By Dominique Herman
In keeping with its new holistic approach to wellness, a local gym chain will launch its first detox programme in April. The idea was proposed by Australian yoga and shiatsu therapist Kris McIntyre, who arrived in South Africa in August.
"We are no longer preoccupied with the '80s perception of health which honed in on the purely outer aesthetic," Virgin Active CEO Chris Rolfe wrote in Journey, the company magazine.
Shortly after arriving, McIntyre starting teaching yoga classes at two Virgin Active clubs, began contributing fitness pieces to local magazines and started an office yoga programme with 180 Degrees, a corporate adventure-tourism business.
A springbok cyclist, 180 Degrees' managing director, Xavier Scheepers, asked McIntyre to do a cycling-oriented programme for the staff a few weeks before the Cape Argus Pick 'n Pay Cycle Tour.
McIntyre is the only instructor in SA to teach ryoho, a Japanese form of yoga that combines traditional Indian hatha with okido, a blend she describes as "the yoga that's almost like a moving shiatsu".
Instead of contorting into unnatural shapes, she breaks down each posture and does preparatory exercises to open up the body. Once mastered, the asanas, or poses, are dynamic.
"We haven't grown up eating a healthy diet or necessarily looking after ourselves so we can't access poses just like that," she said.
Apart from working as a private yoga and shiatsu teacher in Australia, McIntyre shot a six-month morning weekday television show in 2002, which was sold to Canada and New Zealand.
She co-authored a book, Strike a Pose: Yoga for Switched on Living, and wrote a weekly yoga column and health features for The Sunday Telegraph.
In Sydney, she also taught yoga in banks, legal firms and call centres, and developed a "desktop yoga" software programme that workers download onto their computers. Without leaving their seats they can do a quick head-and-neck exercise whenever there's time to spare.
With the aid of a naturopath, general practitioner, nutritional consultant and acupuncturist, McIntyre spent 18 months fine-tuning the detox programme she ran in Australia.
The emphasis is on giving one's system a break from everyday toxins, such as stimulants, and incorporating it into one's daily routine so one doesn't need to take time off from work to go to a health spa.
McIntyre also works out nutrition programmes for detox clients.
This includes a menu plan based on those food guidelines, recipes, a related shopping list and daily to-do list.
The detox programme will run at the Green Point branch and then shortly afterwards at Tyger Valley, and will be open to non-members as well.
Kim Fletcher, marketing manager of Virgin Active, said they are expanding their yoga, pilates and tai chi offerings, in line with the "mind, body, spirit" focus the company has adopted.
If the detox programme is a hit, they will roll it out in clubs nationwide.