Sweet Freedom! Exams are finally over (well at least for a few months) and despite 5 weeks of no time for working out and cravings for comfort food (post exam cookies are the best way to overcome post exam depression!), I’ve managed to come out the other side fairly unscathed. In fact, in some ways I’ve probably benefited.

A lot of people talk about how they don’t have time for exercise. Finding the time is about getting the right mindset. It’s about enjoying it and looking at it as down time, not just more work away from work. I’m not going to write here about how to get that mind-set. Instead I’m going to look at a few simple rules, that will allow you to carry on exercising and improving, even when you’re at your busiest! Here goes:

1) Don’t Waste Time! – I’m a big fan of quick, intense workouts. Not only will these get you out of the gym quicker, but they’re also better for you, because they’re harder. Why take one hour to “sculpt” your arms when you could workout the whole body in 30 minutes, and potentially get better results? For me it’s a no-brainer. Added Bonus: These workouts will fly by because you’re always focused on doing something!

2) Get Your Priorities Right! – For me, this meant realising exam results are more important than gym results. Don’t feel guilty because you missed a workout. See it as a chance for you’re body to rest, meaning you can work harder the next time.

3) Change Up Your Routine! – A lot of people advocate changing routines for a lot of reasons. It helps you overcome plateaus for instance. Whether your goal is to burn fat or pack on muscle, mixing up an old routine is always good. I took my revision period as an opportunity to mix up my routine, and save time by doing so. I started working on strength training in a different way, doing heavier weights for less reps, but with normal or even shorter rest periods. This way I was saving time,but still increasing my strength, even though I was working out less!

Another way I mixed things up was by practicing gymnastic static positions randomly throughout the day. I mentioned in this post that sitting in a chair for too long is starting to become known as one of the worst thing’s a person can do for their health. Because of this I’ve started making an effort to move every 20 minutes or so and practice holds like the tuck planche, wall hand stands or L-sits for a few minutes or less. I managed to get significantly better at these, by doing hardly anything. Yes I’d have improved much more if I had the time to dedicate to doing these properly, but I don’t. However I still got results. This leads me on to my next point…

4) Any Exercise is Good Exercise! – People will tell you that you need to run for at least half an hour on a treadmill to get results. I disagree, and so do many others. Don’t try and stick to you’re normal routine in busy periods. Just try and do as much as you possibly can without affecting your work. You might not feel as good about yourself but you can take comfort in the fact that the little you are doing is maintaining or slowing any reduction of fitness levels.

5) Take a Break, You Deserve it! – Breaks are good! If you’ve been exercising too much for a while and you’re feeling groggy, your body is probably telling you that it’s not getting enough rest. In the last week before my exams I decided to stop dedicating time to exercising. Now I feel energetic and ready to start back up again. I’m also hoping that this break from diet and exercise will result in my body not knowing what the hell is going on when I start working out, which might help me overcome plateaus.

Whatever the reason is behind your busy period, it is possible to maintain a healthy lifestyle, at least in part. You might even argue that a time constraint will force you to do more in less time, which is always a good thing concerning workouts.  Hopefully these tips will help you to both work hard and play hard!

So what I’ve been doing since then is setting a timer to go off in 20 minutes. With it being exam period, I’ve been glued to a chair most of the day, staring at a screen, trying to remember an endless list of unnecessarily complicated bacteria names. The timer goes off, and I get around 20-30 seconds of sweet, sweet freedom. I run downstairs, maybe grab a glass of water, run back up and crack on with the job at hand. Sometimes I even work on my tuck planche (a gymnastic static position I’ve been trying to master) or do a yoga stretch.

It was this article that I noticed today that set me thinking.

I then spotted another, older story that I thought I’d link to.

And mid-writing, I took a break and went over to have a read of The Great Fitness Experiment, and to my surprise, Charlotte had a great post about guess what? … Sitting in the same place for too long, and how it kills you! Here’s what I think she may have been talking about.

Now I’m starting to think that Manual Handling guy was on to something…

I tried to soldier on through the cold weather, I really did. My breaking point was going for a run in shorts and a t-shirt, in what was initially just a drizzle of rain. Safe to say it was NOT a drizzle by the time I got back home.

