Tom McAra Rebel PT, Duthie Park and Westhill Park, Aberdeen

We used to go to a gym, but being outside in the fresh air is much better.

Being in the park means fresh air, camaraderie, a bit of a laugh, and keeping fit.

Rebel PT is an outdoor fitness and social club delivering community-driven personal training through fitness boot camps and postnatal groups with buggy workouts called ‘Prams in the Park.’ Rebel PT was founded by brother and sister Tom and Alice McAra in Aberdeen across multiple parks, with high-intensity interval training and outdoor adventures like hill-climbs, beach runs, and wild swims. It expanded into Edinburgh in 2019 offering Bootcamp fitness sessions in the Meadows and Leith Links.

Tom McAra

“There’s something rewarding about being outdoors. I think being in nature can be quite therapeutic and be good for your mind.Being outside in the sun and in all conditions, really, is just quite rewarding. There’s no such thing as bad weather, just different types of good weather. You feel something that you don’t get from being indoors in a gym doing a fitness class.

Prams in the Park is a chance for mums, especially with newborns, to get active and moving again with their wee one and become part of a group in a small community with other likeminded mums.”

Jeanette

“I’ve being doing the outdoor bootcamp in the park for over ten years. It’s great exercise, Tom and Alice and other trainers mix it up, it’s different every session. I’ve made loads of good friends, it’s just a great bunch of people. It’s great to be out in the air and we’re getting a bit fitter after 10 years. It’s testament to the trainers that we’ve stuck at it for so long – I've never stuck with anything for 10 years.

We used to go to a gym, but being outside in the fresh air is much better. We’re here in all weathers, it doesn’t matter if it’s rain, snow, sun or whatever. We’re here. In snow we’ll be rolling big snowballs –they introduced sledges and everything. Just good fun.”

Joyce

“I like the variety and being outdoors. Being in the park means fresh air, camaraderie, a bit of a laugh, and keeping fit. Janette and I used to do an indoor bootcamp, but this is so much better. You were always hot and sweaty, and a bit claustrophobic – this isn’t the same.”

Hannah Hall

“We’ve been taking part in a Prams in the Park workout with Rebel PT. It’s like a HIIT workout, you can bring along your babies and your pram, and let them chill in the pram while the mums get together to exercise. The exercise is great, but it’s not really about that. It’s about finding a group of mums that you can come to. We've got the bootcamps in the park four times a week and we do a run club once a week – we can go every day, and I do go every day. As a mum, it’s absolutely made my maternity leave, it gets me out every day, gets me exercising, gets me back in shape. Since having Rufus nine months ago I’ve run a sub 30-minute 5k, I’m doing the Crathes half marathon in September. I wouldn’t have done any of that if I wasn’t coming to Rebel.

I’ve made some really good friends, and I really wish I’d known about it when I had my older son. It’s really quite unique that there’s something like this where whatever the weather, there’ll be mums there to get you out the house. We always go for a coffee afterwards – as a mum on maternity leave, it can be quite lonely, so the social part is so important as well.”

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