Third Space Moorgate Kettlebell Club: Friday 5:10 pm Session

Third Space Moorgate, at 16 South Place, London EC2M 2AQ, is the City club on the chain's timetable with a dedicated Kettlebells class, and this week it runs on Friday 23 October from 17:10 to 17:55 with coach Phoebe Redding. The class lasts 45 minutes and is booked through Third Space. Access needs a membership: the Moorgate-only Club tier costs £257 a month, plus a £100 joining fee.

South Place is a short street of offices between Moorgate and Liverpool Street, and from the pavement you would not guess a full-size club sits inside. Third Space describes Moorgate as a high-spec fitness club set in epic industrial design: polished concrete changing rooms, terrazzo vanity stations, metallic lockers and a spiral ramp that leads down into a circular cycling studio. The tone is darker and harder-edged than the chain's West London sites.

For anyone who trains with bells, the gym floor matters most. Moorgate has a sled track and an Eleiko strength area, a circular caged combat arena with hanging bags and padded walls, a HIIT studio, an intelligent cycling area and a recovery lounge stocked with Hyperice Hypervolt guns, Vyper vibrating foam rollers and Normatec compression boots. The general manager listed on the club page is Shanti Campbell.

Third Space sums the class up in two sentences: a dynamic full-body workout designed to boost core strength and muscular endurance, with a variety of kettlebell exercises targeting every major muscle group to build power while shedding body fat. Expect a format built on endurance rather than heavy single lifts: timed rounds of swings, goblet squats, rows, presses and lunges, with the core worked throughout.

The Friday 17:10 slot is cleverly placed. It catches people leaving desks around Finsbury Circus and Broadgate at the end of the working week, and it finishes before 18:00, so you can still make dinner plans. Honest verdict: one weekly kettlebell class is not a club in the old-school sense. If you want three coached kettlebell sessions a week, the dedicated London Kettlebell Club in Chessington is the better fit, though it is a long way from the City.

The chain's Kettlebells class page currently lists sessions at just three clubs: Moorgate, Richmond and Wimbledon. Moorgate is the only one inside the City, which is why it matters for office workers. Richmond's sessions sit on Friday late morning and Saturday early, and Wimbledon's run on Saturday morning and Monday at dawn. A Group membership, at £299 a month, covers every Third Space club except Mayfair and Chelsea, so you could chase extra sessions elsewhere.

That flexibility is the real argument for the Group tier if kettlebells are your main interest. A Moorgate-only Club member gets the single Friday class plus the Eleiko area for solo practice, while a Group member could add Saturday morning in Wimbledon. Group Plus, at £345 a month with a £200 joining fee, adds Mayfair and Chelsea. Third Space notes that initial access is staggered by waitlists, with your start date confirmed on joining.

If Friday does not work, the Moorgate timetable has plenty of strength alternatives that use similar movement patterns. Lift is the club's coached weightlifting class built on progressively heavier loads; Afterburner is a high-intensity session aimed at raising post-exercise oxygen consumption; and Sweat X splits the hour between treadmill running and strength work. None replaces kettlebell technique coaching, but Lift pairs especially well with a weekly swing session.

The trainer roster on the club page gives a sense of the crowd the club is built around. Lisa Melenyuk writes about adapting training around busy periods, injuries, pregnancy and menopause, and Richard Karpevich focuses on clients who want to become stronger, fitter and more confident. The Friday kettlebell group draws on the same City crowd: people who want a short, hard strength session to close the working week rather than another evening at a desk.

There is a quiet etiquette point worth knowing. Third Space publishes a Club Etiquette page, and the strength area is shared, so if the class runs while you are training solo, give the group space near the rigs. Bring your own water bottle, and know that the premium lockers are rented monthly; everyone else uses the day lockers in the changing rooms, which come with Cowshed products and fluffy towels.

A useful habit for first-timers is to arrive 20 minutes early and practise your hinge in the Eleiko area before the group starts. Kettlebells are provided, so you need only trainers with a flat sole, a towel and water. Afterwards the dry sauna, with its backlit Himalayan salt wall in both the male and female changing rooms, is the best way to loosen tight hamstrings before the commute home.

Getting here is easy. Moorgate station, served by the Northern, Circle, Hammersmith and City and Metropolitan lines, is a few minutes' walk west, and Liverpool Street, with the Elizabeth line and Central line, is a similar distance east. South Place runs along the northern side of Finsbury Circus, the oval garden square that gives this corner of the City its calm, leafy centre.

After the class, wander north to Bunhill Fields, the burial ground where William Blake and John Bunyan rest, or west to the Barbican Centre for a Friday evening concert or film. The Barbican's conservatory and lakeside terrace make an easy cool-down walk, and the Brutalist estate is a fitting match for a club that leans so heavily on concrete and steel.

Address: Third Space Moorgate, 16 South Place, London EC2M 2AQ. Club hours: Monday to Friday 05:30 to 22:00, Saturday and Sunday 08:00 to 20:00, bank holidays 08:00 to 20:00. Kettlebells class: Friday 23 October, 17:10 to 17:55, with Phoebe Redding. Membership: Club £257 a month (Moorgate only), Group £299, Group Plus £345; joining fee £100, or £200 for Group Plus. Tours can be booked online.