I arrived back in Edinburgh yesterday afternoon, far too tired following four separate flights (just over 36 hours' total transit) to contemplate hitting the weights prior to a good night's sleep in a bed. Still haven't mastered the art of...
Old habits die hard. Whilst doing a little web work this morning I was inspired to consume a cup or two of coffee. Having moved from a regular 8-10 cups per day to around 1-2 per month - a pretty drastic change by any standards - I was more than a little shaky after downing 3 strong cups in about 10 minutes.
I knew I'd overdone it slightly when songs like Motörhead's 'Ace of Spades' seemed slow.
Apart from managing to shed 3kg whilst hiking around The Netherlands for a week, my recent trip suggested working on two main areas : calf muscles and upper back. There's nothing quite like a solid week of backpacking to point out weaknesses.
Intent on squeezing every last drop of potential out of the cage, I decided to test the mid-range of my bench press with a little help from my new friend the Floor Press. As you've no doubt guessed from the name, this is just a flat bench press done whilst lying on the floor; preventing your upper arms from moving past horizontal as the bar is lowered.
At least it felt like that. It was an arms day, and I used the same weight throughout most of the routine, which was the same as last week with a slight rearrangement of exercises.
I followed a similar pattern to last week, and once again the lack of constant plate-handling meant that this was a fast session. It went something like : Alternating lateral raise 10/10/10 Alternating shoulder press 10/10/10 Overhead shrug 10/10/10 Cross...
Well, the routine is. A couple of minor changes from last week, in addition to the fact that I decided to video much of the session to check form, meant that it was a bit of a long one. This...
Yes, today was most certainly an arms day; with everything from the shoulders down to the fingertips getting a go. More on the pinch-gripping in a moment. First the routine : Quick ab workout - crunches and pikes, supersetted, 4...
This week I reduced the daily cycling warm-up to 10 minutes, and added short (20 min) routines for legs and abs - 3 days per week each. I've also removed the ab exercises from the Sunday weights routine as they are now covered in these short routines.
NB : if you'd like to be interviewed on an upcoming show (or know someone who should be), drop us a line. It's great to find out how other people train. And if you'd like to add your comments and suggestions on the Gymchats in general, we'd love to hear them.
Cheers.
what we're saying
NB : As well as leaving a comment or two beneath the articles themselves, you might like to swing by the Daily 'Paper' for a somewhat more frequent dose of training goodness.
A dose of Online Personal Training is ideal. Your place, their experience.
As you'd expect, I work with a number of Fitness Professionals myself - including the wonderful Josh Hewett. If you're about to begin your own strength-training journey, swing by his site at :
If you’d like to send in a photo of yourself in action (wearing one of the Straight to the Bar Shirts of course - the latest design is here), just upload it somewhere and send us a link. Cheers.
the future of fitness
Over the years we’ve looked at the fitness industry from a number of angles - discussing the history, present approaches and potential future trends involved. Fascinating areas.
When it comes to the last part - discussing potential future trends - things get a little, well, unusual. If it’s an interest you share, or you just want to find out the types of things we think are likely, check out the posts tagged ‘Futurism’. And of course, Gymchat 224 (Roundtable) - The Future of Fitness. Superb discussion.
air pollution & health
We discuss air pollution quite a bit on this site - particularly the various health impacts involved. If you'd like to dive in a little deeper, I invite you to check out the following :
And for the full list of the Books & DVDs we recommend, swing by the Recommended Books & DVDs page. To check out what we're reading at the moment (and to make suggestions), join us on Goodreads.