Nutrition in Exercise

A couple of months ago I did a post on how the body makes energy which is a bit of a prelude to this post on how you should fuel yourself when you work out. This is a bit of a generalised view on nutrition as it can vary from sport to sport as you may find that you have different needs, but as a rough guide it is fairly thorough!

Smoothies are a great Pre exercise snack

Meal Plan 27/01/13 - 02/01813

The weather has taken it's toll on my health this week, I've always found that if I can't exercise I also struggle to eat well. Its strange I know, I guess I'm a sort of an all or nothing kind of person in this respect. When I workout I feel great and I feel motivated to eat well, but when I know I can't I sort fell like: "one take out pizza isn't going to kill me!". I'm not going act like last week was that bad for eating, I just know that I had a couple of bad meals and I ate more chocolate then I would have liked.

Healthy, delicious and easy to make

The Brighton Marathon

I know I've been going on about running quite a lot lately, but I'm going to have to talk about it again. One of the things that I've always wanted to do is run a marathon, and for the last 2 years I've been saying that I plan on doing the Wolverhampton marathon, but I never even sign up. Last year I only thought about doing it 2 weeks before the event, and the year before I got too excited too early and kept putting off signing up and training until it eventually became too late again!

Meal Plan 20/01/13 - 26/01/13

So I've had a quite week blog wise, I'm going to blame the weather on this one. While you would think that being forced to stay inside would actually make me want to write more, it has kind of had the opposite effect. I've not been able to exercise at all last week (except 1 night of hockey) because of all the snow we've had, luckily I managed to get 1 last run before the snow hit last week.

Home made chicken tikka masala

Meal Plan 13/01/13 - 19/01/13

In terms of food and fitness last week was good, scratch that it was great! I ate well and worked hard, I probably went a bit too far in the CV direction, doing 4 sessions of high intensity CV to only 1 weights session. Though in all honesty I needed it, and after turning up to our hockey game to find we have no subs and being in a team that probably wasn't close to peak fitness I'm glad I did it. I reached half time and I don't think I'd been out of breath once, not to say I didn't work hard, I worked really hard, I just felt very fit.

Looks rough, tastes Nice

App Review - Strava

Back in November I posted a review of the Nike+ running app, this was purely because it was the only running app I'd ever really used. I'm a little older and a little more experienced now and I'm glad to say I've seen more of the world and some more apps that are knocking around. Strangely I didn't come across Strava by deciding to go for a run and try something different or because I was having a look through the app store on my iPhone. 

Supplements - A Guide to Drugs in Sport - Part 1

So I went for my second run with Wolverhampton and Bilston running club last night, it's took me ages to give it a second go, mainly due to not being keen for a heavy workout, and because my trainers haven't been great and I thought I'd break my leg when it turned a bit icy for a couple of weeks! 

1-3 and 8-9 were warm up and warm downs!

Meal Plan 06/01/13 - 12/01/13

I don't want to sound like someone who is Anti-Christmas or New year, but I couldn't be happier that the festive period is well and truly finished and our tree has been packed away. Don't get me wrong I love the celebrations, but trying to do anything becomes so much more difficult, especially eating well.

I love a bit of fruit!

I struggle to keep my eating clean not only because of the big days but because of lots of my family being born at this time of year (me included). But now that it's over and I've seen my last buffet / birthday cake I can get on the road to nutritional recovery! I'm pleased to say that I managed to get a good bit of exercise last week despite declaring New year's eve and day as a complete write off. I think a big swim, 2 good weights sessions and a hockey game (a satisfying 9-0 drubbing of our local rivals), is a good start to getting fit again and I feel noticeably lighter and healthier.

Muscle Groups - The Shoulder Part 1

Moving on from the chest towards the arms are your shoulders, I was planning on talking about these with the arms but there is far too much going on there for just one post so I decided to split it into 3 parts; Shoulder, upper arm and lower arm

The Anatomy:

You can split the shoulder muscles into 6 key muscles spreading from the back to the top of the arms, though they may not appear equal they all have an important role to play in the movement of the arm.

New Year, New Intentions.

Happy New Year Everyone!

It's the start of a new year so its time to look forward about what we want to do in the future. I don't usually bother with new years resolutions, but this year I've decided to make an exception as I think the start of a year can be the motivation I need to do something good for myself.

Running Parachute

I'm not going to be doing any vague or overly ambitious things like try to 'eat healthier' or 'give up chocolate' as these are either too hard to judge or are too difficult and unrealistic. I think a better approach is to set smaller obtainable targets. Anyone will tell you that you can't suddenly just change who you are, which is why those sort of resolutions are always doomed to end in failure.