26.04.2017

The Team Alpha SXM becomes a true street workout club

IT IS ORGANIZING ON THE 20th OF MAY THE FIRST STREET WORKOUT COMPETITION OF THE ISLAND

Since our encounter with the Team Alpha SXM in March 2016, the street workout club has evolved and is structured a little more each day. At the time, members trained three times a week since the 2015 All Saints’ Day on the playground of a residence in Concordia. They have migrated in September 2016 to the fitness trail installed by the Collectivité on the waterfront in Galisbay. They regularly post on their Facebook page (which has more than 1,000 followers) videos and pictures of their workouts. Last January, they published a video to highlight the girls of the team called “Alpha Females” with the slogan: “Girls can do it too…”.

Five members participated last August to a training workshop organized by the Caribbean Federation of Street Workout & Calisthenics in Guadeloupe. “We have not been selected to participate in the international competition in Dubai, our level was not sufficient as we were a new club but it strongly encouraged us to pursue and it was, either way, a great opportunity to publicize the Team and urban bodybuilding of Saint-Martin” recalls Grégory, one of the founding members.

Then, they organized the first World Pull Up Day in Saint-Martin on September 10th, 2016 on the waterfront of Marigot.
They have donated the benefits raised to the Red Cross during this annual international event around pull ups. Faced with the success of the event, and the seriousness of the organizers, Jean-Marc Gervais, President of the Soualiga Youth Association who is sponsoring the Team Alpha, offered to help organize the first competition of urban bodybuilding of Saint-Martin on May 20th.

 

Now affiliated with the Caribbean Federation of Street Workout & Calisthenics, the Alpha Team will soon have its own place of training. A windfall for members because if they appreciate the site of their training place in Galisbay (“sea, wind and sun”), and acknowledge that “it's better than nothing”, the fitness trail is not suitable for their discipline: “the bars are too big and too high, and there aren’t any parallel bars.” The Team includes forty members of which fifteen are regular. It hopes that having a dedicated site will be further proof of its seriousness and will inspire others to join them. Greg and Shakim, the founding members, perform their civic service to Emile Choisy school while waiting to leave for the army. For Team Alpha to continue, they are training other young people to take over with the ambition to develop the sport on the island.

Photo: Grégory, a founding member, and Jean-Michel, a new member, before their workout on Thursday, April 13, 2017 in Galisbay.

 

Vidéo : Aperçu d'un entraînement des membres de la Team Alpha SXM, le mercredi 2 mars 2016 à Concordia.

 

Fanny Fontan