Ready for what you have to throw at us this is the fitness show that has people talking across the UAE.
Marcus is with us from Innerfight.com and we are talking about you, your challenges, your success and how to be the person you want to be from head to toe.
The alternative link to the podcast.
Here are the questions and links from the show.
Ramadan tips
Volvic how was it?
For me a Horizon goal is trail running after the marathon in January! Would like to say make the Volvic cut in 2 years when I am 55!
What is new in the gym?
Richard has a question! 3 kids under the age of 7 (twins in there) has been moving around the last couple of years and is well out of any routine and the fitness level is in the toilet. Listens to the show and wants to get back into shape to keep up with the kids and have no back pain… So, the question is where to start and what to start and then what should he think about doing 3X a week or so? Gym in the building, gym at the workplace, needs a bit of a push…
Some good stuff here Marcus
Q. Energy drinks/fitness drinks thoughts on these before/after/during exercise?
Q. Can you point me to a post workout stretch routine? (your youtube awesome) ( I am not nearly as flexible as you are)
Q. Keep reading at the spinney’s checkout about the complete ab workout… abs are abs are abs aren’t they
Q. HIIT is this a craze or an old thing that is just reworded?
Q. Planking is sure over stated any thoughts on why?
Q ideal fitness wear, I know you like to go shirtless..
3 things the older person needs to be thinking about, I am thinking about my own parents. And I notice myself the flexibility is on the decline!
Flexibility
Flexibility is the absolute range of motion in a joint or system of joints, and the length of muscle that crosses the joint involved. It directly connects with the distance and direction a joint can move (Range of Motion, ROM) and mobility, but does not directly correlate with strength, balance, and coordination.
Though flexibility and mobility sound similar, they are not interchangeable. Mobility within a joint is the degree to which the area where two bones meet is allowed to move before restricted by the surrounding tissue such as tendons, muscle, and ligaments. Think of mobility as the range of uninhibited motion around the joint. A good level of mobility allows a person to perform movements without restriction, while a person with good flexibility may not have the strength, coordination, or balance to execute the same movement. Good flexibility does not always denote good mobility.
Stability
Mobility relates to movement while stability relates to control. Stability is defined as the ability to maintain control of joint movement or position by coordinating actions of surrounding tissues and the neuromuscular system. Joint stability depends largely on the shape, size, and arrangement of the joints, ligaments, and muscles.
Strength
Strength is the physical energy that you have, which gives you the ability to perform various actions, such as lifting or moving things. Force is the foundation of most physical qualities and strength stabilizes the body and your actions; for example if you are running, stronger muscles will absorb impact, rather than tendons and joints.
Furthermore, the stronger you are, the more efficient you will be at a given movement. Take note that strength is not an action (lifting weights); strength is used to realize muscular actions and any muscular action requiring tension (maintaining balance while walking) requires strength.
Liking this advice on a running plan
Work Backwards
Start by defining your start and end points. If you want to run a marathon (and you should), pick the event you’d like to do, and set that date as your endpoint. This is the first of several reality checks: if you currently can’t run from your door to the car if it’s storming, and the marathon is in two months, pick a different marathon.
Your start point has two important elements: your current level of fitness, and the number of weeks until the endpoint. A lot of people ask me how long it would take me to train them for a marathon, but that answer is different for everyone. If you’re already comfortable running half marathons in a reasonable time, I will probably feel good sending you a 12-week plan to get you to the finish line. If you’ve never run before and you’re 80lb overweight, we might take a couple years.
For most busy adults with a little running experience, who can currently trot out a 5k without undue suffering, I like to take about six months to build to a full marathon. We can often get it done faster, but the purpose is to allow you to get to the starting line prepared, healthy, rested, and confident, and with plenty of slop time built into the overall plan for the curveballs life throws. That means if you’re eyeballing an October marathon, you should start putting your plan together in March, so you can roll in hot in April.
Accumulated Fatigue
There are dozens of complex physiological mechanisms at work when you create a large change in your overall fitness. But as an endurance coach, the one I pay the most attention to is accumulated fatigue. Going for a 10-mile run when your legs are fresh from four days of rest is a whole lot different than, say, going out for 10 miles in the evening after work, when you’ve already run three days this week.
Accumulated fatigue is a very handy concept if you have a full schedule and lots of training to get done. If I need 14 miles out of you on a given day, the training effect is similar if you run six in the morning and eight at night, as if you’d run all 14 together. You’ll spend some additional time in the shower that day (pro-tip: hang two towels for yourself), but you’ll also be around to put the kids on the bus in the morning and make them dinner at night.
