A COLNE sailor is about to teach Royal Navy colleagues the art of keeping fit to fight after pushing herself to the limit in a physical course.

Sarah Rushton, 33, has just passed a gruelling six-month course to qualify as a Royal Navy Leading Physical Trainer.

The course, at HMS Temeraire, the Royal Navy’s School of Physical Training in Portsmouth, included circuit and weight training, sport science, strength and conditioning, diet and nutrition and sports administration.

Sarah, a former Colne Park High School pupil, said: “The course has been extremely challenging in all aspects but to get through it and qualify makes the hard work worthwhile.”

Now she has completed the course, Sarah will soon take up a post as physical trainer at the HMS Raleigh training establishment at Torpoint, Cornwall.

There she will be responsible for helping to keep the 2,000 sailors at the base fully fit for battle.

Sarah recently celebrated passing out from the course in style in a 60-minute display with five other colleagues who have also completed the course.

The display included many of the traditional skills taught on the course including club swinging, rope climbing, gymnastics, the hornpipe and performing at height on a window ladder. Also proving a hit with the audience was a hilarious short film featuring the six as pop stars singing the ‘60s hit Build Me Up Buttercup. Most of the footage was filmed during breaks in their four-week adventurous training leadership in North Wales. Leading Physical Trainer Rushton joined the Navy’s logistics branch in 2006. Her career includes serving on the assault ship HMS Bulwark on a global deployment.