SHEILA FRAMPTON is 54-years-old with the toned figure of someone half her age.

She’s been a lifelong fitness fanatic, but in recent years has become an aficionado of an exercise system called power hooping.

Essentially, it’s the modern form of hula hooping, an activity that goes back to antiquity but was particularly popular in the 1950s.

“Hooping,” says Sheila, “has completely changed my shape.

“I have always been quite fit but since I took up hooping I’ve got a really defined waist. It’s the perfect exercise for people over the age of 35 or 40 who are getting a thickening waistline and putting on weight around the middle. This just sorts it out.”

Sheila, who has two homes, one in Longwood, where she spends the weekends, and one in Surrey, where she is a partner in a small PR agency, now teaches power hooping at classes in both parts of the country.

She is also a Zumba and Bollywood dance/fitness instructor as well as a competitive ice skater.

In fact, she’s about to combine two of her interests – skating and hooping – when she competes in the British Adult Skating Championships in Sheffield between February 14 and 16.

Sheila will be performing a solo dance routine as well as competing in the exhibition category by hooping as she skates to Elvis Presley’s ‘Rock-a-Hula.’

“The exhibition category is such fun,” said Sheila.

“The judges mark the costumes and entertainment value as well as skating skills. As I spend so many hours power hooping, it seemed the ideal opportunity to challenge myself further by hooping on ice.

“My hoop weighs 4lbs and, at first, this proved a bit of a problem as I had to adapt my skating, but the more practise I’ve had the easier it’s become.”

Sheila’s routine is all the more remarkable because she only returned to skating - after an absence of more than 30 years - at the age of 50.

“I first started skating when I was nine or ten,” she explained. “Then I stopped when I was about 14. I had a very good teacher who taught me the solid basics and said that I’d be able to skate all my life.”

His words proved to be prophetic. “It did come back to me quite quickly but I think being so fit definitely helped,” she said.

Hooping, however, didn’t come quite as easily to Sheila. “I could never do it as a child, but now, using the heavier hoops, I find it really good overall exercise. When someone starts it takes them about two weeks to strengthen their muscles and then they’re off.

“One of my ladies in Sussex has lost eight inches off her waist in about three months and everyone has toned their waists, trimmed their hips and feels so much better.”

Power hooping whittles waistlines because it tones the core muscles in the abdomen, which are often neglected in other forms of exercise. Core muscles don’t just create a flat stomach they also support the spine.

Sheila was born and brought up in Huddersfield - in the Paddock area - but moved to London and the south in her 20s. She has two children, Chris, 26, and Antonia, 23, but was widowed when her husband Peter died in 2002.

In order to see more of her mum, Joan Cywinski, who lives in Marsh, Sheila decided to buy a second home in Huddersfield and now has two separate ‘lives.’

Her job is based in Godalming, where she lives from Tuesday to Thursday, and during her long weekends in Huddersfield she teaches exercise classes at Your Health Club, New Hey Road, and at the HD1 Dance Studios, St John’s Road.

A former production secretary for the BBC - she worked on John Craven’s Newsround - and conference event organiser, Sheila went into PR after studying for an English degree as a mature student at Chichester University.

But the one constant throughout her life has been exercise. When she appears at the Sheffield championships next week she is hoping to encourage others to take up both skating and hooping.

“I found a whole new social circle in the world of adult skating,” she says. “And hooping has transformed my life.”

For more information on power hooping check out wwww.powerhoop.com and for details of classes look at www.snazzyaerobix.co.uk

HULA HOOPS were used by the Ancient Greeks as a form of exercise but their history goes back even further into antiquity.

Ancient Egyptian children played with hoops made from dried grapevines and rolled them with sticks or spun them around their waists.

In medieval Britain hooping was a popular pastime. Medical records from the time show that doctors attributed injuries such as dislocated backs and heart attacks to hooping. Today, however, the ‘sport’ is known to be beneficial for the core muscles that help to keep the spine healthy and strong.

The term “hula hoop” came from British sailors who had seen hula dancing in the Hawaiian Islands and thought it looked similar to the movements of hooping back home.

Native American Indians were also ‘hoopers’ and used small reed hoops in dances. The hoop symbolised the never-ending circle of life.

By the 1950s hula hooping had become a global trend but it was in Australia, where the first plastic hoops were manufactured, that modern hooping was born.

Today hoops are being used once again for fitness and exercise. Weighted hoops make it easier for beginners to learn the techniques required – the lower the weight the harder a hooper has to work.

Vigorous hooping is an aerobic exercise but it also tones the core abdominal muscles and provides an entire body workout.

According to a study by the American College on Exercise (ACE), hula hooping can burn seven calories per minute, as many as a gruelling boot camp class and can raise the heart rate to about 84 % of its maximum.