Pure Gym social media post sparks outrage after comparing workout to slavery during Black History Month

A branch of a nationwide health club chain has sparked outrage after comparing a workout to slavery on its social media platforms.

Pure Gym in Luton published a post about a workout entitled ’12 Years Of Slave’ “to celebrate Black History Month”, saying: “Slavery was hard and so is this.”

The social media post read: “Entitled ’12YearsOfSlave’ (after the epic movie) this is our workout of the month designed by @mattsimpt to celebrate black history month.

“Slavery was hard and so is this. The twist to this is 1 rep of your 1st exercise, 2 of the second but before you move on to the 3rd exercise which is also 3 reps you must start at the beginning to move on and thats how the entire workout goes.”

The post, which was taken down after several hours, was later shared by personal trainer Matt Simpson who designed the work-out. He said he was ordered to take it down.

On Instagram, he wrote: “Apparently the wording was an issue but wasn’t asked to edit it.”

The post sparked outrage online with the Tell Mama organisation, combatting anti-Muslim hate crime, branding it “appalling”.

A spokesperson for Pure Gym said: “PureGym apologises unreservedly for a post made today by our gym in Luton.

“This post is wholly unacceptable, was not approved or endorsed by the company and was removed as soon as it was brought to our attention.

“Each of our 271 gyms has its own social media channels which are run locally.

“We take this matter extremely seriously and are urgently investigating how and why this post was made.”