Never do things half-heartedly...

Tomorrow is the first cycle since I got back last year. I've done a few km here and there on the bikes in the gym but I hate those bikes. The seats are too wide. The pedals aren't under the seat (they are slightly forward to make it easier to pedal) and the handlebars are too wide and high. Basically, I HATE the gym bikes. So much so I can only use them for a 3km cycle before I am a: bored and b: sore in the bum.

Exercise should never be unenjoyable. If you don't have fun then you shouldn't be doing it. Whats the point? Sure, I lift weights and I get pain and muscle burn. BUT...I enjoy the feeling I get from it after lifting the weights. The endorphins that are released plus all the extra oxygen going to your brain only help to make my mood feel better.

As I don't like the bikes in the gym, and my weekends are pretty packed that leaves me three options

1. Cycle in the morning before work
2. Cycle at night after I get home
3. Cycle to/from work

well...number 1 is discounted for two reasons, first I'd have to get up at the crack of dark to be able to get out and cycle a decent distance, then get home shower and get my butt to work; second, its still pitch black outside at 6am and pretty dangerous to cycle without a bright "nerd" jacket on.

number 2...well I get home and go to the gym 3 nights a week so those are ruled out, the others I normally spend an hour in traffic coming home and by then my brain is fried.

number 3... I leave at 7am when its light, and get to work just before 8 (15 minutes longer than if I drove). At night, because I have to drive through Glasgow, the hour it will take me to cycle is actually quicker than the drive home...and as I leave work at 5.15 its still light enough to see.

So yeah, I do 28 miles my first day of training but hey, there's no incentive like having to get to work on time or getting home to keep you motivated. So yeah, I may not have cycled in a while but tomorrow I'll be right back where I was a few months ago and to be honest...I'm looking forward to it.

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you what?!?!!!!

Not content with cycling from Prague to Berlin in august, I am seriously thinking about doing the Artemis 100. Now, there would be no point at all in doing the shorter distances. I'm in it for the challenge, and why do anything by half measures...to its the full 132.5km for me!

I should be reasonably fit by then, the cycle is 2 weeks after the ride from Prague to Berlin and as we are going through Bavarian Alps I should be able to cope with the highlands!

Wish me luck, or send me a straight jacket...

from deepest darkest Peru...

Sometimes even the most positive of us has deep dark thoughts that do nothing for our demeanour, social life or work life. It's a fact of life that at some point you will get stressed beyond your abilities to easily shrug it off. This week has been one of those weeks for me.

I've been in a pretty foul mood all week. Culminating last night in an inability to even concentrate on lifting weights, something which I normally find helps clear my mind. I almost dropped a 120Kg stack of weights when in the middle of straightening up for a leg press I just gave up.

After that it was downhill for the night, I could press less and less weight, even things which I normally find easy were a struggle. Although, looking at the state of my hands you'd think I did more last night than I do normally...

No-one. Absolutely no-one can go through life without venting occasionally, always being switched on and always giving 100%. Occasionally you have to give a little. I struggle to allow that to happen. I very rarely take my full quota of annual leave at work - in fact, in the 6yrs since I have graduated, I've always carried at least 7 of my 20 days over. One year I carried 14 days.

Relaxation and venting are not in my nature yet I have to make them part of me. The blog has helped somewhat.

A good nights sleep seemed to help put things in perspective but more than that was a couple of good friends (you know who you are) letting me vent with them. I guess the next few days and the upcoming weekend will tell if I have truly de-stressed.

If not, theres always kickboxing!

The countdown begins...

And so, the end is near, no more resting at weekends.

No more late nights on Saturdays and fry ups on Sundays. In 4 weeks time we will be out on bikes again with the first of many weekend training cycles in preparation for this years charity cycle.

Who will fall prey to over-confidence? who will fall prey to my secret weapon? a root ginger muffin and a capuccino. No one can keep up with me on that - at least not for 20 or so miles :-)

The first cycle will be pretty tame by the standards we set last year at the end of the training, but given that none of us have really been out on bikes since then, we'll have to start with a nice flat route and then build up to the same sorts of hills as we used to do. I am sure though that we will soon have that mileage and hill climbing go up.

I'm going to make a more concentrated effort of cycling to work at least twice a week once I am able to maintain at least 14 mph (on a mountain bike thats tough going).

The man who went up a hill and came down a mountain...

Well..thats the cycle decided. August 2009 cant come soon enough to get the same sense of camaraderie and fulfilment that we got from last year. Although, I am NOT looking forward to the buttache and the burning aching pain in my legs from climbing hills. And we are going to climb a LOT of hills this year. The edge of the Bavarian Alps to be exact. Yikes!

