Tired of the same old routine in your local gym? Why not try out Army-style fitness boot camps held in the great outdoors.

ONE of the region’s largest boot camp providers, The Outdoor Fitness Company (ODFC), has launched classes in two locations in Darlington.

The sessions, in South Park and West Park with fitness trainer Bobby O’Connor, will help townsfolk to get fit just in time for the summer holidays.

The ODFC offers classes across the North- East, including Morpeth, Newcastle, Sunderland, Whitley Bay and Tynemouth.

Gary Nash, founder ODFC, is a former physical trainer with the Army and also featured in ITV’s Bad Lad’s Army as a PT instructor.

“I’ve built up a successful boot camp business, which started with a couple of locations in Newcastle. We now have 17 locations and hold more than 50 sessions per week,” he says.

Sessions are at Darlington West Park, on Mondays and Wednesdays between 6.30am and 7.30am, and at Darlington South Park on Tuesday and Thursday evenings between 6.30pm and 7.30pm and on Saturdays between 8.30am and 9.30am.

The ODFC offers everyone a free trial session, to see whether military-style boot camp training is for you. Either register your for your session at outdoorfitnesscompany.co.uk or call 0800-334-5603.

In the name of art

ACTOR Nigel Planer, best known for his role as Neil in cult BBC comedy The Young Ones, has suffered injuries, minor and major, for his art. But it was a back operation that made the biggest impact on his health.

His life appears to have been characterised by such colourful incidents as getting a black eye during a duel, bruising his hip while trying to totter around in high heels and a skin-tight dress and getting hit on the head by giant chocolate eclair.

“I must say the osteopath I saw about my neck was a little taken aback when I told him I’d been hit by a 9ft long eclair. Unfortunately, as I was the tallest guy in The Young Ones cast I took the full force of that prop when it fell from a great height,” he says.

Planer, 58, is dryly humorous about those unusual mishaps and accepts them as part and parcel of a wide-ranging career which was notable in his early years for ground-breaking comedy and satire.

His agility and stamina on stage give no sign that ten years ago he had two discs in his lower spine replaced with titanium ones.

“The problem was partly caused by my height – I’m 6ft 3in – and the physical nature of my work. The discs disintegrated,” he says.

“Before I had the operation I was in the most appalling pain for around a year. It was really life-limiting. I had to prepare for two years, swimming and exercising, to build myself up before the op, and then had to learn to walk again afterwards. So it was fairly major but a huge success.”

• Nigel Planer narrates the series Grizzly Tales For Gruesome Kids as The Night Night Porter on Nickelodeon.

A natural alternative

ASURVEY carried out by Opinion Health shows that 80 per cent of women would consider a clinically-proven herbal medicine for menopause symptoms and 82 per cent would like to be given the option by their doctor of trying a herbal medicine for a few months to see if it was the best solution.

Bionorica has recently launched Menopret, a black cohosh extract which provides an clinically-proven natural alternative to Hormone Replacement Therapy (HRT). The herbal remedy was shown in a clinical study to be able to reduce oestrogen deficiency symptoms to the same degree as HRT, but without the side-effects.

“Black cohosh has been recommended by doctors in Europe for many years as a natural alternative to treat symptoms of the menopause, such as hot flushes, night sweats, poor sleep, mood changes, vaginal dryness and irritability,” says Dr Pixie McKenna, of Channel 4’s Embarrassing Bodies.

• Menopret is available from Boots and comes in two sizes, 30 tablets (£10.25) and 90 tablets (£26.50). Visit bionorica.co.uk for more information.