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Tuesday feels good!

After a weekend away, not training and eating things you shouldnt at times, its great to have got in a big tuesday of work, plenty of sessions, some running and some great cycling!

This feels great i can tell you, and it feels even better because i hadnt really done anything since friday morning, i did a brief workout last night but as i had a slightly unsettled stomach, i held back a bit so hit a 15 minute all the basics workout, one set of everything.

Now that i can hold my food down, i feel energised that all the blood is flowing and my naturally good energy levels are well and truly back, and im motivated to have a very good week with eating and training!

Don’t you feel like that sometimes? Or am i the local lunatic who should sent to the asylum as soon as possible!!!

So if tuesday seems like a drag for you, really appreciate how you do feel when you are able to do workouts, you’re able to go to the shop and make some great fresh choices!!

If i want to feel bad and low in energy, i will call down the petrol stations, get some ice cream, chocolate, a bottle of wine and then moan about it tomorrow. no choice really is it?

You don’t have to do your favourite workouts or anything special this week either, just do SOMETHING and you’re going to feel so much better, trust me please?

Let me know how you get on, and did the whole experience make you feel better or worse? I will bet on the answer!!

Twitt
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That “its florida, they are all fat over there” holiday excuse

Anyone who has been to the USA on holiday, and in particular florida (orlando especially), always seem to come back with the comment “all americans are fat!!”.

This comment seemed to go on year after year, for the past 30 years it seems.

First of all, there are two florida’s. Orlando is where people come from all over the world, so there are people from many countries there at any one time. Also, you have to go on the facts, a majority of americans ARE overweight, along with an awful lot of Britons!

This creates a shocking environment for many holiday makers but i got the same exact feeling when i went on my weekend family break in butlins.

I have never seen so many people overweight, so many people driving motorised scooters in their 40’s and early 50’s. So many people wearing clothes that you didnt know they made so big. There were literally so many people looking ill it was scary.

These people were mostly eating rubbish all day too, drinking too excess in the evening and simply staying in the shade all day to keep cool, sort of anyway.

I AM NOT HERE TO JUDGE, only to report what i saw and to put all of those “only americans are grossly overweight” arguements to bed once and for all!

There is another florida as i saidd, there is miami and south florida, where you have much higher percentage in shape, working out on the beach, eating much fresher food and generally looking a picture of health.

The same can be said for california, especially los angeles (coastal parts anyway) and particularly san diego.

The USA is a huge country, with 4-5 times our population, interestingly the population overweight in terms of percentages are roughly the same, which will surprise many.

So its maybe time to get real about the UK, and how we are continuing to abuse ourselves on food and drink, and lack of exercise.

Its funny how things change, and how we seem to be catching orlando up as a holiday destination, for all the WRONG reasons!!

Hope you’re having a great start to your week and lets make it  a big one!!

Twitt
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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
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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
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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