Looking at it on Google earth the cycle from Prague to Berlin will require an effort of around 2000ft climb over most of the first day through the mountains between the Chzek Republic and Germany.

To be honest, I can't wait. After this weeks newly found weight lifting abilities I'm going to attack harder and harder to build mass and strength, then in April, I'm going to maintain the same level of weight lifting but increase the cycling to 30 miles 4x a week.

I reckon by the end of the summer I should be a lot fitter than I was last year.


Feel free to leave a comment!

When to realise your limits

Yesterday was a routine day of blood tests, being poked and prodded and various other tests that doctors could imagine. Or so I thought. I have recently moved to a new doctor and hospital so rather than just have the usual small amount of bloods, a whole gamut (ooooh fancy...I never thought I would actually use that word in a sentence) of tests were ran on me.

I'd planned ahead and had booked the day off work...good no problems there then. So this morning I woke to the residual stiffness from the DOMS mentioned a few days ago. So thought "Excellent, back to the gym today". When I got to the gym it seemed a bit busier than usual so the bikes were all used up... So I did my customary 3 second stretch and hit the weights.

WOW! what a difference that made. I was able to up my leg press from the usual 73kg to well over 100kg and bump up the reps to 30. Now, when you only weigh 58kg, I reckon thats pretty good going! Again, I was able to up my chest press to 60kg and increased the reps to 24. I was starting to get a bit worried...what was going on...how after no training for two days, no warm up and having quite a lot of blood taken was I able to do all this?

I'm still puzzling this out to be honest. With the lack of blood I should have been struggling for air as there is less haemoglobin to transport oxygen to muscles. Blood pressure is also lower as theres less volume of blood.

So anyway whats going on? The only thing I can think of is that because I didnt get the heart rate up, my heart was able to beat with a little more force to get the blood to where it needed to be. I really don't know why...answers on a postcard please...although a cheque would get my attention more!

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A great chinese man once wrote...

No it's not a dirty limerick...hear me out because I don't often spout philosophical ideology...

A man is born gentle and weak.
At his death he is hard and stiff.
Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
At their death they are withered and dry.
Therefore, the stiff and unbending is the
disciple of death.

The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.
Thus and army without flexibility never wins a battle
A tree that is unbending is easily broken.
The hard and the strong will fall.
The soft and weak will overcome.

Attributed to Lao Tsu

This saying has stayed with me for a long time, since the first time I read it in the early/mid 90's. Thanks to a friend who got me into this sort of stuff. I don't mean for one second that if you are stiff and inflexible then you will go around murdering people. Nor do I mean that this is aimed purely at your physical nature.

Instead take it as an approach to life that life is constantly evolving and as such your attitude, outlook and thoughts must also change towards the forces pushing or pulling on you. The way you train, the way you eat and even the way you interact with friends and family will have to evolve at some point or other or you will risk losing what you have striven to achieve.

Normal service shall resume shortly.
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DOMS WARS - A new hope

Well, last night whilst an excellent but short work out has taken its toll on me this week. An improper cool down, followed by total immobility (i.e. going to sleep early) has resulted in PAIN. Lots of it. AAARGH!

This if the first time in a long time that I've had to resort to medical intervention and swalled a few ibuprofen tablets to help reduce the inflammation of the muscles in my foreams, arms, shoulders and back... Strangely even though I lifted heavily with my legs I am not sore there - maybe I kick about a lot in my sleep? hmm...

Why am I so sore today? well on Saturday I had to take a few goes at getting a decent video for the chin up post. Got a good work out but doing 30 chin ups using only your fingertips to grip with left my forearms in tatters on Sunday. So when I did lift on Sunday I had to alter my grip slightly which meant that my arms, back and even neck were worked harder than usual.

The result..."AAAARGH!"

I've been putting up with it for about 8 hours so far but enough is enough...had to take some pain killers and will spend about an hour under the shower on "Hot Massage" setting tonight to try and blast some of the pain out of me.

Feel free to leave a comment!

We are no longer the knights who say "Ni"

We are now the knights who say "ecky ecky ecky patang!" Well...thats what my legs feel like they are doing. So today, I decided that since my arms hurt after take after take making that chip up video that I would mainly work my legs.

