Pictured: Princess of Wales shows off her strength with gruelling tyre-pulling training exercise

She recently revealed that she squeezes in exercise whenever she can, even jumping on the trampoline with her children before school.

And the Princess of Wales’s fitness regime appeared to have paid off on Wednesday, when she was invited to try her hand at one of the training exercises endured by polar explorer Captain Preet Chandi.

The two women met at Landau Forte College, a secondary school in Capt Chandi’s home city of Derby, where pupils were told how she broke the world record for the furthest unsupported solo polar expedition last month.

Pushing the boundaries of human endeavour, Capt Chandi, 34, covered 922 miles in 70 days and 16 hours, skiing for 13 to 15 hours a day with as little as five hours' sleep.

Capt Chandi, who lost 20kgs during her expedition, suffered frostbite on her leg and needs an operation before returning to her Army duties.

She was fit enough, however, to supervise the Princess as she tried out her tyre-pulling training regime.

“Shall we let the Princess of Wales have a go first?” she asked the pupils, to their delight.

The Princess threw off her white £69.99 Zara blazer and wasted no time in getting stuck in, pulling two tyres each weighing 20kg.

The tyres were used by the Army officer to prepare for tugging her kit and supplies across Antarctica on a 120kg sledge while battling temperatures of -30C (-22F) and wind speeds of up to 60mph.

The Princess pulled the tyres across the floor easily, showing the pupils how it was done.

“She seemed great,” Capt Chandi said afterwards.

The Princess, who agreed to act as patron of her expedition and phoned her the day before she left for Chile en route to Antarctica, told Capt Chandi that she was “an inspiration to others”.

In the school theatre, the Princess hailed Capt Chandi’s endurance feat as an example of the sort of resilience and mental toughness that the female pupils present would all need in life.

“She’s been a huge inspiration, I’m sure, to all of you and certainly to me,” she said.

“I really hope it inspires you all to believe in yourselves, to push your boundaries, and to really work on your own resilience, because there are such strong messages that help support our emotional and mental well-being.”

Capt Chandi told the girls that voicenote messages from her family had helped keep her going during the 70 days and nights alone on the ice.

“It was tough,” she said.

She came up short of her original goal of walking 1,040 miles in the time available, but reset her ambitions and still broke the record.

She said that when she first researched polar explorers, she found pictures of Sir Ernest Shackleton, Roald Amundsen and Capt Robert Falcon Scott. She had only heard of Shackleton.

“I didn’t see anybody that looked anything like me,” she told pupils.

But earlier this week when she searched “polar explorer” on Google, she was the first person who appeared.

Capt Chandi told pupils that she did not even like the cold, she just “wanted to do something big”.

She added: “I really hope it inspires you all to believe in yourselves, to push your boundaries and to really work on your own resilience, because there are such strong messages that help support our emotional and mental wellbeing.”

In a later discussion about resilience, sixth former Jasmine Kaur Dhnota, 17, observed that those closest to you could sometimes bring you down, without intending to do so.

The Princess replied: “It’s in those hard times, being able to pick yourself up.”