1. Take the Benny Hill training program

To avoid other holidaymakers phoning Save The Whale the moment you beach yourself, a bit of hardcore running before is required. Ideally, you should rebalance your cardio regime so you run like a maniac at the start of your workout - that way you'll burn off more belly. A study from the European Journal of Applied Physiology (not typical beach reading, admittedly) followed eight men who ran on the treadmill for 30 minutes on two separate days. In the first session the men ran at 80 per cent of their maximum heart rate for 15 minutes, then slowed to 60 per cent for the remaining time; during the next session, they ran slower first. The men burned 5-10 per cent more fat when they ran faster at the start of the workout. "Apply this pattern to a longer workout, three times a week, and the figures really start adding up," says Jie Kang, the study's author.

2. X marks the spot

Instead of crossing off the days to your beach break like a convict marking the time he's served, adopt the X-factor approach to keeping your workout on track. Just marking an X in your desk diary to denote the days on which you work out is an unbeatable motivator for getting fit. At the University of Calgary in Canada, researchers found that exercisers who used this simple system of tracking made more progress then those who didn't.

3. Leave the floor

Competition is tough on the coast - you won't be the only man in good shape - but you stand a better chance of being leader of the pack if you're sporting a perfect six-pack. The secret is to focus on defining the lower portion of the rectus abdominis, which means employing a Swiss-ball reverse crunch. But instead of doing the move on the floor, hop on a bench. "It allows for a greater range of motion and yields more impressive results," says Gregory Joujon-Roche, president of LA's Holistic Fitness.

Here's how:

The Swiss-ball reverse crunch
1. Lie face-up on the edge of a bench with a Swiss ball pinched between your heels and hamstrings.
2. Now keep your abs drawn in before rolling your pelvis off the bench and maintaining the same knee angle, bring your knees towards your chest. Then, once you've brought them as far back as you can, slowly lower the ball.
3. As soon as your back begins to arch on the way down, that's the end of your range of motion. Pause at this point for a few seconds before finishing.
4. Try five sets of 15-20 repetitions.

4. Workout on the worst day

Worried about packing cases without packing requisite beach muscle? Time to work out on Black Thursday. Thankfully, we're not talking diabolism here, just acknowledging that as fas as building a beach-ready body goes, Thursday is often the day you least feel like working out. That's because most men fuel up at the weekend but skip the odd breakfast or work through lunch during the week. "By Thursday your energy levels are more likely to have crashed," says personal trainer Dan Fivey. But by making sure you eat a cheesy snack two hours before you hit the gym, you can help maximize your potential on this sluggish day. Dairy products contain carbs and casein, a protein that helps build muscles.

5. Fill your trunks

There are two ways you can pack out your budgie smugglers. The first is guaranteed to work since it's an arse-firming exercise you can do at any time. Just hold a dumb-bell, packed hold-all or ream of printer paper from the office in each hand. Now step on to a bench with one leg suspended behind you. Lower yourself until your rear foot touches the ground. Return to the start position and repeat with each leg 10 times. Do four sets of these each time you work out and in no time at all you'll have a set of buns to make females sit bolt upright on their sun loungers as you strut past. The second (more desperate) method requires you to take a plastic shuttlecock from the kid's games room at your hotel and strategically place it down your shorts. It won't help your cause in the bedroom, of course, but it may attract admiring glances when propping up the bar.

6. Put more in your core

Okay, your departure date is close, you've got your money sorted, ironed your best t-shirt and switched on the landing light to ward off the burglars - but there's still a distinct layer of relaxed muscle around your middle. Time, then, to stand tall. "Lifting weights while standing involves more muscles and burns more calories," says Douglas Lentz, director of fitness for Summit Health care centre in Pennsylvania, USA. "Except for a few sessions devoted to increasing mass, our athletes do almost everything standing," he says. "It engages your core so your total strength increases." Note that word "athletes" - US sportsmen have more gold than a hip hop moguls' award ceremony. If you want to learn from the best, try incorporating this sample exercise into every workout:

The bent-over dumb-bell row
1. The key here is to perform the exercise standing, without support. So instead of resting on hand on a bench as you normally would when rowing, assume a wide, stable stance, bending from the hips and keeping your back flat.
2. Now continue rowing while maintaining this position to work your core for stability. You probably won't be able to lift as much weight as usual, but your entire torso will benefit from the move.