Starting with a 5 minute cycle at 30km/h to warm up, I then stretched my hamstrings using this method:



With my legs suitably warm, I then went on to the leg press. Now its been a while since I did this so I started light - 73kg and did 20x Squats twice with my feet at the bottom of the foot board on the leg press machine - this worked my quads and could feel the burn shortly after starting. I NEVER fully lock our my knees when doing squats, thats asking for trouble, instead I keep a 10 degree bend in my knee and hold it for 5 seconds, then down (take 2 seconds to go down) and then up (again taking two seconds to do this).

Then keeping the same weight I moved my feet right up to the top of the foot board. This worked the tops of the backs of the thighs and shortly I could feel them loosening up a little as they heated up. I could only manage 10x 73kg squats twice doing this.

Lastly, I did some calf presses, now, I couldnt actually lift the 73kg from a squat position to a full leg straight position using the calf press stance, so I squatted the weight normally until my legs were straight and slowly walked my feet so they were off the board apart from the balls of my feet. Then slowly, drop your heels and then just as slowly start to raise them. You'll feel the contraction in your calves if you are doing this right, I try to keep my feet as close together as possible when doing this.

Whilst I am trying to bulk up a little, my main aim is to increase strength and stamina in the muscles and thats just what I am achieving by never unstressing the legs during a squat.

Feel free to leave a comment!

No Gym? No Problem!

People trained before gyms. Gladiators in the Roman Empire. Trojans and Spartans before them. Rocky used russian mountains in Rocky 4.



This week has been a long hard week at work, long nights and early morning compounded the usual motivational problem of getting to a gym on a cold dark winters night.

Training has to be done though so improvisation is the key. Being single (at the moment) means I am lucky enough to be able to leave my weights whereever I feel they are handy. I have dumbells next to my couch so I can use them whilst watching TV. Isolating my arms is easy as I can rest my elbow on the couch armrest.

If you want to train, not getting to a gym isn't going to stop you. All you have to do is improvise a little. I normally work my arms and legs quite heavily at the gym and at home I do the same.

Where I would do a lateral pull down in the gym, I jump up to grab on to my doorframes and do wide grip underarm chin ups on it... and I HAVE to use a wide grip or I risk pulling the frame off the wall as its over 100years old. What makes it a harder workout is that I am having to grip with only the tips of my fingers so my forearms get a workout as well as my upper arms and back.



For situps, I hook my feet under the edge of the couch and use that to stabilise myself (realistically you shouldn't need a weight on your feet to do a sit-up/crunch).

Benchpresses are easy at home - I use the bench, however as I am on my own, and the bar could do a lot of damage at 60kg should I drop it, I leave the collars off the weight bar. This makes it easier for me to get out, if I drop it the weights will unbalance and slip off the bar, so I dont get hurt (not too badly). It also means you have to be more balanced and controlled in your press because the weights will slide off the end of the bar if you aren't.

So, the next time you say you dont have the time to get to the gym...stop lying to yourself, use your house, improvise.

Feel free to leave a comment!

EncHELLada

Enchiladas are evil! Actually, any vegetable is evil!

Let me explain.

After pretty major surgery in 2002 due to a case of Crohns Disease and my own mismanagement of my medication I'm left with the distinct inability to process fibrous (non-soluble fibre) vegetables.

So why bring it up? Well...over the past few months I've been working hard at the gym. 3 nights a week lifting weights and slowly working up to being able to bench almost twice my own weight, as well as being able to squat the same. Yesterday whilst out with the guys - after a few too many beers - we needed food and I saw that enchiladas were on the menu. I am a massive fan of spicy yet uncomplicated foods like enchiladas, chilli etc. So I decided on them. I didnt count on all the vegetables, fresh herbs and rich tomato sauce with their skins still on.

Its quite quickly undone all the good of my training with me having lost 3kg (about 6.5lbs) in one day. Now, I know that the weight loss is mainly dehydration and I will not have lost muscle mass that quickly. However, dehydration doesn't go away when your guts settle down, it takes days (up to a week) to overcome the full effects of dehydration and maybe even longer till you are back to normality.

The most important thing you can do is drink. Drink regularly. Your body will be trying to flush out something that it doesn't agree with, its best to let it.

Now, when you drink try to use electrolytic drinks (dyoralite works much better) and will help you more than just water. When you do eat, add a little extra salt to your food, the salt will help with water retention, normally a bad thing but when it feels like you are trying to expel your spine each time you go to the toilet, it can help you recover a little more quickly.

So whats the point in this post? Simple, when you are training, make sure you understand what eating certain foods can do to you, and if you are in any doubt, stick with the tried and tested foods.

Feel free to leave a comment!