Working out well in Warsaw, (the regions next)

The World Health Organisation's 'Highlights on Health 2001' report on Poland, gave the percentage of adults who "maintain physical fitness by appropriate regular activities" as 10%. This compared quite unfavourably with close neighbours, such as the Czech Republic and Germany, in similar reports and is hardly a statistic to encourage anyone with ambitions to open a fitness club here, though Warsaw is starting to flex its muscles. Statistics rarely tell the whole story and even during the Communist period there was a strong sub-culture of working out in Poland. Gyms in dingy basements, where mainly beefed-up men pumped away at masses of iron, were the norm then and still exist to this day but they are daunting places for most women and foreign residents. Alternatives have been slow to arrive, the first in the form of fitness suites in five-star hotels, catering only for the very rich. In recent years however, though till now overwhelmingly in Warsaw, a new breed o