Is better than starbucks!
Sunday, 7 December 2008
Wednesday, 17 September 2008
Hardcore Sports Training Temporary Site Change
www.hardcoresportstraining.co.uk is currently down. Please visit hst.absolutegolduk.com to view the site for the time being until it is back up.
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Thursday, 28 August 2008
Why I Like Cycling
Recently I've been doing a fair bit of cycling. There are many reasons for this...firstly, I wanted to get a bit of aerobic work in and found that cycling is something I liked doing, which is a big plus in terms of actually ever doing it! Also, it is a good and easy way to get about if I don't need to carry too much stuff.
I've had some really enjoyable cycles recently by just sticking on an ipod with some nice heavy music and hitting the streets for a nice fast ride! Believe it or not, there are some very good cycle paths that make it quite easy to get about in London, but even when there aren't I love the freedom of the bike.
So many things that annoy me when driving are irrelevant when cycling...traffic jam? No problem - weave in and out and get there before the cars! One way street? For cars maybe, I'm off! Traffic light on red and nothing coming? Seeya! (Of course I'm joking, I always stick to the highway code, officer!)
Hopefully this has inspired you to dust off the old bike and get riding. Now go and hit the streets!
I've had some really enjoyable cycles recently by just sticking on an ipod with some nice heavy music and hitting the streets for a nice fast ride! Believe it or not, there are some very good cycle paths that make it quite easy to get about in London, but even when there aren't I love the freedom of the bike.
So many things that annoy me when driving are irrelevant when cycling...traffic jam? No problem - weave in and out and get there before the cars! One way street? For cars maybe, I'm off! Traffic light on red and nothing coming? Seeya! (Of course I'm joking, I always stick to the highway code, officer!)
Hopefully this has inspired you to dust off the old bike and get riding. Now go and hit the streets!
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Tuesday, 26 August 2008
Sunday, 24 August 2008
Diet, Stress and Mood
Here's a little tip for everyone who is busy and/or stressed - keep eating well! Many times when everything is going well it is easy to eat well, but once time gets short and stress levels increase it's very tempting to turn to the junk food for convenience. The problem with this is what you eat can effect not only your body composition (amounts of muscle and fat), but also your mood, energy levels, sleep and basically your whole life!
The times when stress is high, time and sleep are short are exactly when your body most needs good food packed with nutrients in order to cope - if you turn to the junk food at this time you may end up in a downward spiral of sugar spikes, cravings, mood swings, weight gain and poor health! Therefore next time your life gets busy, prioritize good eating and you will find you can cope with what life throws at you much better!
The times when stress is high, time and sleep are short are exactly when your body most needs good food packed with nutrients in order to cope - if you turn to the junk food at this time you may end up in a downward spiral of sugar spikes, cravings, mood swings, weight gain and poor health! Therefore next time your life gets busy, prioritize good eating and you will find you can cope with what life throws at you much better!
Blogged with the Flock Browser
Friday, 13 June 2008
2 Fat Ladies
2 Fat Ladies
This is something that happens to me often, but I saw an extreme example of it the other day…
I was standing in the line at the supermarket checkout, in my own world as usual, when I happened to notice that the two women in front of me were rather large! Tony Robbins likes to say ‘success leaves clues’, and wondering if the opposite was also true, I checked out the stuff on the belt in front of me. Amongst many other things were:
- 6 loaves of white bread
- Chocolate puddings
- An assortment of biscuits
- 4 pizzas (2 for 1!)
- 6 bottles of wine
- Some sort of treacle coated cakes
- And the coup de gras… over 10 bags of assorted sweets!
Oh, they were also buying some clothes, which I managed to see the size on the hanger of…size 22! To me, it doesn’t seem to take a genius on the level of Sherlock Holmes to work out how this has happened – in fact, it’s a very simple formula (women + crap food = size 22 clothes)! I also noticed there were a few things in my basket that were entirely absent in theirs, namely:
- Any unprocessed vegetables
- Any unprocessed fruit
- Any unprocessed meat
I see this worryingly regularly at the supermarket. I am not sure even I am dumb enough to accept the explanation that these people do not know that what they are buying is unhealthy, so what is the explanation?
I am not sure I know the answer to that, but I do have a tip for anyone reading this – next time you are at the supermarket checkout, have a think…is the stuff in your trolley more like what would be in a fit, healthy person’s trolley or more like the fat women’s trolley? The closer you get to a fit person’s trolley, the more chance you will have of being a fit person!
Wednesday, 28 May 2008
To Train, Or Not To Train?
