A Bradford Bulls star has put staff at Damart’s Steeton warehouse through their paces to help the company achieve a bronze award in a healthy heart campaign.

Player Jamie Langer turned up with coach Stuart Barrow to teach staff 10-minute exercises in core strength, suitable to be practised while they are at work.

The exercise session was the last phase in a campaign to achieve recognition from Heart Research UK for encouraging staff to live healthy lifestyles and have fitter hearts.

Damart human resources manager Helen Taylor said: “We aim to go all the way and achieve a gold award, which will make us a Healthy Heart Company.

“So far, we have been encouraging staff to improve their health and wellbeing by doing health checks, running sessions in work time and paying for them to enter races like the Bradford 10k run and the Leeds Abbey Dash.

“We asked employees what they wanted to do and in the New Year we will be running pilates and bums and tums exercise classes during lunch breaks.

“It has been a great motivating and bonding experience, with staff from all sectors taking part, and will make for healthier employees with less absences in the future.”

In total 700 Damart employees are involved, with the company’s Bingley workforce also taking part in the campaign.

Lifestyle manager for the Leeds-based charity Heart Research UK Denise Armstrong said that achieving the healthy hearts gold award was a bit like an investors in people credit.

She said: “We work with companies for a year and there are about 10 companies that are participating at the moment.

“A lot of people who work do not find the time to exercise, so it is important that they are allowed to do it during work hours.”