Test your limits with extreme workouts

I’m slipping in a puddle of my own sweat as I struggle to get to my feet for the next 20 star jumps. I teeter dizzily on legs that feel as if they might give way at any moment, and grab the rail that runs along the studio wall to catch my breath.

“Are you leaning?” yells instructor Fitz Gaynes, his voice rising an indignant octave. “No leaning on my watch.” I feel like Private Benjamin being bawled out by the Drill Sergeant. But the plus side, I console myself, is that I’ll miss the first few jumps.

No such luck. The four or five star jumps the rest of the class have already done are wiped from the slate and we begin again at one. And the worst of it is, I’m not even a quarter-way through this Grand Circuit class yet. When I signed up, I’d assumed that “grand” meant big, or impressive, and it isn’t until I turn up at London’s Third Space that I discover the class is called that because we are about to undertake 1,000 exercises.

Well, 1,000, give or take a few. As Gaynes counts us through each set of exercises (“150 gone, only 850 to go…”) he stalks the room – and if he spots someone not squatting low enough, or jumping high enough, he stands by the offender, repeating the same number over and over, 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 4 … until they sharpen up their act.

Gaynes doesn’t actually shout “no pain, no gain” in his class, but it’s plain that he believes it. “Every time you come to my class I am going to physically break you,” he tells me. “And you know why? Because that’s what works. There are two ways to exercise. There’s low-intensity exercise. I call that the LIE, because it doesn’t work. Then there’s high-intensity training, which I call the HIT, because it does work.”

It would be easier to dismiss all this as hype if Gaynes, who is 53, didn’t have the body and energy of someone two decades younger. And, more importantly, if the same scenario wasn’t being played out at gyms and health clubs nationwide.

Extreme workouts, it seems, are the order of the day. Some of the classes on offer include Psycho Circuits, Last Man Standing, TNT (There’s No Tomorrow) and, my favourite, Armageddon. While the workouts of yesteryear promised us “fun” and “fat-burning”, the latest classes come with taglines like “playtime is over”, “are you tough enough?” and “sick bag on standby”.

But what’s behind this “come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough” approach? “In part, it’s a backlash against the softly, softly approach,” says Dean Hodgkin, fitness director at Ragdale Hall health spa in Leicestershire and an international fitness presenter. “People are starting to see the light – that if you want to get results, you have to work hard for them – so there is a willing market out there, prepared to sweat.”

While crowd-pleasers like dance classes and bums ’n’ tums still feature on Radgale Hall’s timetable, they are being joined by tougher options such as On the Ropes, an interval-training class using skipping ropes, and a group weight-training class whose slogan is “go heavy, or go home”.

For Pieter Vodden, a PT Manager at Gym Box and instructor of another tortuous workout I sample, called Sweatshop, the new movement is about getting back to basics. “For too long, gyms have been so far removed from what physical activity is all about,” he says. “The trend is towards tough, intense workouts based on athletic functions like jumping, pushing, pulling, squatting, throwing and running. It’s the antithesis to the rows of flashy high-tech machines that take away all the hard work and allow you to do a chest press while reading the Sunday papers.”

No chance of that in Vodden’s class, which consists of three-minute intervals on a 12-station circuit featuring kettlebell swings, leaping on to a box, jumping through hoops, squat thrusts and bunny hops. My heart rate reaches 92 per cent of its maximum.

But Stuart Biddle, a sports psychologist at Loughborough University, isn’t convinced that extreme training represents a shift in thinking. “The fitness industry is always looking for a new angle,” he says. “It doesn’t necessarily mean it works. It’s just part of the mix. And it won’t appeal to everyone.”

So what is the attraction? “It’s really fun,” says Annelies Harte, a regular at Gaynes’s Grand Circuit. Really? “Well, no,” she confesses. “It’s hard work, actually – but the results are fun.”

“Results” usually means toned muscles or lower body fat, but according to Biddle, it isn’t always about aesthetic gains. “The type of person who is attracted to pushing themselves this hard places a high value on the outcome, whether that’s a better body shape, improved physical performance or stress relief,” he explains. “They are willing to endure short-term pain for long-term gain. In some cases, they actually need an extreme level of challenge in order to feel that they’ve done anything worthwhile.”

Steve Bedford, a fit and boyish- looking 41-year-old director of a headhunting agency, who I meet at Vodden’s class, typifies this “sensation seeker” attitude. “It’s all about the mental, rather than the physical, for me,” he says. “I’m addicted to that endorphin rush. It’s a great stress-reliever. If a class isn’t hard enough, I’ll stay and do something else afterwards.”

Harte agrees that the lure goes beyond the body benefits. “The fun is in doing a particular exercise better, faster, or more times,” she says. “And it is also in knowing that after class, you will feel on top of the world, no matter what.”

Five hundred exercises in, I’m willing to wager that I’ll be feeling anything but on top of the world when – if – I make it to the finish line of this fitness ordeal. But at some indeterminate moment during the latter part of the workout, I realise I’m on quite a high. Two hundred more alternate leg thrusts? Bring ’em on!

“The appeal of pushing yourself to the max is quite primal,” says Hodgkin. “You only learn about yourself when you’re approaching your limits. And if you can push yourself in one thing, it shows you what reserves you have to draw on in other areas of your life – and that feels good.”

I’m not sure whether it’s my rubbery legs or the post-workout afterglow that puts a spring into my step as I head for the station after completing the Grand Circuit. Next day, I can’t even manage to take the dog for a walk.

pursuits@ft.com

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The details

www.gymbox.co.uk

www.ragdalehall.co.uk

www.thethirdspace.com