- That is the question! An experience I recently had (along with talking about it all at length at the seminar I recently did) got me back to thinking about optimal rest between sessions, stress/recovery and indicators. The basic question is, how do you know whether you have recovered from the last session sufficiently to go and do another similar session? Here is my story from last week:
I had backed off for a few days in order to test my maxes in the squat and bench press. This session was planned for Thursday, and I did a light lower body training session on Monday and just easy aerobic capacity work Tuesday and Wednesday. However, when Thursday came around I wasn’t feeling great. My indicators were down and I was just generally tired. I decided to go and warm-up and see what happened.
During the warm-up I didn’t get the sudden surge of energy that I have experienced in the past as a result of pushing through a tired feeling (a sort of ‘blowing away the cobwebs’ approach I guess). When doing some warm-up sets in the squat even the empty bar felt too heavy and as I worked up I could tell I was way off form. I decided to shut it down and come back another day.
That night I got very little sleep and was expecting to feel even worse, however I woke up feeling great! All indicators were up too. I thought it may be too good to be true, but went to try and do my max day again. This time I was feeling good, and as I was working up the weights were not slowing down. I got to 100% of my old max, which I was expecting before the start of the session would be too heavy, and it went up easily! I then went to 105% and got that. The same happened in the bench press, in fact I only just missed a 10% improvement here.
The lesson here is that sometimes not training can be the best course of action to take in a given situation. As the Kenny Rogers song says, ‘You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run’! This is a major reason why I urge everyone to track indicators, so you have something quantifiable to judge your progress on. However, sometimes a ‘gut feeling’ can be as useful as all the indicators in the world. If everything just feels ‘off’, it’s probably not the best idea to push for a PR. You can be the best judge of your readiness, if you listen to your body. Sometimes you will try and push through, and at these times it’s helpful to have a coach to judge when you need to be pushed or held back. Charlie Francis, the great sprint coach, says he can tell when to push his athletes by listening to them warm-up. He has such an expert ear that he can hear from their footsteps what their body needs, and that message often differs from what comes out of his athletes’ mouths!
In a sport that values ‘toughness’ and ‘heart’, it is often hard to take the ‘easy’ way out and do little or nothing when it comes to training time. However, sometimes that is exactly what you need to do, and you will benefit from greater results in less time and a much lower incidence of injuries. All you have to do is listen to your body!
For more information on indicators, see ‘Why Keep A Training Diary?’
I had backed off for a few days in order to test my maxes in the squat and bench press. This session was planned for Thursday, and I did a light lower body training session on Monday and just easy aerobic capacity work Tuesday and Wednesday. However, when Thursday came around I wasn’t feeling great. My indicators were down and I was just generally tired. I decided to go and warm-up and see what happened.
During the warm-up I didn’t get the sudden surge of energy that I have experienced in the past as a result of pushing through a tired feeling (a sort of ‘blowing away the cobwebs’ approach I guess). When doing some warm-up sets in the squat even the empty bar felt too heavy and as I worked up I could tell I was way off form. I decided to shut it down and come back another day.
That night I got very little sleep and was expecting to feel even worse, however I woke up feeling great! All indicators were up too. I thought it may be too good to be true, but went to try and do my max day again. This time I was feeling good, and as I was working up the weights were not slowing down. I got to 100% of my old max, which I was expecting before the start of the session would be too heavy, and it went up easily! I then went to 105% and got that. The same happened in the bench press, in fact I only just missed a 10% improvement here.
The lesson here is that sometimes not training can be the best course of action to take in a given situation. As the Kenny Rogers song says, ‘You got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em, know when to walk away, know when to run’! This is a major reason why I urge everyone to track indicators, so you have something quantifiable to judge your progress on. However, sometimes a ‘gut feeling’ can be as useful as all the indicators in the world. If everything just feels ‘off’, it’s probably not the best idea to push for a PR. You can be the best judge of your readiness, if you listen to your body. Sometimes you will try and push through, and at these times it’s helpful to have a coach to judge when you need to be pushed or held back. Charlie Francis, the great sprint coach, says he can tell when to push his athletes by listening to them warm-up. He has such an expert ear that he can hear from their footsteps what their body needs, and that message often differs from what comes out of his athletes’ mouths!
In a sport that values ‘toughness’ and ‘heart’, it is often hard to take the ‘easy’ way out and do little or nothing when it comes to training time. However, sometimes that is exactly what you need to do, and you will benefit from greater results in less time and a much lower incidence of injuries. All you have to do is listen to your body!
For more information on indicators, see ‘Why Keep A Training Diary?’
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