I admit I am a fitness freak - back home in the UK, I row, run up mountains and do the triathlon, as well as paying my gym subscription and actually going! (OK, forget the 'fitness', I'm just a freak, clearly).

So when I arrived in Shanghai for a four-month stay, I was a little worried about how I would manage to stop myself expanding beyond the outer limits of the limited wardrobe I have brought with me. Exercising in the heat and humidity, without meeting an untimely end on the front windscreen of a taxi did not look like an option.

I never imagined that I would be able to join a beautifully equipped, air-conditioned gym in the centre of Shanghai, with all the latest equipment from the US. Nor had I anticipated how crowded it would be in the evenings after work.

The fitness cult (cult because it involves a certain amount of brainwashing, wearing costumes and addiction) took off relatively recently in the UK, with the arrival of smart gyms offering spectacular changing rooms, spa treatments and personal trainers. And now it has reached Shanghai.

Only like most things in Shanghai, it is somehow not quite the same as everywhere else. But I'm glad it's not. I have only been in Shanghai for three weeks, but part of the enjoyment of each day is the "Shanghai Surprise" element. And that applies to the gym too.

I admit that I am used to the posh gyms of London where, should you do anything as unseemly as drip sweat, you are expected to mop it up immediately. Not so in Shanghai. Here, there are people employed to do it! (Although, as I seem to work, and sweat, at about three times the rate of anyone else, these cleaners are becoming dedicated to me exclusively and starting to follow me round).

What I find most distracting though, is the cleaning of the equipment while you are still on it.

Then there are the girls who wrap themselves in cling-film. No, really. The first time I spotted one girl wrapping her (almost non-existent) stomach in cellophane, I did a pretty good impression of the stares I get on the Metro in the morning. Then I spotted more, some of whom were also wrapping their thighs (I wouldn't mind but compared with my amazonian Western build, most of these girls resemble chopsticks anyway).

Is this why I never see anyone else dripping with sweat perhaps? They wait till they are back in the changing room, before unleashing the torrent.

There is even a special Shanghainese way of using the treadmill. I have seen several people walking backwards on them. You don't see people out running backwards in the park, or even walking to work backwards (though I have wondered about the merits of this, given the need for eyes in the back of your head in Shanghai traffic).

It also demands huge amounts of concentration. For the purposes of research, I tried it and ended up in an undignified heap behind the treadmill attracting even more attention than usual.

Finally there are some interesting outfits, which I can only describe as large dungarees, with an elasticated waist, made of water proof material. Presumably for those days when you're worried your cling-film won't hold.

On the way home from the gym the other night, I passed a couple who seem to have the answer to the whole fitness problem though. Forget wrapping yourself in cellophane, putting on an over-sized baby-grow or heading (backwards) into the gym. What we all need are his-and- hers hula hoops. Togetherness is...

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