As a result, I’ve tried several alternatives to outdoor running so far this winter, including the dreaded treadmill. However as it happens, I found I quite enjoyed it. If you and the treadmill don’t get on quite so well, here are a few tips for rekindling that old flame:

1) Race Yourself -

Don’t Set yourself a minimum  period of time that you’re going to run for. Instead set yourself a distance goal, and a time that you want to complete it in. I found that by doing this, I managed to run 2.4km (or 1.5 miles) in my best time ever this winter – 11 minutes. It’s not fantastic, but it was good for me, and it was probably the most intense cardio I’ve done for months. Most importantly, it was a great feeling when I beat my 11 minute time by 5 seconds when I tried again. Not a massive improvement, but the kind of progress that makes this method fun! (The whole point of this post right?)

2) Vary Your speed

Here’s something else  fun I did today. I found out the highest speed I was comfortable running at for 0.1km. I then went 5km/h below that. I ran 0.1km on my lowest speed 11, and then cranked it up to 12 for the next 0.1km. I did this up to my max speed. Then stopped. It only took around 2 minutes to do, but I did other stuff too (see #3). What I liked about this is that although you’re working harder as you progress, you’re rewarding yourself by getting it over and done with quicker!

3) Break Up The Monotony

There’s no law that says you have to slog away on a treadmill for 30 minutes. If you’re at a busy gym, the following might be hard to do. If the gym’s fairly empty or you work out at home – this is definitely possible. I tried out something new on the treadmill today (see point #2) that tired me out in 2 minutes 30 seconds. Of course that’s not a reasonable amount of time to spend exercising (even I can admit that and I try to limit the time I spend on the treadmill as much as possible!) So in an attempt to carry on, without reducing myself to a mind numbingly boring jog, I jumped off the treadmill and did some pull ups. I then did a few rounds on my heavy bag, some skipping and then repeated the cycle. Of course you don’t have to do exactly that, just use treadmill sprints as one part of a varied cardio circuit.

4) Don’t Use the Treadmill

Kind of a cheat tip really (I ran out of ideas!). But seriously, there are several other options to the treadmill in winter. One of my favourites is skipping. Not just for little girls and boxers, skipping is great for getting your heart rate up. It’s hard at first because it requires good co-ordination, but it’s just another thing you’ll improve by doing it. Also you could try designing a circuit, which you can even do in the warmth of your own home!

The Moral of this story is: don’t give your old friend, the treadmill, the cold shoulder this winter. Invite him back into your life, have some fun together. Who knows? You may really hit it off. You may form a life long friendship that just keeps giving and giving! Seriously though it’s just a machine, don’t get too close. They make documentaries about that kind of stuff.

I’m also gonna bore you with a brief word on statistics. Don’t worry, I’ll be quick. As a med student, we get taught very early on the importance of being able to interpret research ourselves. However before going to med school, I read a great book called Bad Science – by Dr Ben Goldacre – a clinician who also writes a column for The Guardian newspaper. He taught me that the ability to interpret research shouldn’t just be confined to Doctors and scientists. In a world that is so heavily influenced by science, it’s arguably an essential skill.

Bad Science

I highly recommend this book to anyone who has ever read a magazine/newspaper/online article that tries to sell you the idea that “Ice Cream causes irreversible brain damage” or something similarly ridiculous. In it he deals with scientific quackery of all shapes and sizes, and he managed to do the impossible: he made me care about statistics. He also made me laugh lots, which is pretty impressive, as meta-analysis and forest plots generally aren’t that funny.

In the future I hope to post a a brief summary of how to interpret stats. Obviously it’s not everyone’s favourite subject though, so the struggle will be making it as bearable enthralling as possible!

What’s The Point?

How does any of  this relate to fitness and exercise?

Leading health magazines are constantly publishing too good to be true facts, based on studies that they have cherry picked to make an interesting story. As enjoyable as it is to read that beer and pizza every day makes you live longer, it probably isn’t a diet plan worth sticking to. If you can’t read and understand studies, then you rely on the “experts” at these magazines. It’s pretty scary to think that articles written as much to entertain as to inform are so influential. You may never know what is actually good for you and what’s preventing you from achieving your goals!

I’m not trying to boycott fitness magazines here. I love a good read of Men’s Health as much as the next guy, but I urge you to go and read “Bad Science” or anything else for that matter, that teaches how to interpret studies. That way next time you’re reading, you can take an article that warns of the latest salt associated disease – with a pinch of salt.

