Do you have any of those friends who are super fit? You know, those people who sit there all toned and glowing, brimming with vitality and joie de vivre, under the table drunk but it's fine because they ran fourteen miles and did seven hundred and fifty sit-ups that morning, as you imagine a parallel universe in which you did the same, before snapping back to reality, lighting your twentieth of the day and moaning about how the tube was down so you had to get a cab?

My friend Nahid's one of those people - you know, all lithe limbs and yoga retreats. And she says Power Plates are the bomb. So much so that she's opening her own studio.

It's based on a regime devised for Russian cosmonauts. You stand on a moving machine and do lunges, press-ups etc - the force of trying to keep stability while exercising gives the consummate work out. Apparently ten minutes of Power Plates equals an hour of normal training, and with hardcore exercise being the new big thing (see Beautcamp Pilates, British Military Fitness, et al), we're all about the short term pain for long term gain.