Wednesday, 1st August

Usain Bolt says once you come out of the blocks in a 100 metres race, and out of the drive phase, then the last 40-50 metres is quite relaxing for him, and there’s nothing he can do to make himself run quicker.

If you see quotes from most world-class athletes, they try and stay away from any great strain in their efforts and rely on great technique and even relaxing at times throughout their races/competition.

This can apply to your training too of course.

Have you noticed when you start to run, it seems so much of a strain, that you may never get to the stage when you will be able to run without straining yourself.

Then with a bit of walking, a bit of running, bit of walking, then some more running, you end up getting to the stage when you can actually run all of the time. This is extremely difficult to do and its the practice you need to get in to eventually alleviate all of this discomfort and strain.

Anyone who runs now, or who has had to go through this process will testify that all of this is true.

Then the next stage to go through can be quite a pleasant one.

When your fitness gets up considerably, you eventually get to RELAX in your running stride, and this enables you to run for much longer distances.

For many of you who can run good distances,  you will experience the ability to get some serious “thinking time” in your running. This means that you can relive your day through your run or think about a business opportunity or think about your family or anything you want, as the actual process of running is not that difficult anymore, it has become more of a regular thing in your life, and the ability to relax is absolute key for you!

These are all different processes along the way of being in your best possible shape!!

Monday, 23rd July

We are right in the middle of the most popular period for people going away or just having time off work.

The big question is where do your workouts fit in during this time off, if at all?

Some people use this time off as time away from their workouts too. The more serious exercisers can be forgiven and even encouraged to be doing this, as measured time off from a tough exercise programme, can be very beneficial and often enables the individual to come back stronger after the time off.

For people who are just getting to grips with their exercise programme, time off may not be the best option, and consistency of exercise may be the most important thing right now.

If you are abroad on holiday, then swimming will serve as a very good exercise, especially when done with some intensity and purpose. Improving your swimming should be your goal, and 30-40 mins a day will help out enormously on both improvement and in terms of being a very good workout.

When it comes to running abroad, try and run in the cooler times, which means early morning and evening. This will make the conditions a lot more tolerable, and enable you to put in some decent efforts.

Try and avoid staying out too long in the sun full stop for all sorts of health reasons, please stay out of the danger zone in terms of over-heating your body.

When you exercise, try and make them shorter efforts, but having a real purpose will help an awful lot.

For example, if you had to do 10 thirty yard sprints up a steep hill, and that was it, then this is much more attractive than a 3 mile run in the intense heat, and probably far more beneficial.

These type of shorter, sharper workouts are more likely to get done and the best way to maintain your fitness.

Keeping an exercise programme up at this time of year, with increased heat and holidays happening is tough. In a couple of weeks time though, you will be very glad you did it!!

Monday, 9th July

The pursuit of excellent is continuously being shown by Andy Murray.

He may not have won yesterday, but in his own words, he is “getting closer”!!

It didn’t help of course he came up probably the greatest ever player, but he did have Federer on the back foot for some considerable time.

Hopefully, he will get at least one grand slam and hope  to see it soon.

It never ceases to amaze me the amount of hate and vitriol he seems to get especially online, when most of it is surely unjustified. I think everyone will agree he showed his “human side” after his tearful speech while accepting his runner up trophy.

Another sporting hero who is getting a hard time at the moment is Bradley Wiggins. You would think that being the first ever British cyclist to be favourite for the tour de france would be a big thing, but apparently not.

The press have turned it into a personal hate and smear campaign against Wiggins, and this time mainly from the french and spanish press. They cannot accept that wiggins is NOT on drugs, and that he MUST be doing something illegal to be such a favourite!

They forget that wiggins won three g0ld medals, and should really have had a fourth gold medal if mark cavendish had shown up on form that day.

Wiggins was also fourth in the tour de france three years ago, was tenth the year after after losing form, and was in great shape last year only to crash out with a broken collarbone.

This year he was won the paris-nice classic, the tour of romandie, the dauphine de libere so i hardly think he has somehow got “lucky” this year!!

Wiggins has shoved two fingers up at his detractors this year, as has murray.

Wiggins will surely be a grand tour champion in perhaps the world’s toughest sporting event, Murray needs one more step.

Time to stay positive and get behind our sporting stars.