THIS week the health and fitness spotlight falls on Jane Walley and Chris Ainley who were selected by our health team for personal training and advice.

The couple completed the fitness assessment with Hayley Robinson who now explains briefly what the main components of their exercise programme includes and why.

Chris’s job means he is desk bound and had suffered with low back pain in the past.

Having seen a chiropractor to rule out any serious condition of his back; the fitness assessment revealed he must increase his flexibility thereby increasing his range of movement.

Being stuck behind a desk most of the day has resulted in excessive tightness and inefficiency of his torso and in particular his core muscles, these act like a corset, protecting your back, maintaining good postural alignment and they also help hold your stomach in making it appear flatter.

Yoga stretches such as the Warrior II will benefit Chris’s tight calfs, hamstrings (legs), hip flexors, core muscles (torso) and chest.

Leaning over a computer for periods of time tends to tighten and shorten the chest, giving a rounded upper back look.

This can lead to increased tension around the neck and shoulders and may lead to headaches.

Chris will complete his full program and both Jane and him will walk two to three miles, twice a week to build a safe and gradual foundation of cardiovascular fitness. This will aid weight loss along with his healthy new nutritional plan.

Jane is also desk bound and while not suffering lower back pain has been diagnosed with Spondylitis, this is a type of arthritis that causes the spine to curve like an S shape.

Over time this will lead to poor posture, which then can cause injury, pain and poor range of movement. Identifying which muscles are already shortened, lengthened, tight or weak and by trying to redress this to balance them can prevent poor posture, injury and pain.

Jane’s program again includes a lot of stretching to emphasise flexibility and also core (as described before) strengthening exercises to help support her spine as best it can.

The four point tummy tuck is an excellent core strengthening exercise. Simply on all fours, practise pulling in your tummy from belly button down, exhale slowly while keeping the muscles pulled in towards your spine.

To ensure they make the fastest progress towards being healthy, fit and of course reaching their ideal weight. Guy has created individual eating plans.

Having received completed food diaries for the previous 10 days, it has been reviewed and certain objectives were identified.

At first there were several things picked up on but, as with all visions of health, the basics need to be adhered to first before concentrating on the more complex.

The first issue is always getting the thought process in line with the actual desired results. For example you must decide what actually you want to happen as an individual, not someone else. Such as an ideal shape/weight for a dress or occasion.

Thus a focus is created, within a specific, realistic timeframe, this makes success the only option in your own mind. I stress the importance of this.

Once the first step is under way, the second phase is practising the correct basic nutritional habits.

Firstly drinking adequate amounts of clean water can mean that all the metabolic processes in the body can take place, along with waste products being removed from the system.

Many problems of weight gain and ill health can be brought down to chronic dehydration.

The third step is to remove the bad stuff from your shopping lists, cupboards and daily routine.

If it wasn’t on the planet or looking the same 10,000 years ago, don’t eat it, simple rule, but very effective, eat real food, avoid processed rubbish.

If you genuinely follow this rule for 80 per cent of the time you will actually feel, and look better in a short number of weeks.

This is the 80-20 rule, no one expects you to be an angel, but you have to be disciplined to some degree if you want to look your best.