Getting Fit? It Only Takes a Minute

High-intensity interval training is not only effective and time-efficient, it's also less boring than traditional workouts.

There was an odd thing happening in the Equinox Gym, the newly opened temple of fitness that occupies part of what was once the Biba building on Kensington High Street.

Alongside the honed and toned hard bodies pounding the exercise machines, in among the glistening biceps lifting weights only marginally less substantial than a new Routemaster bus, a sudden reversal of evolution appeared to be taking place. The several million years it took for man to walk on two feet had, in less than an hour, been wiped out. After no more than 45 minutes in the place, I was no longer capable of standing upright and was reduced to crawling about on my hands and knees.

That is what happens when you engage with the latest fitness craze to arrive here from the United States: you feel it to the point where you end up barely able to stand. But the temporary return to primitive perambulation is worth it, or so its advocates insist. The rewards are substantial. Read more