David Lloyd

I love this concept: 45 or 60 mins of HIIT (high intensity interval training) between treadmills, rowing machines, weights, blocks, and TRX straps… but the twist is it’s all quantified and designed to push you harder.
When you arrive for your first class you’ll be given a heart rate monitor, which you wear around your chest, right by your heart for pretty accurate results. During the class, you watch your heart rate move in realtime on large TV screens. The goal is to push you to spend as much of the hour-​long class in the «orange zone», or 84% of your max heart rate or higher.
It is crazy how motivating this is: if you’re running and you see you’re at 83%, you run harder. If you’re lifting weights, you’ll run between blocks to keep the intensity up.
It’s comparable to 1Rebel’s Reshape (which I love) or Barry’s (which I’ve never tried) or a little like Flywheel. What I like about it is the structure, the data report you’ll get at the end of each workout, and the fact that OrangeTheory doesn’t hang on to this data.
So why 4 stars? The studio is modern and clean and the instructors are great, but it’s no frills: there’s only two showers in each locker room and no towel service. You also only get the heart rate monitor for your first Classpass class– afterwards you have to buy one for £30. I did, because I think the concept is great, and you can use it for other classes and connect it to most fitness/​run tracker apps.