London to Paris Photos
The photos taken by the official trip photographer of my recent London to Paris cycle ride for The Big Issue can be found here. I don’t really star in any of them but if you look closely I can be found looking geeky in the background of some of them.
Sadly I have no photos of my own as my iPhone sat in a puddle of water for over an hour before I realised. Took it out of action for the weekend and while its all dried out the camera is still broken. Note to self: zip lock bags are your best friend.
Bedford to Hardwick
Another 60 miler today. A circular route from Bedford out to Hardwick just outside of Cambridge.
First half of the run was particularly pleasant with some gorgeous country lanes but the second half had some slightly tedious long straights with not a lot to see, and the sun was burning down by then which made for hard going.
All in all a pleasant day out, topped off with a nice Ice Cream and some music in the bandstand down on The Embankment in Bedford.
Pre Work Burn
Took an early morning short cycle (about 21 miles) around one of my favourite areas in Bedford: Old Warden.
Felt energised and refreshed by the time I got into the office despite the early start. My speed is definitely improving too.
Back Again, Cycling Around, London to Paris
Been a while since I posted. If I still have any regular readers: I apologise! It turns out I have only so much to say about lifting things up and putting them back down. I love it but its not something I can talk about day in day out.
Although I’ve been remiss with my blogging I have stuck with my training. Still hard at it and, if you’ll indulge the personal success story, In the last year I’ve put on about a stone of lean muscle which I’m incredibly pleased with. With this amount of body fat I was just under 13 stone last year, now I’ve just over 14 stone.
I put in the hard work but under the guidance of my personal trainer who now has her own studio K Klass Fitness.
I recently completed a London to Paris bike ride for the Big Issue and in the process discovered I rather like cycling. I did that on my “commuter”, a hybrid bike that I use as my daily transport. Heavy. Its got a pannier rack. Its not really a nippy little number.
However since getting back I’ve bought a Specialized Roubaix road bike (yeah I know – I really should have bought it before cycling 230 miles to Paris!) and a Garmin Edge 800 GPS computer to track and follow my routes.
I’ll post the routes on this blog for posterity. And when I get my new phone (my iPhone 4’s camera died when it suffered a serious and prolonged soaking in a pool of water) I might even take pictures.
For starters here is the route I followed to get from London to Paris. Well to be precise its the route my friend David followed as I didn’t have a GPS at the time. He was in a different group to me but we all went the same way. And here’s everyone at the Eiffel Tower. I’m back row, fourth from right.
It was a great trip, a lot of fun, and superbly organised. They run it every year so if you need a reason to get into cycling go for it.
Double TRX Fly
Tonight I was introduced to yet another diabolical form of rope torture – the Double TRX Fly. The best video I could find on You Tube also included pike and abduction as part of the same exercise but you get the idea:
This was supersetted with dumbbell chest press with rotation.
Fantastic!
ps. apologies for the slowness round here this month but as well as my day job and gym sessions I’ve been involved on a product launch on the iPad, so its been work work work!
Calorie Deficit, Calorie Surplus
I’ve spent most of the last 18 months training in a calorie deficit (eating less than required for maintenance) as I worked on losing weight.
I’m happy to be able to say that that mission has been successfully accomplished and now I’ve moved on to trying to pack on some lean weight: muscle.
As well as changing how I’m training and building in some more rest I’ve moved into a calorie surplus (eating more than is required for maintenance) and whats amazed me about this is how much more energy and power I have when training and how quickly my strength is improving. Its, literally, a whole different world to training while on a weight loss diet.
Though I must admit its been tough to get my head around the scales going up after 18 months of them going down.
Fun and interesting times!
More Double TRX
I’ve said before how great double TRX exercises are for core work. They make me feel it like nothing else I’ve yet come across (I say yet as there seems to be no end of ways my trainer can find to make things harder) so here’s another good one: pike, hip abduction and crunch as demonstrated by my trainer Kasia:
Trust me – by the third set you’ll be feeling it.
Baby I’m Back
Apologies for the quiet around here this last three weeks but your favourite blogger has been on holiday. A fabulously active holiday climbing ferrata’s in the Dolomites as it turns out.
As well as continuing the Training Effectively series my holiday has given me lots of ideas for fitness posts.
All being well they should start to get posted over the coming weekend.
Crazy Obsessive Gym Habits
In home life I am a little untidy and scattered. Looking round my front room right now there are a few stacks of books, a laptop, an iPad, a pile of gym clothes on a corner chair (they never seem to make it much further than the washing machine and gym!) and stack of DVDs, a pair of walking boots and a tent!
But when it comes to the gym I’ve noticed I’ve got a long list of odd rituals that must be observed.
1) The TRX branding on my TRX bands must always be face out.
2) The TRX band’s clips and lines must always be exactly equal and mirrored and the bands untwisted.
3) When doing any standing upper body exercise I always begin by doing this odd foot “shuffle” to make sure my stance is just so.
4) If there are any lines on the floor (tile lines etc.) where I am working out then my feet must always be parallel or perpendicular to the lines and my toes on a line.
5) If there is a mirror then I must be face on to it or exactly parallel to it.
6) If I use a bench then it needs to be placed parallel or perpendicular to the walls, and preferably to other benches.
7) If I’m working out on my own then my dumbbells must be lined up in order of increasing weight and in a neat triangular pattern.
8 ) I’ve got to be wearing matching brand shorts and top. To that end I nearly always buy Adidas then I can’t get confused!
9) While cooling down and stretching I MUST have my protein / carb shake WHILE I am doing it. After will not do. Chocolate orange flavour.
10) I get very very VERY annoyed if I miss a session. I mean really annoyed. Irrationally so!
I really do seem to have this odd thing about parallel and perpendicular lines. Hmmm.
Although a little obsessive I do think that having a certain amount of rigidity about these things is a good thing – having a routine like this helps keep me safe.
Thats the excuse I’m sticking to anyway.
Training Effectively – Having A Plan
This post forms part of the Training Effectively series.
So now you’re all set up with long term and short term goals you’re eager to hit the gym and start throwing some heavy objects around. Great!
But hold on for just one minute, or at least the two or three needed to read the rest of this post.
To ensure you meet goals and maximise the benefits of your training and diet you need a plan.
And your short term goals make ideal points of focus for you to plan around.
Let’s say your goal is to lose 8lbs in 4 weeks. You could just eat a bit less and hit the treadmill and hope for the best and sure that might work. Then again you might end up losing no weight at all or, just as bad, lose an unhealthy amount of weight. You could also burn yourself out from too much running and not enough rest.
Having a plan should prevent you from hitting these pitfalls.
Sounds obvious right? Maybe. But it’s amazing how many people don’t have a plan – and you can spot them in the gym quite easily. They’re the people milling around not quite sure where there going next and who you see there regularly but their body shape and / or fitness level never seems to change.
I like my plan to operate on two levels – big picture “today I’m going to eat 2500 calories and do my legs strength training in the gym” and detailed “these are the meals I am going to eat today giving me 200g protein etc. and I will do 4 sets of 8 reps of squats followed by…”.
I find both levels of the plan to be useful. Your big picture plan will help you plan out your week – legs Thursday, rest on Friday, shoulders and chest on Saturday etc. while your detailed plan will make sure you get the most from your diet or time spent in the gym.
In terms of building your plan – there are plenty of resources out there for doing this but personally I find a personal trainer takes the hassle out of it and means I’m getting the absolute most bang for my workout buck by using an expert leaving me to focus on putting the effort in. The trick is in finding a good personal trainer – as well as some great ones there are some truly awful ones out there. My handy guide may help!
Activate Your Glutes 