6am on Eastbourne seafront - the perfect time for circuits (not!)

NO, don't be fooled by the picture; a tranquil early morning in Eastbourne sat on the lawns by the RNLI Museum overlooking the pier. This was a rest before you entered hell!

The pictures, by the way, were taken earlier this summer when I wrote a piece about this early morning circuits class which takes place every Tuesday on the seafront in all weathers. By early morning, we're talking a ridiculous 6.15am start.

Yesterday morning I foolishly decided that I should give these circuits a go, so when we gathered by the lawns it was pitch black with only the light from street lamps there to guide us through the gruelling 45-minute routine. The seafront was virtually deserted, bar a fella on one of those motorised cleaning machines, its headlights blazing, working his way up and down the promenade pressure washing the pavement.

I've been trying hard this past month to increase my fitness and also cut down on a dependency for sugar. While the rest of the body is fine and the body fat levels are low, my stomach has been growing out of proportion to Mr Blobby levels. Standing on the scales, I sometimes can't see my toes because of the fleshy boulder that is protruding from my midrift.

A love of cakes, biscuits and chocolate, along with sweet tea, had layered sugar on my stomach. From a vanity point of view, it doesn't look good, but then there are health implications for the sweet tooth with high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke and diabetes, let alone the pitfalls of tooth decay.

The trouble is that sugar is addictive to the palate because it makes the food taste so good, but I have tried slowly to wean my way off sugar - no sugar in tea, cutting out biscuits and other sweet treats. Sometimes I have succumbed to temptation, but by and large the plan has been going well.

And that's where the circuits came into the scheme. I figured that extra core work would help with the diet. I'm running three or four times a week, throw in one session of core work, particularly around the abdomen, would do no harm.

I'm no medical expert, and had to look this lot up, but when you're talking about core muscles, it's more than just developing a nice six-pack or strong, toned abs - in fact abdominal muscles are a small part of the core. Instead we're focussing on a load of different muscles which stablise the spine, pelvis and shoulder, running the entire length of the torso.

So when these muscles contract, they stabilise the spin, pelvis and shoulder to create a solid base of support. Here we're spotlighting the abdomen, the erector spinae which are a group of three muscles running along your neck to your lower back, as well as to the hip flexors, the gluteus medius and maximus, the hamstring group and the hip abductors. Medical mambo-jambo, maybe, but it does make sense.

So there I was looking like a poor man's Rocky Balboa at just after 6am, sporting a sweattop, tracksters and woolly hat ready to work with trainer and former Royal Navy man Mike Ovens (he's the guy pictured above) and a dozen other insomniac fitness freaks.

Mike's a good lad. I work with him on a Wednesday evening speed session and he really gets into the routines. This is not one of those mealy-mouthed boot camps, with more bollockings per minute than in a Gordon Ramsay kitchen, this is positive encouragement, demonstration and focus.

The session was simple: five different exercises repeated four times for two minutes. We did press-ups, extended press-ups, burpees, burpees with press-ups, mountain climbs, successive star jumps, backward press-ups...I'm beginning to make-up the routines because it was agony and to be honest I was just focussing on what I had to do.

I can never master that trick of patting my head and rubbing my stomach at the same time. Some of these exercises are like that. My co-ordination was rubbish. I was watching closely my fellow fitness slaves to copy what they were doing. My efforts were pretty undignified.

There was this one exercise where you start on your hands and knees, holding a press up position, you lift your bum in the air, glide the knees forward while swooping down so that you chin touches the floor and then lift upwards and out in one swooping movement. It's a bit like a butterfly kick in swimming. It's also bloody impossible!

So my first challenge was to master the exercises. Mike said afterwards that for a first timer I had fared better than most, but I felt a complete numpty by the end of the session.

The second challenge was to sustain the intensity of the exercises. Press-ups on a pavement are not comfortable. A couple of the guys and girls wore gloves. One-handed or extended press-ups, where you reach out with one hand, dip, rise and then in that same movement raise the extended hand above your head while swivelling your body, hurts, as well as becoming an act of extreme contortion!

We worked between four markers on each set, with 30 seconds' rest between each intense burst of exercise. Sweat was pouring off my head, my hands were sore and the lactic acid in my arms and legs was screaming with pain. But I stuck to the task as I really challenged my body to get through the routines, albeit some of them performed with the grace of a drunken hippo.

When I'm running under pressure, I sometimes feel my knees give a little. That's down to a lack of core. It was palpable yesterday morning that  I am writing this 24 hours later and my body aches. I was tired at work yesterday but I felt bloody good.

I can see this working. It is a plan, the key for anything like this is for it to be sustainable and not just a fad. I don't mind the 6am work-outs, well when it starts raining it could be interesting, but it is all down to the power of positive thinking, and right now that is what is keeping me going.