The moment the doors swung open at Zamaya, Will Tennyson stopped walking. Not because he was tired, but because the place looked nothing like any gym he had ever checked into. A fitness resort built from the ground up for $40 million, somewhere in the Mexican jungle, and he was the first member of the public to walk through it. For anyone who has ever tried to hold a training routine together while traveling, that premise alone demands attention. Tennyson had one stated goal: leave fitter than he arrived. The resort’s founder, Dave, had one stated comparison: Willy Wonka’s fitness factory.
Seven gyms and no elevator in sight
Dave, the founder of Zamaya, described his creation as ‘a giant tropical fitness sanctuary where people of all different athletic abilities can come and totally immerse themselves in their own physical development.’ What that looks like in practice is a sprawling resort with no buffet, no alcohol, no TV in the rooms, and no elevator anywhere on the property. Getting to a top-floor suite means climbing stairs in tropical heat. The rooms come with boxing gloves on the bed instead of chocolates, a foam roller, a notebook for tracking workouts, and a personal plunge pool overlooking the jungle canopy.
The centrepiece of the resort is a structure Tennyson kept calling the bamboo space onion: a massive open-air pavilion housing CrossFit rigs, gymnastic rings, battle ropes, sleds, and a calisthenics rig just outside where the pull-up bars catch full sun. A separate building called Lysima, which translates to ‘the summit’ in Spanish, holds the powerlifting and bodybuilding setup: deadlift platforms, a chalk bowl, a pendulum squat, a hack squat, a leg press, and enough squat racks that Tennyson scrapped his original workout plan on the spot and decided to do a full body session instead. There is also a Muay Thai area ringed entirely with punching bags, a boxing ring, an octagon, and a Pilates studio on the upper floor above the main lifting floor.
The food situation nobody expected
The resort’s only restaurant, called BAM, runs menus printed almost entirely in numbers. Every dish comes with its full macro breakdown. Tennyson built his own plate at lunch: beef patty, shrimp, cauliflower, French fries, Greek yogurt, and chimichurri, and he noted, with genuine suspicion, that he appeared to be the first person at the resort to order fries. Dinner on the final night came to 1,092 calories, 131 grams of protein, 61 grams of carbs, and 36 grams of fat, a plate of chicken breast, sweet potato fries, and vegetables that he described as ‘bro food done really well.’ The bar serves water, cold-pressed juice, coffee, electrolytes, and protein shakes. The day Tennyson arrived, he ordered a blend of beets, carrots, apples, and ginger. He called it surprisingly delicious.
Recovery got its own dedicated hanger: a sauna large enough for fifteen people, ice baths, a jacuzzi, and an outdoor shower surrounded on all sides by water. Tennyson did fifteen minutes in the sauna, then a cold plunge he admitted was not ideal for muscle growth right after lifting, then the jacuzzi, and by 7 p.m. on day one he had already cleared 10,000 steps without a single dedicated walk.
Day two stacked Brazilian jiu-jitsu with head trainer Con’s outdoor circuit, which ran through ring muscle-ups, an assault bike, sled pushes, and weighted box step-overs in what Tennyson described as ‘literally an outdoor sauna, but then doing CrossFit on top of it.’ He managed three ring muscle-ups. Then came a sports massage with a masseuse named Nomi, preceded by a herbal steam ritual that left him, in his own words, ‘in a place I’m not sure I’ve mentally returned from.’
The protein ball on the pillow
On the first night, Tennyson returned to his suite to find two protein balls waiting on the bed: 120 calories and 8 grams of protein each, one coconut, one peanut.
After two days at the world’s first fitness resort, Tennyson flew home sore, well-rested, and, by his own admission, a little tired of chicken breast. He put it plainly: ‘Maybe the real vacation starts when you get home.’ The pizza had already been ordered.
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