Tom Bold has taken it upon himself to ensure that, should the zombie apocalypse hit, Crossfit will be the perfect training to keep you alive.

Bold founded Crossfit Bold gym in Earlsfield last year and has seen his membership steadily grow as the form of fitness, popular in America, has begun to catch on in Great Britain.

Crossfit is referred to as ‘the sport of fitness’ and combines techniques from various sports into high intensity workouts designed to prepare a person for any physical tasks that may arise in day to day life rather than just focussing on specific body areas.

“We take the best bits of strength and conditioning and do an all-inclusive programme and make it more accessible to the general public,” said 24-year Bold, below.

“We take movements that you do in everyday life, such as running, jumping, pushing, pulling and swinging, and we do them hard and fast.

“We want to get people ready to do anything, whether that means lifting a child from under a car or running 10k to fetch water, so whatever you need to do in those worst case situations, you would be ready to handle it.

“It’s not like the zombie apocalypse is coming tomorrow, but if it did come, we’re ready.”

Ex-Harlequins, now London Broncos, player Bold started Crossfit in 2008 when he gave up on his dream of becoming a professional rugby league player.

“It got to the point where I had to decide if I wanted to carry on playing rugby and make a career of it – which was always my childhood dream,” he said.

“But, when I got there and figured out the kind of lifestyle they had, it wasn’t quite as appealing as I thought it would be when I was a kid so I stopped playing for them and this is my sport now.”

Once the competition aspects of Crossfit are taken into account, it becomes easy to see why it’s called a sport. There are numerous competitions throughout the country and the world including the Crossfit Games, which has been broadcast on ESPN and is of similar nature to strong man competitions.

The Crossfit Open is currently taking place where workouts are released online and competitors can submit their score and get ranked against others from around the world.

And Bold, ranked 55th in Europe, believes treating people as athletes is responsible for the culture of success.

“We have the opinion that people should come in and want to improve quickly,” he said.

“The best way to do that is for them to see themselves as athletes and we have to encourage them on all the stuff like eating well and sleeping well, like we would a professional athlete.

“The cool thing here is that because it’s such a tight knit community, people feed off each other, everybody goes through the same stuff.

“It’s nice to have that shared suffering – where we can talk about it.”