Benefits

1. Saves Time - Time is Money – it would actually cost you NOT to do full body workouts!
2. Gets Your Heart Rate Up – if done right! (so counts as cardio – See tip 1)
3. Post Workout Metabolism Boost - Using your muscle in intense exercise upsets your body’s state. It needs to return back to it’s normal state, and repair itself. This requires energy. Full Body Workouts use more muscle, meaning more repair, and more energy use. This translates to More Fat Loss.
4. Bigger Gains – Working Muscle causes your body to release a hormone, called Insulin-like Growth Factor (IGF). This is thought to have a role in muscle gains. Working all the major muscles of your body at once causes your body to release more IGF. More growth, bigger muscles!
5. Fun, Fun, Fun! – workouts are intense and varied. Rests are short, you’re always moving. It’ll be over before you know it, and you’ll have enjoyed every second of it.

How To Do It?

Like I said earlier, a lot of the routines I found look a bit overkill. I like to take a more laid back, simpler approach to my workouts. Here’s what I do:

Similar to the circuits I do from time to time, these exercises focus on large, compound, natural movements.

2 Different Workouts – A & B - At least three times a week (I do A twice and B Once, just because of my specific goals)

Workout A:

• Deadlift
• Horizontal Push (Bench Press)
• Vertical Pull (Pull Up)

Workout B:

• Squats
• Vertical Press (Shoulder Press)
• Horizontal Pull (Bent Over Row)

Don’t get bogged down with sets, reps, rests and weights. If you’re just starting out, then select a weight that’s challenging and try to do as many reps as you can on it. It should be intense enough for you to do 3 or 4 sets on. Rest between doing sets of the exercise, but not for too long. The point of this routine is to keep it simple, quick and efficient, and keep your heart rate up. It’s what I do over exam period, my busiest time of the year. I timed myself doing this the other day and it took just 30 minutes.

Remember to warm up before doing heavy lifting with a bit of light cardio and some stretches for the muscles you’ll be using, and also consult your doctor before starting a new exercise regime.

Happy lifting!

Broken your New Year’s Resolution already? This might be the motivation you need: The World’s Killer Diet

This fantastic little talk, from Dr Dean Ornish, looks at the disease processes that can be prevented and even reversed by adopting a healthier way of living.

I realise that this was released in 2006, techinically making it old news, but I’ve re-posted it here for 3 reasons.

1) A lot of people probably haven’t seen it. I hadn’t for a start and I think the message that Dean Ornish sends out in just six minutes is better than anything I could write up in a short post.

2) The message of the video is just what a lot of people need around this time of year. New Year’s resolutions are so easily broken, within weeks (if not days) you might be back to your old bad habits. Hopefully this will keep you going, making it less of a typical resolution and more of a lifestyle “revolution”.

3) Sadly, it’s age speaks volumes. It’s a now 5 years old plea for a widespread change in diet. Unfortunately the obesity crisis has only worsened since then.

I hope that this video inspires you to make a change to your life, or at least to stick to the changes you are making. TED talks have some brilliant videos on all kinds of things, and I’d urge you to go check them out.

Making up your own circuits probably isn’t a new thing to anyone into their exercising. But for the beginner, I suppose it can be quite hard. A quick Google search, brought up a few complicated looking articles. I wanted to show you something quick and simple. There are plenty of brilliant magazines available that have their fitness experts cook up a new circuit every month. However I want to show you the principles behind the circuits, so that you can build your own and adapt them to your needs as you learn more about exercise and the body.

Our circuits are going to go like this:

The Circuit:

Each Exercise will be done as many times as you can in a period of 45 seconds to a minute (the time is up to you, the longer the better).

After Each Circuit Rest for 2 minutes maximum.

Do the circuits a minimum of 3 times!

1. Legs Exercise
2. Horizontal Push
3. Vertical Push
4. Pulling Exercise
5. Core Exercise
6. Cardio Exercise

Now you may look at this, and be thoroughly unimpressed. You don’t realise it yet, but this outline puts a massive arsenal of circuits at your disposal. The idea here is that the exercises target all the muscles of your body, which is good for both fat loss and muscle growth (will explain in a later post), and you’re working at a rate that gets your heart rate up, so it’s good work for you’re cardiovascular system too!