7. Eat two lunches

Yes, you read that right. First, this will get you into the holiday eating habit: many small, interesting snacks throughout the day rather then the three square, dull ones you normally eat when you're at home. More importantly, if you make yourself two chicken sandwiches on wholegrain today, you'll be in significantly better shape when you hit the beach. You should try eating one at 11am and then having your second "lunch" at 3pm. With two small muscle-building protein meals such as these you won't want to eat more in the evening - prime time for putting on the kilos - and you'll also find that you have a lot more energy for a better post-work gym session. Furthermore, this meal plan will help to keep your insulin levels steady - if you consume too much sugar and don't get enough exercise it will simply help deposit fat around your gut.

8. Lift on your last Monday

In the final full week before you say, "Bye-bye surly boss, hello deckchair", be sure to complete at least three sessions at the gym - starting with Muscle Monday. "Exercising on the first day of the week sparks a chain reaction in your workout programme," says Jim Annesi, author of Enhancing Exercise Motivation. "You'll be establishing a behavioural pattern that helps you stick to your regime throughout the week, since the mind is wired to keep up a chain reaction."

9. Get over your legs

With all that focus on the race for a great upper body, you run the risk of looking like a two-pin plug if you don't get those legs shorts-shape and proper. Time, then, to focus on your thighs and femurs:


Concentric Curls
Attack that leg-curl machine by lying face-down with your ankles hooked comfortably under the lifting pads - you want your knees just over the edge of the bench. Keep your upper body pressed against the bench and slowly lift both your feet as close towards your backside as possible. Hold for a moment then lower slowly. Do four sets of 10 reps.

Switch to Eccentric Curls
Now switch position so that you are lying with your face up, and adjust the weight so that it's a little too heavy to lift with just one leg. Left the weight with both legs and then pause at the top. Hold the weight firm with your right leg and lower the left one. Slowly ease the weight down with your right leg, then repeat. Do two sets of 10 reps, then swap legs.

10. Fight them on the beaches

Maintain that perfect shape during your holiday with a sunrise workout along the shore. The beach is perfect for this, sand's instability making the simplest movements much tougher. Do two sets of these exercises - resting 30 seconds between sets and 60 seconds between exercises - to work our quadriceps, calves, hamstrings, and gluteals.


Shuttle runs
1. Draw three parallel lines in the sand, four metres apart.
2. Straddle the middle line with your knees bent and your arms bent so your hands are in front of your thighs.
3. Move right, touch the line with your right hand, then run to the left, touching the far left line with your left hand.
4. Return to the middle and complete four runs to each side.


Sand skips
Skip forward so that you're jumping and landing on the same foot, leaping as high as possible. Do five skips on each leg.


Squat jumps
1. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart, fingers laced behind your head.
2. Bend your knees to lower yourself until your thighs are at least parallel to the sand, then jump up as high as you can.
3. Sink directly into the next squat.
4. Perform five repetitions.


Jump and stick
1. Jump straight up, then land on only one leg with your knees bent, shoulders slightly forward, and hips back.
2. Steady yourself for two seconds, then put your other foot down. Alternate your landing leg, doing four jumps on each.

11. Stretch yourself

With time at the gym being of the essence, you certainly don't want to be wasting precious minutes doing lots of elaborate stretches before you start your workout proper. So, instead do just one loosening-up stretch - but make sure it's a stretch that hits every spot. This super-efficient move should do the trick. Start by laying flat on your back with your arms straight at your sides. Cross your left leg over your body and try to touch your left foot with your right hand, while keeping both shoulders as close to the floor as possible and your left knee slightly bent. Hold his position for a count of 10, then switch sides and do the same thing with the other foot. "It will hit your hamstrings, lower back, chest, front shoulder and biceps all at once," says Jim Liston, an Los Angeles-based strength coach.

12. Look beyond your six-pack

It's tempting to work hard at isolation moves like crunches when you're working at getting a body fit for coastal consumption. But if you're looking to burn fat too, then training multiple muscle groups at once burns more kilojoules at the same time as causing a greater release of muscle-building hormones. So save yourself time at the gym and double up with the kind of combos they don't serve up at the Burger King.


The Reverse Lunge to Cable Chest Fly
1. Stand between a cable station's weight stacks and grab a pulley handle with each hand. Hold your arms straight in front of you.
2. Step back with one leg, bend your knees, and let your arms move out to the sides. Pause when your back knee is just off the floor and your upper body looks like a T, then push yourself back up while you pull your arms together.
3. Repeat the move with your other leg in the back position.