, says on the first anniversary that her no-men-allowed gym has been a business success.

Emine and her colleague Yasmin give tips or show demurely dressed clients how to work the treadmill and tune in to Turkish pop music over their headsets.

"Many women who wear scarves come here because so many other gyms treat them badly," she explained. "At Hayat, they feel at home and nobody stares at them because of what they are wearing.

Different body culture

"We Muslim women don't envy one another's bodies. We don't stare at one another and compare our figures. The women take themselves as they are," says Aydemir, who launched Hayat (the name means "life" in Turkish) at the start of April 2007.

Currently she has 350 signed-up customers, 90 per cent of them of ethnic Turkish background. The rest hail from Morocco, Tunisia, Romania, Egypt and a few from Germany. "Their average age is 30," the business owner says. Although the gym is obviously geared towards Islamic clients, there are no rules on religious background as a prerequisite for joining.

According to the records of the DSSV, an organization representing fitness and spa-industry employers throughout Germany, there is only one other gym specially for Muslim women in the country - in Hamburg.

An untapped market

DSSV's Refit Kamberovic says there is clearly an opportunity for investors in other metropolitan areas in Germany with large Islamic populations. Germany is home to a large number of Islamic immigrant cultures, from Turkish to middle eastern, Balkan and Kosovar-Albanian.

Islamic scripture dictates that women should dress with a degree of modesty, an instruction open to interpretation and there is a wide variation across the Islamic world, from full blown burkas which conceal everything but the eyes to knee length skirts and a light headscarf. With modest dress being a central tenet of the faith it is no wonder that the gym has proves so popular.

Aydemir believes imitators are already in the throes of setting up similar gyms in other cities.

"I've fielded a lot of phone calls from people who ask exactly how they should go about setting up a gym like this," she said. "I tell them the recipe for success is to ban the cult of beautiful bodies and to emphasize health, enjoyment and sharing."

Peak times at Hayat are the mornings and the late afternoons.

Culture clash

Hatice Aydin, a trim 27-year-old who works out every day, explains, "Before I came here, I used to go to another women-only gym, but I was the only one there wearing a head scarf. They were always giving me funny looks.

"I had to go into the toilet cubicles to get undressed and dressed. A lot of German women don't know our etiquette and they were always staring at me if I got dressed in the group changing rooms."

Aydemir says she was taught that Islam forbids exposing any part of the body between the bosom and knees, even to other women.

At Hayat, both the changing rooms and the showers are divided up into cubicles so that this rule of modesty can be followed.

"Even when the girls use our sauna, they wear a towel around themselves," said Aydemir, who loves sport and always used to wonder why she could not find a gym organized around Islamic custom.

Women only

Mothers can drop off their small children at a playroom in the gym, where the trainers keep an eye on them while mama works the weights.

Husbands are not allowed into the gym, even when they are picking up their own wives after a workout. The sign on the door says bluntly, "Access for male visitors prohibited." That includes mailmen and repairmen too.

Gulay, 29, who is training her abdominals on a shiny machine, sums up the reason that women choose Hayat.

"I certainly would never work out in a gym with men in the same room," she said. "If there were men here, I'd find that very upsetting. It would not be my kind of space at all."

DPA/Expatica


1 reaction to this article

Belgin posted: 2008-11-04 06:31:21

I would like to learn who the author is and looking for the web-site of this Hayat gym but could not find. It is really important to me for my research paper and for my future business plan. If someone knows, please let me know.

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1 reaction to this article

Belgin posted: 2008-11-04 06:31:21

I would like to learn who the author is and looking for the web-site of this Hayat gym but could not find. It is really important to me for my research paper and for my future business plan. If someone knows, please let me know.

Add a comment
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