Circuits are fantastically versatile things, they can be done anywhere, with weights, with resistance bands or with nothing but your body. They are varied and intense, unlike a monotonous jog around the block. For the ladies, you could incorporate weights for toning. For the fellas, you could incorporate heavier weights for muscle building.

The Example:

Designed for someone with no equipment and no gym access, just to show you how to use this outline:

1. Leg Exercise: Jump Squat
2. Horizontal Push: Press up
3. Vertical Push: Headstand Push-Up against a wall.
4. Pulling Exercise: Pull Ups if you can. If not try Body Rows off of a sturdy table.
5. Core Exercise: The Plank
6. Cardio Exercise: High Knees for 15 seconds, fast running for 10, then repeat.

Remember, circuits are many things. They are hard, they will make you hurt, the right circuit may even make you question your reason for carrying on living. One thing they will not do, is bore you. Boredom is a killer when it comes to exercise. You should NEVER be bored. Mix it up, try new things, experiment. Most importantly, enjoy…

You wouldn’t expect an animal to spend their days sat at an office desk. That’s partly down to their need for the great outdoors, and partly due to their terrible admin skills. The Paleo Diet is a program that looks back to our own animal days, and tells us how and what we should eat, based on how we have evolved. I thought I’d take this general idea and run with it, applying it to exercise. Here are a few things that I puzzled over:

• Jogging? – Who decided that a nice, long, gentle jog was the best way to keep fit? Jogging has obvious benefits. For one, you’re moving. That’s always a good start. It’s also relaxing and is a good test of endurance. But to me, it seems almost unnatural. How often do you see the local wildlife doing their last lap of the block at six in the morning, kitted out in spandex tights and an ipod. My suggestion would be to ramp up the old heart rate and do some High Intensity Interval Training, but that’s a whole different story for another time.

• Rest Days? – Following on from the central “we are animals” idea, where did rest days come from? I can understand that there are a lot of differences here between our lifestyles and exercise regimes and that of a wild animal. The latter clearly get more rest throughout the day, and whereas most people have an intense period of exercise in one hour, animals spread it throughout the day. However, my theory on this is that you should just “listen to your body”. As cliché as that sounds, I believe it’s a good tip. Feel like you’re hurting too much to train? Then don’t. Feel like you could blast out some more bicep curls today? Do it! (However if you worked them hard enough the first time, you shouldn’t feel like you can!)

• Tricep Kickbacks? – Now I have nothing personal against tricep kickbacks , but just what they stand for. A tricep kickback is a funny little exercise that is almost like a reverse bicep curl. However you have to bend your body over so that the straightening part is the part that’s working against gravity (usually in a bicep curl, straightening your arm is the easy part!) Now how often do you find yourself in this position? Were we ever really meant to isolate our muscles in these fantastically inventive ways? My suggestion: Focus on natural movements and bodyweight exercises. By this I mean pushes and pulls, horizontal and vertical. Big, Simple, Compound exercises like these have massive benefits, but that’s yet another story for another time!

If you bothered to read all this, and made it this far, I’m impressed. Not because there was too much to read, but because you endured my writing. Nothing I have talked about here is particularly groundbreaking, nor is it detailed, but I hope it has sparked your interest in a different way of living.

Now go my paleolithic friends! Go live like Cavemen! Cleaner, smarter, less-hairy Cavemen (and women), that wear suits and live in houses.

Of Course! A Blog!

Some people who don’t know me so well say they think I’m determined. Those who know me too well, moan about how I’m obsessed. I prefer the term passionate. I’ve been passionate about many things in my life. Music, Science, Video Games, the wonderfully complex Human Body. And most recently Fitness. None of my obsessions passions have quite changed me like this “unhealthy” concern with my health. Literally. I have physically and psychologically changed massively in just a few months (I started in July/August time), having lost 2 stone and put on muscle. As for the psychological part, I can’t even look at a potato without feeling ashamed.

How did I get there? Well that’s what the blog’s for!

I have never in my life felt as good about myself as I do now, and it would be selfish of me to keep that feeling to myself. From here on, I will document my ongoing struggle with fitness, to motivate, to inspire and to educate. But most importantly, so in a few months time, you can feel as good as I do.