After (literally) earning street cred, CrossFitOM takes its fitness routines from the road to a new Juhu studio.

Fast and the Curious

CrossFit, a high intensity workout used by police academies and tactical operations teams, arrived in Mumbai four months ago with the moniker CrossFitOM (we were the first to tell you, remember?). Instructor Dheepesh Bhatt creatively turned Bandra – church steps, steep slopes, parks and building rooftops – into a giant gym, mixing cool venues and unusual props with a combination of gymnastics, sprinting and weight lifting to devise a series of super intense workouts. Now, after months of (literally) earning his street cred, Dheepesh has finally a found his merry band of Crossfitters – locals, professionals and Bollywood stars - a home in a brand new Juhu studio. What, no more hunky himbos on the street? Sigh.

Kinetic Scooters

We reached Dheepesh’s sweat shop to find that the road that leads to fitness truly is a difficult path. CrossFitOm is situated on a grimy street populated by dodgy characters, and the ground floor space looks depressingly bare, with no equipment save for five Olympic rings hanging from a centre beam. On the side, a bunch of weights, sandbags, boxes and other props lay inert.

But then it’s time for class, ten determined students walk in, the music begins to pump and it all starts to warm up. While the group jumps on three feet high boxes, twists in rings and does handstands on yoga mats, Dheepesh explains that CrossFitOM features a different workout combination for each day. That each person’s finish time is public (on the studio board and Facebook group), means there is a fun competitive streak to liven up sessions.

Street Smart

Dheepesh may have muscled the gang off the road and into a studio, but he still plans on sneaking in beach games day and Mount Mary mornings into the schedule once a week. Under his well toned wing, CrossFitOM has also grown into an offline social network of sorts, a community that gets together on a Saturday night to drink or escape the city for a weekend trek. High ratings for this after school special!

Getting there: CrossFitOM, Choksey Motors, Kishore Kumar Ganguly Lane, Juhu Tara Road Juhu, call Dheepesh Bhatt on 9820028098, view the Facebook group here, packages start at Rs 5,000 a month.

CrossFitOM's studio opens officially on August 1. One hour batches from 6 to 9 am and 6 to 9 pm, one-on-one training to start in August.