Junk the pounds

It's not the first place you'd think of going to pick up some exercise equipment - but if you're keen to try new things while also losing fat and building muscle, head down to your local junkyard. Among the discarded bits of Londoners' lives, you'll find the latest must-have fitness items - old lorry tyres, thick ropes and heavy sandbags.

Tipped by sports supplement brand Kinetica (kinetica-sports.com) to be one of the hottest exercise trends to hit the city this year, the Junkyard workout is both edgy and traditional, in that it does away with the specific, repetitive muscle exercises beloved of gyms and personal trainers and concentrates on a range of good old-fashioned physical movements such as our ancestors might have used working in the fields or even cleaning the house in the days before machines.

The best way to learn how to train Junkyard style and to ensure you don't get injured is to try out the new Junkyard classes first. Devised by Jon Denoris, Kinetica fitness ambassador and personal trainer to the stars, at the moment the Junkyard classes are held in swish Club 51, in Mayfair, but Denoris is hoping to roll them out into parks throughout London.

I'm not exactly afraid of sweating and am looking forward to something innovative, fun and challenging - and I am not disappointed.

"The movements that you do in this workout work the entire body. They also translate or have a carryover into activities of daily living such as squatting, pulling, pushing and rotating," says Denoris, who adds that every exercise can be altered to suit the beginner or advanced exerciser.

After a fairly challenging warm-up, we start to play with the tyre. I say "play" because it really does feel like a game, albeit a difficult one. Very soon, I am giggling at my strongman moves and enjoying the challenge of wielding a 50kg piece of rubber. It reminds me of the last time I moved house and had to transport heavy boxes into the back of a van. If only Denoris had been around to help.

I lift the tyre up and flip it over to Denoris. Next, I jump up onto it and back down, several times, causing my heart rate to soar.

The next challenge is with heavy ropes. I am to hold them with outstretched arms and squat slightly, says Denoris, using my core and upper body to move the ropes up and down. Unsure what to expect,

I try it and the ropes curve up and down in a beautiful Mexican wave (while also wreaking havoc on my forearms, upper arms and all the little muscles in my shoulders).

I must admit to being more out of breath than I'd like by the time we arrive at the sandbag portion of the workout.