If Baywatch were a gym, this LA import would be it. Barry's Bootcamp became famous a few years ago for helping to cultivate the infamous size zero physiques of Hollywood starlets. Take a class at the Euston branch, and you can see how the weight fell off. Or, rather, how the weight was sweated, dumbell-lifted and sprinted into oblivion. A class at Barry's sweat dungeon - a basement gym with just one room, fitted out with a long run of state-of-the-art treadmills and lit like the Ministry of Sound - is said to expend 1000 calories. On this tester's visit, the treadmill calorie counter was slower to reward points, but if you find normal gyms a bit too sissy for your tastes, there is no doubt you'll be stretched to your limits by a turbo hour of synchronised sprints and matwork sessions chez Barry.
The place has LA written all over it - there is a smoothie bar, expensive toiletries on tap, and instructors are called Sweet Valley High names like Olly Truelove. It's also efficiency incarnate - from the slick booking system to the immaculately choreographed sessions. While one half of the class sprints like they're on the run, the other completes high intensity resistance exercises - every fifteen minutes they swap, and ramp their efforts up and down, fine-tuned by the on-the-ball, ludicrously muscley instructors. If all of this sounds a scoop of hair gel and a protein shake too much for your tastes, it's worth mentioning that the classes are actually strangely fun. The music is loud, the work varied, and the sessions pass in a flash. What's more, they are fiendishly effective.