The gym is probably the last place you want to be with a stinking hangover but in America, they've dreamed up the nightmare-inducing "morning- after workout".

While the only accompaniment most of us like to a pounding head and churning stomach is languishing on the couch watching bad TV, it looks like the Americans could be on to something.

Some medical researchers and exercise experts say a session down the gym might be a very good way to beat those morning-after blues.

If you can handle it, getting your blood flowing and boosting your metabolism at a gentle exercise class will move alcohol and its nasty toxins out of your system much faster than lying around groaning.

Instructors at LA's Crunch Gym the chain which gave the world the self-explanatory Stiletto Workout and brought stripping and aerobics together in Cardio Striptease are the brains behind the morning-after workout.

It's described on their website as "a routine of re-hydration, deep-breathing, stretching and light body sculpting, which helps to increase blood circulation to rid the body of toxins and post-party aches."

The theory is that after a night out, you're less co ordinated and more injury prone, which is why the crazy sounding class is basically a form of gentle yoga. During the 45-minute classes, the lights are dimmed, the music is soft and the movements are extra gentle.

The workout starts out in child's pose (crouched with your head on the floor and legs tucked under your chest), to which woozy-feeling members often return to for breaks between more active poses.

After getting on all fours and alternating between arching and curving the back in "cat-cow", the class moves into downward dog and slow sun salutations.

The Sunday morning session finishes with a shoulder stand to stimulate the thyroid gland and the metabolism.

If any of the poses induce a wave of nausea in particularly fragile class members, they are told to take time out and have a glass of water.

Afterwards, the reward for making it through the class is a multi-vitamin drink and pampering skin products.

While the classes are a big hit in the States and even in some parts of the UK there's a hangover workout classes in Walsall Julie Ridout who takes a Five Tibetans yoga class at the Acupuncture Clinic in Portland Road, Hove, thinks the Americans are missing the point.

"I wouldn't suggest you do yoga to cure a hangover," she says.

"If you become a yogi you don't drink or smoke, you're meant to be pure. I personally couldn't do yoga with a hangover and I probably wouldn't suggest anyone else do it.

When you've got a hangover the last thing you want to do is exercise."

But not everyone agrees. Naomi Clark, the studio owner of Bikram Yoga in Hove, says plenty of people head to her sessions to beat a hangover.

"We get lots of people at our classes with a hangover trying to detox and they always leave feeling better," she says.

"Bikram yoga is very effective for a hangover because it cleanses the liver and kidneys and you have to drink a lot of water which flushes the system.

"Working through the 26 postures also helps to get rid of headaches and cleanse the body's biggest organ, the skin, through sweating."

To see what you've been missing, visit www.crunch.com