Phuket - Fitness Street

Soi Tai-iad also known as Fitness Street

This small street in Phuket is now starting to see worldwide recognition as one of the best places to train in the world, you have more and more professional athletes and fighters basing themselves here for month long training camps. However there are also a huge amount of people coming here on weight loss journey's, fitness retreats and in general spending a holiday working out with great communities instead of their normal cocktails on a beach.

I stayed at Cocoville Resort which was 10 out of 10 for me, here's why;

• Location, location, location - It is around 100 meters from fitness street, meaning you don't have to rent a scooter and can walk to the gym and restaurants, but it also is super quiet and relaxing

• It's a resort, really nice rooms, surroundings and two pools

• The restaurant has great, tasty and healthy food, and you see a lot of people not even staying at the resort coming to eat here

• Wifi is very strong in the main area, but also in your rooms so it's great for working

• The staff are super friendly, make up your room whenever you need, are always at the restaurant and run an efficient laundry service

I trained at Unit27 which is really only one of two dedicated HIIT/Crossfit gyms, the other one is Crossfit Siam (Phuket Fight Club). I loved Unit, here's why;

• Community - Just a great bunch of people that go to the classes, all on the same mission to workout, be healthy but also have fun! The majority are there for more than a week, so you also get to know people really well in your time there.

• Coaches - Really knowledge, professional and fun coaches, which is crucial to have in a Crossfit gym, as you learn a lot of movements but also want to enjoy the workouts as they are brutal.

• Workouts - Following on from the brutal comment, the workouts are intense. They are designed and created very well. There is also a lot of variety, they have around 6 different classes for example Team/Pairs WODs, Assault Bike focus, Death Row (brutal), a Rower specific WOD and many more.

• Equipment - Considering the battering it takes with the heat and all the sweat, they keep the equipment in great working order, they also have a sauna and ice bath recovery section

Other popular gyms

• Tiger Muay Thai - The most well known, it's absolutely massive providing a wide variety of classes, not just muay thai, and it's popular for professional athletes so you might run into a famous face!

• Titan Fitness - is a camp for all atheletic abilities and is popular for people to actually join a scheduled fitness camp, the community is supposed to be great and good equipment too

• Dragon Muay Thai - The second biggest/most popular gym, not to say it's second best, it just started after Tiger, another gym that does multiple classes

• Primal Fitness - is a straight up commercial gym where it's the best place to go and just lift weights, along with the normal cardio machines of course

My favourite cafes and restaurants (but there are around 20 to choose from!)

• Mr Jom's - A super family owned restaurant, serving great BBQ, in particular chicken, great portion sizes and unreal prices

• Trooper Eats - One of the more popular spots and it's because of the range of the menu, packed with protein and different seating

• Pure Vegan - I had a couple great Acai bowls here along with nice coffee

• Pure Prep - Super healthy, tells you the macros of the food and is a good option

• Townhouse Cafe - Really small but good food and coffee, nice people

• Bliss Cafe - Nice coffee and very fresh, healthy food

• Cheun Chom - Very good Thai restaurant

• Cookie Doh - After all that working out you have to treat yourself!

So if you want to put yourself away in a bubble for 1-4 weeks, then this is heaven on earth. Nothing to do but train, eat healthy, connect with like-minded individuals, work from cafes, relax at your resort and prioritize sleep.

It's of course nice getting away from it, specially if you're there for over a week, so I rented a scooter and made my way up to The Big Buddha, a popular 2.5km uphill run for athletes, or a nice cruise up on your scooter, alongside some elephant sanctuaries along the way. I also made my way over the other side of the island, to check out the popular beach of Pa tong beach.