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Friday, 12th December

The big news is you have the opportunity to get outside again and get out and run, cycle, walk, swim whatever you want to do. Swim may be a joke for most of you but there are people who swim EVERY morning i know in burry port and in langland and caswell. I couldn’t do it myself but some people feel amazing doing it and all credit to them for doing it!!

I have had 3 runs today and feel a lot better for it. The last two weeks have been extremely tough staying inside for workouts so i fully intend to make the most of outdoors from right now. Don’t believe the doom and gloom merchants, its not going to be freezing by sunday at all. Its going to be 7 degrees saturday and 4 degrees on sunday, which is like being in the mediterranean compared to whats been going on with the temperatures lately!! Anything with clear surfaces free of ice is a bonus for me and it allows safe and freedom of movement, which is all important.

Think of all the fresh air going into your lungs too. You’re not living in the middle of the city, you live in areas which are exercise friendly and healthy friendly too. You have amazing views when you’re training, you don’t have to be stuck inside all your life moving from an office or factory, then stuck inside again at home. Your home is a great place to sleep and have food and relax, but the fun should really start when you get outside and do things that involve you being more active.

Don’t be one of those who only goes out for a walk on boxing day with their christmas jumpers and gloves, theres more to fitness than that!! Those people should realise that you need to get out in the fresh air MORE THAN ONCE a year looking trendy!! Thats something i really hate! Let’s get out and there a few times a week and do some meaningful exercise and get a sweat on!!! It will make you feel so much better and get out you of the rut you’ve been in for the last couple of weeks of sub-zero temperatures!!

Exercise is not about being trendy or wearing special jumpers walking on the beach looking the part, its about DOING so lets get out there and do it and feel your best!!!!!!!!!!!

Twitt
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Food trouble

Spent yesterday on my back believe it or not. I cooked some salmon friday night and ended up with countless visists to the bathroom saturday! Felt weak all day but glad to report that now (sunday morning) my strength has come back quickly and have got a good walk in this morning. I usually do a run on sunday but thought it best not to push myself.

This is an example of reacting to your body when it breaks down and doing the right thing.

We have all tried to fight against illness, but sometimes it is better to go with the flow and surrender for a while.

The great thing is that my immune system is usually under a lot of exercise stress, so the idea of me laying down on the settee all day and night is a strange one.

What this allowed me to do though is recover far quicker than normal. All my body had to do was fix itself and not do anything physically stressful. All i did is lie down and watch sports all day, and couldn’t even raise my voice, that was even too much of an effort! I felt awful yesterday but the good news is today i am nearly back to my old self.

I encourage anyone not to exercise if they feel unwell, as all you are doing is putting off your recovery, sometimes putting it off quite a lot. Your immune system is hugely important of course and you have to manage the stresses on your body at all times.

This is why i always recommend at least one dayoff a week, if you don’t, your immune system will struggle with this and eventually break down, causing colds and many types of illness.

Fortunately, if you eat properly and include a wide array of nutrients in your diet, your chances of falling sick go down dramatically.

Your imune system is always protected best when you exercise regularly with at least one day off a week, your diet is packed full of nutrients with a variety of healthy food, and the most forgotten element-sleep! If you don’t sleep properly, you won’t recover and won’t feel like doing much full stop.

All of these three elements must be in place to achieve a good strong immune system!

Twitt
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Two women on a charge!!!

Different levels of fitness requires different levels of effort.

Achieving those different levels though is a gradual process as member Annette is finding out, and she sent me this message last night.

“My first week of training went quite well.

  I am definitely feeling more alert and my diet is much better although I could probably still improve on it.  Drinking loads of water which is making me feel less tired.  I have stuck to my workouts, even when I went camping because I don’t need to use any gym equipment.

 I can do them anywhere plus they are pretty short which is always a bonus for me!! 

 Cardio workouts are the ones I look forward to most but feel absolutely lousy while doing them ( I am soooo unfit).

  Never mind, I’m sticking with it no matter what!

Annette”

Annette is clearly on a path to where she wants to get back achieving big things once again. She knows she has to work through different levels before she is anywhere near where she was before. She knows she will get there though as long as she sticks with it!

She also knows that she can do her workouts literally anywhere, and shes not tied to a gym and the limitations that can bring.

Debbie is clearly back in the swing this week, and enjoying something new that has done a lot to stimulate her interest and reawaken her passion for health and fitness again.

She also has great experience with injuries, and has the know how on how to avoid any pain in her workouts.

These are people who have done it all before, who have been at their peak and for various reasons, have slid back a bit in terms of their fitness and maybe body fat, and want to experience the big high’s they had from being at their best.

They both know though that they have to experience those different levels on the way before being ready to make the jump up, one level at a time.

The good news is though that because of muscle memory, their bodies remember where they’ve been before, and the rate of progress this time is likely to be far more rapid than first time around.

Once your body has experienced big highs of low body fat, a leaner harder body, more energy, more self-esteem, more self-confidence, looking great in clothes, having more enthusiasm for everything in life, an all time level of health and vitality etc etc, you really want to get there again and once you start believing again, you know you will want to get there as soon as you can, and to me that’s a great thing!

So what are you waiting for? Let’s finish the week on a high, and get ever closer to your best condition and the way you feel. No slowing down now, lets go and get it!

Twitt
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Big end to the week-let’s make it happen!!!

For some of you, the end of the week is the chance to get one more workout in before the weekend. You may then take the weekend off, or just do a low key workout and be glad to enjoy the time off.

For others though, and there are plenty of you, the weekend really is the time when you get your BEST workouts in.

I know some of you go on very long and demanding walks, enjoying the countryside and scenery which can be breathtaking.

Some of you enjoy long bike rides, and the weekend represents the only time when you have such an opportunity.

Whatever your way of staying in shape, i applaud your efforts and your courage to do so. We go on all the time about people who talk a good game, or are simply reluctant to take the plunge to get fit and healthy, so make sure you know you are one of the few who take their health and fitness seriously. You should know that if you are regular reader of this site.

This is also a time of year when events are popular too. From certain bike rides like the gower bike ride which has been and gone, the mumbles childline triathlon which we organise every year at the end of april, to the swansea 10k run at the end of september, these are all events anyone can take part in, and all of which are more enjoyable if you’ve put in a bit of preparation for. We have plenty of ideas on here for those sort of events, and how to measure your progress and combine your training.

I realised the other day also that we’ve already posted hundreds of times on here, so that means we are developing a library of information on here for you to use to reach new heights, to figure out what’s going wrong and what’s going right with your programme. If you’re struggling for motivation, then there’s absolutely tons of ways on here to get fired up about your training, your eating and ways on how to get your desire to improve to amazingly highly levels.

There’s also the 12 week challenge we had earlier this year. If you click on this on the right hand side of page, you can go back from day 84 all the way back to day 1, which charts a lot of history on how your mental state can be challenged over 12 weeks, and strategies that need to be used to counter the obstacles and challenges that always come along when you’re talking about a period as long as 12 weeks.

Some people stuck it out, some didn’t and hopefully we all did actually learn a bit about ourselves throughout that time.

The good news is that we will repeat that process in january 2011, and you’re all welcome to get in your best shape all over again!

Have a great weekend!

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