Just when you thought you’d done your bit for new year fitness by squeezing yourself into Lycra so tightfitting it makes your thighs feel like burst chipolatas, a new challenge appears.

Hanson Fitness, the New York gym rumoured to be attended by Rihanna and Tom Cruise, has launched nude workout classes, with the option of “flesh-coloured underwear” for those fearful – oh hear those boasts – of “taking eyes out” during over-exuberant star jumps.

Whether these nude classes are mixed-sex remains unclear. What also initially remained unclear was, erm, the point? A spokesman for the gym said that nude exercising helps skin to breathe and enables the absorption of vitamin D, while the increased body awareness makes people exercise harder. So, decoding the gym-speak, if you’re naked, watching the terrible undulations of your poor, pitifully exposed, pale middle-aged body (I may be over-personalising the issue) will make you hyperaware that you need to continue exercising and never ever stop – except perhaps to swallow cyanide?

Though maybe there’s another reason – to generate worldwide publicity for the gym? Mission duly accomplished. (Sorry.)