THE BASICS: A fast, intense 30 minute work out focusing on short, rapidly increasing intervals, designed to give you a real cardio workout for 15mins, and then a toning/conditioning workout for 15 mins. Then you die.

THE BITCHES: Carly

THE CLASS: Sunday morning. My muscles woke up grumpy with me for the previous morning’s hot yoga flow class. Well, body, you can complain as much as you like, because at 11am today we are going to take you to Frame Shoreditch and BEAT THE CRAP OUT OF YOU!

I’m not going to lie- I live about 5 minutes from Frame, and if it was any longer there is no way I would have mustered up the energy to go. But I did. And I am so glad I discovered this place!

It is super easy to find, there is a massive red sign pointing you down the alley that it sits down, just off of New Inn Yard. This place is everything I expected it to be, which was an excellent start. The interior is nestled under archways, industrial in style; a stripped back classic East London space, with exposed brick, three studios and nice big changing and waiting areas.

After arrival and creeping like a bemused geek into an uber-cool place (I feel like this regularly to be fair) I sat on the big leather sofa in the waiting area behind reception, worrying about how I was going to endure a 30 minute hardcore sesh. The place was so exciting and vibrant, I think my usual HB enthusiasm had been weakened by the amount of lactic acid in my thighs after the previous day’s hot yoga!

Anyway, despite my pathetic-ness, the music was pumping enticingly from the studios, and I could just catch glimpses of people (mainly fellow HBs) heaving weighted balls and lunging on mats in front of me, through the studio doors. I was starting to get excited rather than nervous, which was a good thing!

The Frame Camp class was announced at 11am on the dot, by the teacher Emma, poking her head out of the studio door and yelling “FRAME CAMP!!!” into the waiting room. This broke the ice and made me laugh at how energised and RAAAAAAAAH the whole studio/class was designed to make you feel. It was as if she had poked her head out and said “OI! GET IN HERE BITCHES!!! NOW! NO MESSING ABOUT!” Perfect way to get us into the mindset for what was to come.

In we went. There were 4 of us attending that Sunday’s class, although the studio can fit up to a maximum of 8 for the Camp class. We all popped our bags into a corner (you have to take your bags into the studio with you so bear this in mind) and stepped up onto the treadmills. Emma told us to all clip ourselves in and to choose our “base” running speed.

I should have listened to the word “base” more carefully- for this was the clue that any speed we built up to would be greater than this. Oh no. Cocky old me chose a speed that is a stretch for me at the best of times, and after 10 minutes, MAN was I regretting this base-speed decision!!

Anyway, off we started at our base speeds. Every 30 seconds, Emma would instruct us to turn our speed and/or incline up by a point, or two… or at the peak of the cardio section, by FIVE points, and it was then left to us to sprint to within in inch of our lives, before coming back down to base speed and incline when instructed to do so, for the short rest period.  (Disclaimer: I say 30 seconds per interval- it might have been 45, it might have been 60, I was honestly focusing on breathing so much that I couldn’t count the time span between intervals).

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how I found myself at 11.10am on a Sunday morning, running up an incline of 4, at 14.5km per hour, and wondering at which second my heart was going to stop and I was going to be put out of my galloping hell and projected off the back of the treadmill, into the afterlife. Despite the fact that I have never been more sure in my life that I was about to need an ambulance, the 15 minute cardio section was up before we knew it.

And without a second to recover, we were thrust onto the empty space next to the treadmills and ready to do sets of sit-ups, press-ups, weights, lunges and tricep curls. These sections must have lasted around 45 seconds each (again, too close to death to give an accurate reading I am afraid), and the intensity and pace was kept up by encouraging, strong instruction from our fabulous teacher.

30 minutes past within the blink of a heart attack. I was drenched in sweat, delighted I had spent Sunday morning at Frame, and PUMPED for my next task of the day which was hanging out the washing and making some porridge. YEAH PORRIDGE! I AM GONNA MICROWAVE YOU LIKE YOU WON’T BELIEVE YOU FREAKING OATY MOFO!!!

Except… after chatting (hyperventilating?) to Emma straight after the class about Project Hot Bitch, she encouraged me to consider staying on for her next 30 min class of the day… Frame Vibe.

Being diligent to the pledge of Project HB, I obviously said…. YES!! Porridge, you can wait. Body, get ready to WEEP. I’ve written allll about it in the next blog post. Enjoy!

THE VERDICT: Short, sharp, and effective to the point I still hurt, more than 48 hours after the class. Frame Camp is a killer, but man does it spank the lethargy out of you!

THE EXTRAS: If this studio was a human, I would marry it. In fact, isn’t there a way you can marry inanimate objects?! I am going to look into it.