With the summer holiday season just around the corner, the phones at my London studios have been ringing incessantly, with every single caller asking for one thing and one thing only: 'get my beach body ready!'

So... in response to all those enquiries, how do we get from fat and flabby to fit and fabby? Well, it's not by joining a gym, finding a class or getting a personal trainer. Those come later. First of all we need to know where you're trying to get to with your efforts.

The importance of planning
The absence of a clearly defined goal is one of the biggest reasons why many exercisers can fail in their fitness endeavours. Think of it like setting out on a journey with no idea of where you are starting from or where you are going to. The journey may be fun, but you can never guarantee where you'll end up and, without a clear destination, you'll never know if you've arrived.

Therefore, you need to think about the following question: what exactly do you want to achieve from your training and dietary plans? If it's weight loss, then be specific: 'I will lose 10lb by 1 July'. If it's dropping a dress size, then define your goal, such as 'I will be a size 12 by my holiday' or if it's physical then say 'I will be able to swim 20 lengths by...'

Whatever you do, don't generalise about your expectations. 'I want to lose some weight by my holiday' holds zero motivational power and doesn't allow you to measure your success.

Many people set goals that are too small to motivate them. If you don't find them exciting enough, you won't apply the effort to making them a reality. Think big, then break your goals down into smaller, bite-sized chunks to make them more attainable.

Telling other people what you are trying to achieve will also help you towards your goals. Use peer support as a means of staying on track and avoiding temptation. Don't keep it to yourself in the hope of 'surprising' your partner or family.

Posture, performance and poise
Never underestimate the importance of posture in the creation of the body beautiful. Not only does good posture make good aesthetic sense, making you appear taller, leaner and more structurally 'balanced', but it can also reduce stress to joints and muscles and lessen the likelihood of injury.

So, how do you know if your posture is optimal? Try this simple assessment:
Stand sideways at a full-length mirror (better still, have someone take a side-on Polaroid) and draw an imaginary line straight up from your ankle-bones
The line should pass through the middle of the knee joint, through your hip, the centre of your shoulder and your earlobe
If the line falls anywhere else it is possible that you have an alignment problem that requires some attention.

Postural distortions are often caused by poor seating alignment at work or when driving and can often be characterised by:
Forward head position: Can lead to stress-type headaches and neck/back fatigue
Rounded shoulders/upper back: leading to shoulder problems and back pain
Tilted pelvis: leading to low back pain, hamstring tightness and knee pain.

So, which exercises can help to address these problems?

Quite simply, the best way to burn body fat and create firm, lean and strong muscles is to utilise as much muscle as possible in a workout. How do you do this?
Avoid the machines Sitting or lying on a machine reduces the energy demand down to the working muscles only. A similar exercise performed with body weight, dumbbells or medicine ball requires you to use so much more muscle, and every muscle working creates a demand for energy – calories!
Use functionally integrated training exercises as the mainstay of your training. These exercises integrate the upper body, lower body and core to provide huge improvement in muscle tone without creating bulky 'body builder'-style muscles. Examples of functional exercises are: push-ups, pull-ups, squats, lunges, step-ups, woodchops, etc.
Avoid isolation exercises – these movements create overload on one area only, creating very little calorie demand and encouraging growth of the muscle. This rule goes for abdominals, too.

Basically, if you are focusing on one muscle at a time you are body-building. Instead, try to find as many ways of including the largest number of muscles (you have over 600 of them) in every exercise. You'll be pleasantly surprised at the results and your workouts will be far quicker, too!

Set a small goal each and every time you go to the gym. Aim to do just one more repetition of every exercise and you'll be following the fundamental rule of progression. Ask a tiny bit more of your body on a regular basis and you'll start to see the results you seek.

Cardiovascular conditioning
Try to avoid cardiovascular workouts, ie the treadmill, rower and bike - these may well be contributing to making you fatter! How so? Well, when you exercise aerobically for any extended period of time you secrete greater quantities of the hormone cortisol. This hormone breaks down muscle while trying to mobilise fat. The problem here is that it is actually our muscles that burn calories (around 50 calories per day per pound of muscle), so if you have less muscle you'll burn fewer calories and be proportionately fatter than before you started.

Instead, you should be focusing on shorter periods of higher-intensity work that spares muscle and burns maximal calories. A great way of doing this is to use the 40:20 interval. Work at a moderate pace for 40 seconds and then 'go for it' for 20. Spend five minutes repeating this pattern and you'll get far more out of training than 15 to 20 minutes of 'traditional' cardio.

Follow this programme between now and your holidays and you'll be longer, stronger, leaner, more toned and in the best shape possible to show off what you've got. I can't promise that it'll always be easy - in fact it'll probably take a lot of hard work, but by eating right and training smart over the next few months, you'll be amazed at what you can achieve.