Posted on

let’s finish off strong!!!!

So if you have had a good week so far, you need to be concentrating on having a big end to the week.

The runs you don’t really feel like doing on a Monday will feel possible on a Thursday or Friday.

Your performance should be good if you’re attitude is up for it.

How about a time trial on the bike? You could aim for a well-known landmark that may be 5 miles away and record the exact time you take.

I used to do this myself every week on a Friday evening at the same time, and gradually my time would come down. The result after around 2 months of doing something like this can be quite dramatic.

Also, it doesn’t really seem like your training for the sake of it and takes away the boredom factor.

If you are weight training for instance, start keeping some kind of journal to record your sets and weight lifted.

Putting a little bit of pressure on yourself to make small improvements every week is a good thing, and again over a 6-8 week period, you are likely to have made sizeable gains.

How about your running? Instead of keeping to easier, flat roads, how about targeting some hilly terrain for a change?

There is always a hill in every town that is regarded as pretty scary. It seems so steep that nobody could ever possibly get up it! This is exactly the hill to concentrate on and get really good at. Use the hill in different ways.

First of all try walking it and see how that feels. If its not so bad, then try some sprint work, try 8 sprints of about 25 yards from the bottom of the hill.

Once you become pretty good at the sprints, then try the whole thing and see how it goes. This whole process may take again 6-8 weeks but the results you will get will be astonishing.

The pride you will get from all of these goals and challenges will be immense, and propel you on to even greater and seemingly impossible challenges.

As the Adidas advert goes “impossible is nothing”!!

I am away Friday until Monday on a weekend break with the family, so have a great weekend and hope to hear your efforts on Monday!

Twitt
Posted on

Mid-way point

So hows the week going?

Can you see how important monday and tuesday are now to get right and get some good workouts in, to cleanse your body from all the excesses of the weekend?

Don’t know about you but i have some real momentum now and feel pretty good about my progress this week.

Im off to Butlins this weekend for 3 nights so its even more important i have a good start to the week. Its vital to plan your week, plan your workouts and aim to do well early in the week ALL the time!

The other option is to have a rubbish or non-existant start to the week and write the rest of the week off, an outcome none of us want so i suppose its a question of actions speaking louder than words.

Is it going to be a “could have, should have, would have” week for you, that turns into a rubbish month, or will you finally put those excuses out with the bins tomorrow and move your programme along a few notches and dont look back??

Its wednesday night and you have it in your power to finish off big before the weekend! Lets do it!!

Twitt
Posted on

Cycling sense

Here’s how i see your cycling issues.

Cyril has achedness in his shoulders when he rides for longer periods, this is very common and especially so if you go over bumpy roads, or cobblestones as they were in the tour de france! Its a simple case of getting used to it, or trying not to press quite so hard on the handlebrs, though this can be difficult. Let me know how you get on.

Regarding the big question on the gear selection, i answered that by saying i would look at 80 revolutions per minute. This is hard to count on the bike but it is quite a fast pace so select a gear that will allow you to do it, in other words to allow you pedal faster while still maintaining good speed.

For instance, the bigger the gear, the slower your legs will go but you will develop A LOT more power and if you get up a head of steam, or you’re going downhill, you will be flying along. The bigger gears are really meant for downhills or if you manage to get up a big speed on the level ground and you still manage to have a high cadence (your legs are going very quickly). This will be your very maximum speed.

Simply going at a higher cadence and pushing a too easy gear wont do you much good either, because you’re not really pushing yourself. Select a gear that allows you to get your legs going quickly but hopefully still at a faster speed and you test yourself.

The first thing you will notice is that you will get out of breath quickly when you use a high cadence, your heart and lungs will work very hard to keep the speed of pedalling up. With practice though, you will become very accomplished at it.

When you use a slow cadence, you will feel your legs working much more in a brute strength fashion. This is very hard to do also but as i mentioned earlier replies to posts, this can lead to knee problems if you’re not careful. Also, if you cycle like this all the time, the pressure on your knees will be tremendous.

Another thing to keep knee pain away is to keep your seat at the right height, in line with your hip. If your seat is too low, your knees will automatically hurt and your knees will be wrecked unless you raise the height on the seat!

Examples of slow cadence riders would jan ullrich, who won the tour de france in 97, and was runner up 5 times, and the great example of high cadence riding would be lance armstrong.

Armstrong changed to this way of riding because his lung capacity was so great, and this meant less strain on his legs in the mountains, which of course benefitted him immensely. It also gives him great acceleration, against ullrich’s more “diesel engine” style of riding.

Hope you all understood that, if im talking a foreign language then let me know!!!!

Twitt
Posted on

Monday blues

How many of you rely on your monday morning workout to get you going in the week?

It certainly gets me going and sets the tone for the week, it dictates the way i feel and dictates the energy levels all week long. If i eaat well all day and get a great workout in, i feel like doing more of the same all week long.

The other option for most people is to do nothing and sit in the chair on monday, but what kind of message does this send to our bodies. Does it say that sloth like behaviour is the new “us” and being active is a thing of the past?

If we dont get monday off to a great start, are we saying that we are somehow too old for all of this, and we should give up on ourselves?

Most of us  will feel a bit rough on monday morning and for the first time this week, it was pitch black when i got up! Plus i have to put on the full lights on the car, as the longest day now has gone and the mornings are drawing in very quickly. I found it harder to get going today because of the light at 4.15am, it was a little colder and the thought of a huge day wasn’t as appetising as usual!!!

Now i feel much more into it, and already i feel i have some great momentum in my day. I have just had a small break and about to get right back into it trying to guide people through their own version of monday blues!!

This is why i always consider monday as my most important day for training, and getting a great session under my belt makes me feel as good as im going to feel. If i dont train today, i wont feel like myself and its like playing catch-up the rest of the week.

Let’s get out there and have a great workout today, you will feel amazingly good after a bath/shower and feel much more ready to face the week’s challenges to come!

Twitt
Posted on

Rafa gets even better!

Congratulations to Rafael Nadal, the man gets even better and is he going to be beaten in the next 10o years?!!!! Well, 5 years at least!

There was a nice story behind the scenes on how hard he has worked to overcome his knee problems, and come back faster, stronger and even more durable as he claimed his second title at wimbledon, and moved his major titles to eight, joining the ranks of the great fred perry, andre agassi and rod laver.

This determination to succeed even when he seemingly couldnt go further is sometimes alien to us in this country.

When we get someone who gets to the top in a sport, we cant wait to knock him/her down again.

Nadal is on his own personal pursuit to achieve greatness maybe on a par with roger federer. When you saw the Wimbledon winners list the last few years engraved in the trophy, you saw plenty of federer and it seems as if nadal will be writing his own chapter/chapters in history, he has done that already but much more to come surely?!!!

Jean was bang on throughout the tournament, nadal is already at the top of everest looking down at the rest of them, at this rate he will join the space race!!

Twitt