No headphones needed. The sound of waves serves as a playlist for hundreds of fit, sport loving Senegalese who swarm to the beach daily in Dakar. It isn't Muscle Beach in Venice, California. It's Fann Beach in Senegal's capital.
Workouts are usually done en masse, to chants and cheers. Hundreds of men and women pack tightly into groups to run and skip in simultaneous motion down Fann Beach every day after 5 p.M. Others join situp sessions or create solo workouts.
At any time of the day, along the beach routes, people are running, using trampolines, public equipment like barbells and chin-up bars or mother nature as the workout partner.
"Most people are very fit here. Senegalese like sport," said Mor Diaw, 23, a student at the nearby Higher National Institute of Popular Education and Sports. "At the gym, you have to pay and it's expensive. Here, it's free."
People have been exercising on the mustard-colored sands for at least 20 years. Last year, the city upgraded the equipment, according to trainer Mbake Gueye, who is paid by the city government.
Diaw has been coming to Fann Beach since 2011.
"It's easier to run here than in the city. The breeze is nice and the air is clean," said Diaw, who lines up plastic bottles in the sand and jumps between them, his shoes cast aside.
Karim Mbaye, a 25-year-old law student, does shoulder circles near the water. He digs a deep hole to optimise pushups. He gets a total body workout, and one he learned just watching others on the beach, he says, sweat running down his brow.
