Video - Building Core Strength: Safely Performing Planks

I'm getting stitches every time I run and one possible cause of this, I gather, is that my core muscles ain't up to scratch. You core basically consists of your stomach muscles, back muscles and your ass and you use it for pretty much everything. There are a few ways to strengthen the muscles, like yoga and pilates, but one method that doesn't involve classes or equipment (don't know about you, but I'm on a budget here) is doing planks. And I'm not going to explain them, because I dug up this video for that exact reason. If you could ignore the cheesy American voice over, that'd be awesome.

Barefoot Running: A Right Quick Tutorial

Learn to Run Barefoot with Lee Saxby and Terra Plana from GTB Goodtruebeautiful GmbH on Vimeo.

So, this is quite interesting. Yes, it's a promotion for a product so yes, take it with a wee pinch of salt. Still, I'm looking forward to giving this stuff a go and seeing how it feels.

PS: I'm reading Born to Run right now, which is about a remote tribe of ultra runners who've been going barefoot for centuries. So far, so awesome.

Played Football, Didn't Die: Improvement

Yesterday I got roped into playing football. I played 5-a-side with some mates for a few months back in 2009, but since I pretty much dropped out I've been rock-bottom last choice when they're short. I guess they hit rock-bottom last night, because I was called on.

It's important to understand that I'm shit at football. Last night, however, I didn't disgrace myself. I'm still shit at football, but I didn't look like a dying man with lungs full of concrete, which is a massive improvement over last time I played (when I looked like a dying man with lungs full of concrete). The exercise is different to the running I've been doing, with lots of acceleration/deceleration and short bursts of sprinting, but I survived it anyway. Then I ate an apple. Then I went home to a woefully unappealing hotpot I'd had in the slow cooker which required an extra hour's work to be rendered tasty.

Point is, I'm finally at that point where I'm noticeably fitter. You don't tend to notice so much when you're doing your regular training because you're doing it continuously so the improvements feel incremental, but when you get back to something you've not done in a while - WOW. The difference was well noticeable.

I had the same thing happened on Sunday when me, my girlfriend and her dad hiked up Pen-Y-Ghent in the Yorkshire Dales. Last time I did it was with my (much fitter than me) brother and I was stopping and starting and wheezing and leaving salt deposits on the ground with my sweat. This time I was actually, genuinely wanting to run at some points. As in, I'm actually considering taking up fell running once my fitness improves some more. (Really).

My point is: there's a proper pay-off to exercise that stretches beyond a better fit for your old space invaders t-shirt. Your body becomes fun to use, instead of a dead weight you're dragging around.

If you were feeling so inclined, you could probably sum up this post as EXERCISE IS GOOD FOR YOU. I know, right? Who knew...

Man Vs Gut: What's That All About, Then?

So, here's a blog about learning to be healthier. Or, learning to build a better body, if you're feeling that way out. About trying not to be a lard-arse. Because, guys, I'm a lard-arse. But I'm about 9% less of a lard-arse than I was a couple of months back. I've been a lard-arse for about as long as 84% of the people I know can remember, so I'm having to take a pop at NOT being a lard-arse from a standing start. It's a pretty steep learning curve and it's turning out to be a surprising one.

It's surprising because I like it. It's surprising if we ever met in real life because I like running now, and the only think I liked that didn't involve sitting down or a bedroom three months ago was snowboarding. And I'm learning to cook and learning about food!

So, this is a blog about learning all that (and not, despite the high recurrence of 'I' in the above two paragraphs, about me). I'd say it was a blog about lifestyle change if it didn't sound a bit wanky. (It totally is about lifestyle change, though.)

Some of it will be practical stuff I've learned (REAL practical stuff for people who work a fair amount and have too many DVDs to catch up on to go foraging for rare berries). Some of it will be recipes. Some of it will be reviews or pointers to useful books, apps, products and resources. If you already know a lot about food and exercise maybe you'll sit behind your monitor shaking your head in dismay at me. If not, maybe we can all learn along together like a big fat happy hippie family.

A large chunk of it will be more general posts about losing weight and running and food, the culture around those things and how they affect you as a human being, because I think there's more to be said about all the above than nuts and bolts 'how-to' guides. Yeah, I guess there might be some bleating about 'me', too. (Sorry about that). Hopefully there will be the odd guest post, too.

In short: here's a blog about learning to be healthy and everything that comes with that. Hope you like it.