Tag Archives: Personal Training

Anatomy of a Press Up

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The press up. An exercise some will brag about. Yet one which seems out of reach for many – and feared. I often have personal training client get a look of panic when I mention this exercise, yet there are so many ways to adapt it to suit an individual’s physical abilities and work on improving strength. Nobody should fear the press up! Why is it so hard to do a full press up? I googled that exact phrase and was presented with why is it hard for women to do one!! Typical. This blog isn’t aimed at women – … Continue reading →

Hip flexor / adductor problem…?

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Last August I ran Cracken Edge Fell Race. On the way down the final hill into the finish, I really let go and hammered it as hard as I could. It felt amazing just to run that fast. However, that was the beginning of something that has plagued me for quite a while. The day after the race I woke up with a pain in my lower abs/upper leg, like a muscle strain, but not quite. It was difficult to sit up to get out of bed and I found myself rolling over to drop onto the floor as an … Continue reading →

Breathing, Stress and how to Chill Out

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In our article titled “O is for Overbreathing” we talk about how dysfunctional breathing patterns can affect emotional and physical factors – sleep, mood, recovery from exercise, and indeed performance during exercise. Since qualifying as a Personal Trainer, I’ve had the pleasure of getting to know many people over the course of several months, and often years. In this time, I have witnessed the typical cycles of life – the joy of birth, grieving, stress accompanying job changes and house moves, to mention a few. What I have come to learn is that throughout happy and sad times, most of … Continue reading →

The Importance of having a goal after your next goal

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Setting goals is no new thing, I know it, you know it – having a goal makes it way more likely you will achieve/make progress/challenge yourself and if all goes to plan – surpass expectations. What has became apparent to me over the past year is that we need to set a goal to follow on after the goal we are currently focusing on. In 2016 I had one main focus at the start of the year – the Bryce Canyon 50km Ultra race in Utah, USA. Race day was in mid June. The first 6 months of the year … Continue reading →

Making A Better Runner – Stretch-Shorten-Cycle – BOUNCE!

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So we’ve gone through the classic format of looking at different types of training that people tend to do and come to the conclusion that although there are some things that are more important than others on the training continuum for runners, a balance needs to be struck in order for progression and improvement to manifest itself. There is one thing that hasn’t been talked about, and that is Bounce, or the stretch-shorten-cycle. Essentially, it is the load response of a tendon, its brief amortization phase – when the tendon is no longer lengthening, and is not shortening, and then … Continue reading →

Making A Better Runner – Endurance

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Yes, I know. This is perhaps the most obvious one of the lot. Fell running takes a fair amount of Endurance. Arguably its the thing that people concentrate on most. Getting out for longer runs in evenings. Getting out on the weekends and pushing the distance. As Julian Goater says in his book, people find it easier to improve on distance than on speed, hence why “progression” as a runner so often appears to go down the lines of 5k, 10k, half mara, mara, 50k, 50 miles etc as opposed to necessarily getting faster at short distances. I don’t really … Continue reading →