The plans that I write are, in essence, the careful manipulation of certain types and levels of fatigue to produce a desired physical adaptation. I want to push your body enough to make it think that this is the new normal, but not so hard that it starts to break down. The variable I watch when creating the plan is overall volume, which can be measured in either distance or time.
It’s Not the Miles, It’s the Time
I prefer to mediate volume by time since there is such a huge variation in training paces and levels of difficulty. If I ask you to go run five miles at your marathon pace +30sec, that’s a whole different animal than five miles of hill repeats or track intervals. An even better metric would be time in specific levels of exertion, but that gets too convoluted to track, for most people.
Tracking by time also allows me to create realistic workouts for the work week, and then vary the long runs (usually on a weekend) to modulate the overall volume. If I write a workout that’s two hours long for a Tuesday night, chances are you won’t finish it. So I write workouts that you can reasonably accomplish in the time you have, and clean up loose ends if you can find time elsewhere.
Hit the Track
Crafting track workouts is an art unto itself, but the most important thing is that you’re doing them. The simple truth is that running slow will not teach you to run faster, and I’ve never met a runner who wasn’t interested in going faster. No matter what distance your eventual goal race is, you’ll benefit from spending at least one day per week on the track.
In general, I keep track intervals to a mile (1600m, or four laps of a standard track) or less. Any more than that and they start to feel like drudgery, and frankly, I have a hard time counting past four while sucking wind at the same time. The track is the place to work on your running mechanics and efficiency (also called running economy), increase cardiovascular capacity (VO2 max), and test new, more minimal footwear. I adore doing track workouts in spikes, because they’re impossibly light, make me feel much faster than I probably am and most important, help strengthen my feet, calves, and ankles.
Hit the Trails
This is one area where I sometimes get pushback from my road runners. For reasons I don’t quite understand, the risk-averse among them are intimidated by running trails, even while they continually suffer injuries pounding out road miles.
Trail running is one of the secret weapons in my training program arsenal. They teach your body to handle varying surfaces, relieve boredom, reconnect you with nature, and remind you that running is supposed to be fun, or even beautiful. Regularly putting in an hour or so of trail running, once every week or so, will make you more resistant to injury, improve your stride and foot-strike mechanics, and make you a better person.
The trails are one area that I encourage athletes to leave their watches in the car, or at least in their back pocket. The pace you run on the trails matters very little. Go out there, find some flow, run happy, and let your body and nature do the work. Most trails are too variable to stay in a certain physiological zone anyway, so just don’t sweat it. Run by feel. There’s no reason to ruin a perfectly good trail run with meaningless data.
Get Under a Barbell
There’s a whole lot of science out there to back this up, but I’ve seen it with my own eyes. Runners who start lifting weights with purpose and intensity get faster, last longer, and suffer fewer injuries. It’s happened for every single athlete that I’ve managed to convince to get under a heavy barbell. Squats, deadlifts, cleans, loaded carries, and kettlebell work are all your friends, especially in the offseason.
Most runners are also tragically misinformed about lifting technique, so I encourage you to find a coach to teach you. Lift hard, lift heavy, and don’t sweat all that 1970s nonsense about weights making you slow. All it will make you is stronger, more resilient, and better looking.
Less Is More
You will not successfully run a half or full marathon without running quite a lot of miles in training. That much is fact. But there are diminishing returns to just pounding out miles, and your risk of injury increases as the miles stack up. I have become a huge proponent of plans that include only 3-4 days a week of focused running, coupled with 2-3 days of rigorous cross-training. This approach often results in longer training programs before a goal race, but I don’t view that as a drawback. Gradual progress is more sustainable, and less taxing psychologically and physically.
Short workouts can work and there are a few in the list
Knowing that brief, intense conditioning, and strength training are effective, let’s take a look at some examples. Literally, there are hundreds of exercise, drill, run, workout prescription, and time-to-complete combinations that can be used. That is a good thing because it will allow your specific situation to be addressed and you’ll have plenty of variety to choose from.
Breathing can be very important!
Weighted blankets???
Originally developed for children with autism, weighted blankets have entered the mainstream for their purported calming and sleep-inducing effects.[1]
Weighted blankets are typically filled with plastic poly-pellets, making them heavier than normal bedding. The way the blanket molds to the body is a form of deep pressure therapy (DPT) — firm squeezing, stroking, cuddling, hugging, or swaddling that relaxes the nervous system.[2]
The Glute workout, 10 minutes????
The spanish way to lose weight! Basics it is basics!
