CARA and Maya Halliday are the gym-owning sisters helping empower women and creating positive attitudes towards exercise.<\/p>\n
They own the female-only gym Sorrella in Glasgow\u2019s city centre.<\/p>\n
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Maya and Cara Halliday own a womens-only gym in Glasgow Credit: Cara Halliday\/Sorrella Gym<\/p>\n
The powerhouse sisters won first place in their pairs category at the ATHX Games in Berlin Credit: Cara Halliday\/Sorrella Gym<\/p>\n
They do what they love, they love what they do, and they are an inspiration for their members.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur message at the gym is around empowering women to train hard, to find confidence and kind of break any stereotypes of how they should train,\u201d said 29 year-old Cara.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got a massive focus on our community, it\u2019s just a real safe space for women to show up, train with others, and just be themselves \u2013 which is why the competing side is perfect for us,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
The sisters ranked first place in their pairs category at the ATHX games in Berlin last month and are competing this weekend.<\/p>\n
Taking place on June 20 and 21 at the Scottish Event Campus, the ATHX Games is bringing one of the world\u2019s fastest-growing hybrid fitness competitions to the city.<\/p>\n
Glasgow is part of a 10-city schedule this year which also includes Copenhagen, Barcelona, Marseille, Miami and Houston.<\/p>\n
The latest test of athleticism was founded in 2023 and now takes place across 11 countries with more than 40,000 competitors.<\/p>\n
Cara explained that ATHX is strength-based with weights in the first section followed by endurance then a partner workout, all within two and a half hours.<\/p>\n
The competition has six zones to complete including warm-up, refuel and recovery.<\/p>\n
She said: \u201cThere\u2019s definitely more of a strength element to it than HYROX, which again we prefer, because this is the style of training that we\u2019ve always done at Sorrella.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe focus on strength and conditioning rather than all conditioning, it allows you not to neglect that side of training, which in our opinion is so important for women.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important for building strength, building muscle, for bone density and for longevity.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several Sorrella members are also taking part in Glasgow\u2019s ATHX event. For some it will be their first competitive event.<\/p>\n
Seeing clients take part will be a proud moment for Cara and Maya, 31, from Glasgow.<\/p>\n
Cara said: \u201cFor some of our members, this is their first time competing, which is really nice to see and ATHX is inclusive.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a \u2018light\u2019 category now, which is for complete beginners who want to get a feel for competing.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt uses lighter weights, so it\u2019s not quite as hard, but it still allows them to get involved and get a feel for the competition.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s great for us to see some girls competing that have maybe come in for a body transformation to start with and now they\u2019re setting themselves these performance goals.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sorrella Gym focuses on focus on strength and conditioning Credit: Cara Halliday\/Sorrella Gym<\/p>\n
Cara in action at the ATHX Games Credit: Cara Halliday\/Sorrella Gym<\/p>\n
This is an important message Cara wants to share with women and help give them the courage and confidence to work out.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s important to push our bodies through hard things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause I think there has been a bit of a change in the fitness industry recently, I feel like it has gone backwards a little.<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen are scared to pull a muscle and we\u2019ve spent years trying to reshape women\u2019s mindsets towards being strong.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere are a lot more community gyms now but for women, skinny is trending.<\/p>\n
\u201cWomen are encouraged to have aesthetic goals to be smaller versions of themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor us, you notice how empowering it is for women to take part in competitions.\u201d<\/p>\n
After competing separately at previous events, the European competition was the first time they\u2019d entered together.<\/p>\n
The sisters took part in ATHX in Berlin and met other athletes who had travelled there for the competition.<\/p>\n
Athleisure is growing in popularity. VisitScotland, the national tourist organisation, identified this as a travel trend for 2026 with visitors planning trips around social fitness events.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And fitness-focused trips are fast replacing traditional group holidays for many who are choosing destinations specifically to train or take part in sporting events.<\/p>\n
With a mix of experiences including ATHX in Glasgow, Scotland is a frontrunner to capitalise all year round.<\/p>\n
Cara added: \u201cThere\u2019s a big fitness scene in Glasgow now and so many community gyms with people getting into HYROX and competitive events.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I can imagine lots of Glaswegians taking part this weekend, but I expect lots from England, like Liverpool and Manchester where the fitness scene is big as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
The community element and Glasgow hosting the games is a sense of achievement.<\/p>\n
Owner of Inspire Gym in Barrhead, Ross Flockhart, said events like ATHX and HYROX give people an opportunity to challenge themselves with others who share similar goals.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cIt has become a real hub for fitness events.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe city has an incredible mix of gyms, running clubs, fitness communities and sporting venues.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople genuinely get behind these events, whether they\u2019re competing or spectating, which creates an atmosphere that\u2019s hard to beat.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CARA and Maya Halliday are the gym-owning sisters helping empower women and creating positive attitudes towards exercise. They…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[499,53798,103,61,60],"class_list":["post-508717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-fitness","tag-fitness","tag-fitness-and-exercise","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}