Club News: Q3 2026

A warm welcome to all our new members who have joined The Ludorum Club over the summer. Thank you for coming, and I hope that throughout your time here we continue to provide you with an exceptional gym experience, unmatched anywhere else in London.

With the Club, and The Ludorum Project more broadly, still very much in its infancy, over the next 12 months I’ll continue to slowly improve things around the Club, all with the same aim: to create an unparalleled training experience for our members.

As always, thank you for your continued custom and support. I’m incredibly excited to see what The Ludorum Project becomes over the next decade and beyond.

Jake Hitchcock

Previously I have written long updates but this will be a shorter version to remind you about vaccines and screening!

Vaccines for adults

Influenza: These vaccines arrive on September 21st so please book if you would like one.

Shingrix: As most of you know I recommend this two dose vaccine against Herpes Zoster, both because it protects against HZ, but also because it has been shown to lower the risk of developing dementia by 20%.

Pneumonia vaccine: This is a one dose vaccine to protect against chest infections for those who have chest problems or are 65yrs and older. It can be given at the same time as an influenza vaccine.

Gardasil: This vaccine protects against HPV (human papilloma virus that can cause cervical, anal and oral cancer). The course is given at school to adolescents but I can give the course to those who may have missed it.

Meningitis B: This is advisable for all adolescents at university or college and is a two dose course.

Vaccines for children

I recommend the early years vaccines to be done through NHS baby clinics but on request I can source any of them and I am more than happy to administer.

Screening

This is vital for staying healthy because it detects early disease. I advise what is needed on a personalised basis and am happy to discuss with each of you separately. For patients over 50yrs and particularly those with a family history of cancer I am a fan of the Tru-check test which detects the early release of tumour cell fragments.

For all new patients I can discuss this with you. This is a blood test taken by myself in the clinic and the result is available after approximately 2 weeks.

With very best wishes,

Dr Ali JoyMB BChir. (Cantab), MA., MRCGP., MRCP., DRCOG

secretary@drjoy.co.uk

Thinking of Moving? Now Could Be an Interesting Time.

As a fellow client of Jake’s, I’m usually more focused on surviving the next training session than talking property! But outside the gym, I advise clients buying homes and investment properties across London at Black Brick.

If a move has been on your mind, the current market is creating some interesting opportunities for buyers. Activity is picking up, but prices remain below previous peaks and many sellers are increasingly realistic about what their property is worth. More than half of prime London homes sold in July had already had their asking price reduced, with an average discount of 10.4% from the original asking price.

For buyers, that means there can be real scope to negotiate, particularly if you know where to look and how to approach a seller. At Black Brick, we search the whole market, including properties that never appear online, and negotiate on our clients’ behalf. So, if you’re thinking about buying or moving home, whether imminently or just starting to explore your options, feel free to grab me after a session with Jake or get in touch for an informal chat.

Camilla DellBlack Brick Property Solutions

camilla@black-brick.com

With the rainy autumnal season approaching, a small request to all LC members: if you don’t already, please arrive with a pair of clean indoor gym trainers. It makes a big difference to keeping the Club immaculate for everyone.

But there’s another reason your choice of shoe matters.

Something I see far too often (even in high-end gyms and under the supervision of reputable personal trainers) is people lifting in inappropriate footwear. Usually, it’s the latest bright pink super shoe designed to help someone run a sub-2-hour marathon, rather than perform a tidy single-leg RDL.

Running shoes are designed to propel you forwards; a good lifting shoe should provide the opposite: a stable platform from which to produce force and lift with perfect Ludorum Club technique.

Personally, I encourage clients to lift in socks where practical, but this isn’t comfortable for everyone. So, what should you wear?

There’s no definitive answer, but my three recommendations are:

• Nike Metcon: stable, structured and versatile enough for strength training, functional movement and some cardio.
• RAD ONE V2: a newer option with a similarly stable feel, clean look and excellent feedback from several LC members.
• Vivobarefoot: flat, wide and as close to barefoot as you can get. My pick for those wanting to maximise foot awareness during squats, lunges and deadlifts.

Ultimately, the best gym shoe is one that helps (not hinders) your ability to create a stable base.

Leave the marathon super shoes for the marathon.

Jake Hitchcock

Wearables have exploded into the mainstream.

Once reserved for elite athletes, sports scientists and the particularly health-obsessed, Apple Watches, Oura Rings, WHOOPs and Garmins are now ubiquitous, collecting enormous amounts of physiological information every day… and most people only use them to see how well they slept last night.

Your wearable can provide an incredibly useful window into how your body is responding to the life you are imposing upon it.

Resting heart rate can reflect changes in cardiovascular fitness, recovery, illness and accumulated stress. HRV offers insight into autonomic activity and how well you are tolerating your allostatic load. Sleep duration and regularity reveal whether you’re providing sufficient opportunity for recovery, while respiratory rate and temperature trends can signal illness or physiological stress.

Individually, none of these metrics is omniscient. Human physiology is stochastic. One low HRV reading or elevated RHR may be inconsequential, and treating every isolated deviation as meaningful is a wonderful way to become neurotic without becoming any healthier.

Trends, however, can tell a very different story.

If HRV falls, RHR rises, sleep deteriorates and training performance regresses, you have convergence. The demands being placed upon you may be exceeding your capacity to recover. Then you investigate.

Has training volume increased? Has work become particularly stressful? Are you sleeping less? Travelling more? Eating poorly? Moving less? Have you been decidedly less abstemious with alcohol than you would care to admit?

This is where wearable data becomes genuinely useful. You move from observation to intervention, creating the feedback loop that is the real utility of so-called “biohacking”.

Somewhere along the way, biohacking became synonymous with ice baths, red-light panels, obscure supplements and elaborate morning routines. There may be utility in some of these things, but they become farcical when pitted against the continued depredation wrought by poor sleep, inactivity, excessive alcohol, chronic stress and inadequate nutrition.

There is something almost nihilistic about obsessively quantifying your health while repeatedly ignoring the behaviours demonstrably eroding it.

Over time, you begin constructing your own physiological operating manual. What do three nights of curtailed sleep do to your training? What does alcohol do to your RHR?

Measure consistently, look for trends, apply context and intervene. Then observe the response.

The objective isn’t to generate beautiful graphs documenting the gradual erosion of your health while continuing to live exactly as you did before. It’s to make the invisible consequences of your behaviour visible.

Your physiology is providing feedback every single day… do something about it.

Jordan Brown

@conditioncollective