All the sweat, none of the effort: the gym class you can snooze through

SOME people love the gym; others have the gym thrust upon them. I belong firmly in the latter camp.

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Propelled by the twin forces of guilt and cut-price ClassPass membership offers, I've spun, planked and winced my way through circuits in the past. And yet it never seems to get easier. Wouldn't it be marvellous if you could just melt calories away, as if by magic?

A new gym class promises such sorcery. Devised by Gymbox, the 45-minute session is touted as "the easiest workout in the world" and uses infrared sauna blankets to sizzle off up to 600 calories in a single session - or so the spiel goes. Could this be the answer to my lazy girl prayers? All results, zero gruntwork? I joined a class to find out.

It was a tight group at Gymbox's Victoria branch; only seven Higher Dose sauna blankets were laid out but each one was taken by the time the class began. Turns out the idea of a lazy burn is also a popular one.