Personal trainer and nutritionist Sarah-Jane Holt has developed a fitness programme especially for us. Starting with two weekly sessions in month one and building to three sessions over months 2 and 3 we promise it’ll help you feel fit and fabulous in time for spring.

The first steps towards improving your fitness can feel overwhelming but they don’t need to be. Small progressive changes to your routine will result in long lasting improvements to your overall health and wellbeing. By following our 3 month post-Christmas challenge, you will slowly build up your fitness, confidence and motivation to stay healthy all year long.

In our first month we set you two weekly challenges, a weekly workout and a weekly walk. These challenges increase in difficulty, frequency and duration over the coming months until, by the end of March, you have built in a solid and maintainable exercise routine and are feeling the benefits of your increased fitness and health!

Exercise for 30 seconds, followed by a 30 second rest, and repeat each exercise 4 times.

1. Squat – With feet just wider than shoulder width, make sure your knees track over your second toe, keep your chest up, pushing your bum backwards and sit down on an imaginary chair. Squeeze your glutes and come back up to standing, again making sure those knees track over your second toe.

2. Press-ups – If you are new to exercise, I suggest doing press-ups on bent knees. Make sure your hands are directly under your shoulders, squeeze your bum and brace your tummy. As you lower your chest down, your elbows go back slightly. Make sure you take your whole body with you…as you drive back up to straight arms focus on keeping your shoulders down.

3. Single Leg Lowers – This great core exercise can significantly help with back pain. Lie on the floor, both knees in the air, with feet off the ground. Take a big breath into your tummy and push your lower back into the floor as you exhale and pull your tummy button towards your spine. You need to maintain this pressure against the floor as you lower one heel to the floor. Bring that foot back up, take a deep breath in, breathe out and repeat on the other side.

4. High Knees – This exercise has the goal of getting that heart rate up. It is a jumping exercise so if you don’t feel confident to do this yet you can change it to a fast march with high knees.

5. Floor Angels – This targets upper back and works on posture. Lying on your back, feet flat on the floor, bend your knees keeping your bum, lower back, upper back and head in contact with the floor. With your elbows and wrists on the floor, elbows in line with your shoulders, move your arms up until hands meet above your head and then bring your elbows down just below shoulder level, all the time keeping those 4 points in contact with the floor.

Nutrition Tip

After a month of possibly drinking a little too much alcohol, we need to rehydrate. The goal is to build up to drinking 2-3 litres of water a day. Water is often overlooked but it’s an essential part of a healthy diet, enabling the body to function properly, transporting nutrients efficiently, accessing fat stores for energy and allowing us to train hard and recover well. Thirst is also often mistaken for hunger so being hydrated can also help control our calorie intake. Buying a 2 litre water bottle and filling it every morning can help you track your intake each day. 

Contact Sarah-Jane on 07772 416993 or see sarahjaneholt.co.uk

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