One of the main things that prevents me from going running as often as I would like is that I prefer not to do it alone. Finding a running partner isn’t easy, especially when you both have commitments and as soon as one of you starts feeling demotivated so does the other.

So what about the one friend that loves spending time with you whatever you’re doing, doesn’t have a hectic schedule and will always be up for a long run – in fact it’s their absolute most favouritest thing ever! .. Of course I’m talking about your dog! Okay so you haven’t got a dog? I am sure you know someone who does – plenty of neighbours or friends will jump at the chance to have a night off from walking the family pooch.

So you’ve got the motivation and you’ve got your furry running partner. All you need know are a few tips to make sure the experience is the best it can be for both of you…

1. As you can see above my dog has a really thick coat and would absolutely melt into a puddle after a long run, especially in warmer weather. Remember that your dog (as enthusiastic as it is) can get tired and hot during a run, so make sure if your dog is the hairy kind like mine that he or she rests – especially if you notice them getting overheated.  Avoid running during very warm weather,  wait till the evening when it’s cooler or don’t take your dog with you when it’s just too humid… maybe have a nice walk!

2. Think about the surface you will be running on – paws can be quite sensitive especially to hot tarmac and stony or rough surfaces and beware of rubbish and horrors such as smashed glass. You don’t want your best buddy to end up with an inflamed and infected paw. Wash your pups paws to make sure they are free of debris.

3. Take plenty of water for both of you, you can get some really handy collapsible bowls that are really small and light – for example these ones from our sister store, simply hike.

4.  Use a fairly long lead, but avoid extendable ones as they extend too far and you have much less control especially near busy roads and it’s harder keeping your dog away from cars and pedestrians – A harness is usually helpful and you can even get aids such as a running belt so you can keep your dog under control and hands free. Make sure your lead is fairly long otherwise your dog is forced to become too close to your feet and may risk being kicked in the face and this could lead to a trip to the vets for damaged teeth or worse. My dog tripped over my feet during a run once and grated his nose on the ground and the blood was scarily bright against his white fur – I felt awful. So best to keep your pet away from your feet and out of harms way.

5.  If your running at night or in low light, make sure both you and your pet can be seen. Fluorescent, reflective clothing is best. You can get reflective collars and little flashing leds lights for your pet.

6. Talk to your vet about any concerns about your dog’s health, we are always told to consult the doctor before taking up an exercise regime, so consider your pets fitness and make sure they are up to it.

7. Consider your dogs breed – Large working breeds are better at coping with long distances than tiny little pooches. Check out http://www.dogbreedinfo.com/jog.htm for a list of good running companions; see if your breed is listed.

8. Make sure you pick up after your dog – Just because you are on a running mission doesn’t change anything, take bags with you in a running bag/belt.

Happy Running!

The 5th video in our interactive training series will look to focus on working the core and abs. Everyone should aim to create a strong core system. Having a strong core reduces stress on problem areas such as the lower back, it can also help prevent injuries such as hernias and other muscle ruptures.

In the following work out instructional video you will learn about the half sit, full sit, twist sit, crunch and hip flexer.

How to work the core

There are many instructors out there that will tell you that all you need to do to get exposed abs is do countless amounts of crunches. This is wrong! To make your abs really pop, you should be looking for the quickest ways to burn the body fat that is covering your abs.

Exercising the core when done in the right way can help you enter the after burn effect which will help you burn that body fat off. See our previous post on effective ways that you can achieve this.

For the exercises in the above video, we recommend that you use a good quality exercise mat to help increase comfort for your back.

Challenge: Once you’re comfortable with these core/abs workouts, look to implement them in body weight training routines. These when done to intense levels are the perfect HIIT (High intensity interval training) exercises to help you torch unwanted body fat. Discover the latest phenomenon called the Tabata routine, cutting down your work out time and giving you nearly 9 times the fat burning results when used in conjunction with your current workout routines. 

The third video in our interactive training series will help you understand how to exercise your leg muscles safe and effectively.

Leg exercises are great to add to your workout, did you know that around 60% of the muscles in your body are in your legs? Exercising leg muscles in intervals and with intensity is a great way to burn body fat and will also help you strengthen your legs for cardio activities such as running, cycling, sprinting and more. An added bonus is that once you’re comfortable with these exercises, they can be done in the comfort of your home, meaning its possible to cut down time spent at the gym.

In this instructional video, you’ll learn the basics of how to train your muscles in the most efficient way to build strength quickly. Demonstrations on squats and a variety of lunges are presented in an easy to understand way. We hope you enjoy.

Challenge: Once you’re performing the exercises in the video above, try doing squats whilst using barbells. This should provide you with a short but effective workout, activating many muscle groups in your body, meaning you can cut down the time it takes to do a full body workout.

Equipment needed: Exercise mat

Our third new video from our interactive training series looks at the use of Kettlebells.

Although Kettlebells have been around since the 1700’s they have only recently gained popularity and are fast becoming a favorite way to increase strength and improve your fitness. Kettlebell exercises help you improve your core stability and build your upper body, you can use one or two Kettlebells, whichever you prefer.

This video covers general use, the basic grips you can use with Kettlebells, the different exercises you can do including bicep curls, tricep extensions, squats, swings and the shoulder press. It also explores how you can begin to increase your difficulty of these exercises.

please watch the video below…

Check out our range of Kettlebells - click here

Transcription: 

Hello, and welcome to another instructional video form simply sweat. Today
we’re going to be looking at some basic uses for the kettlebell. As you can
see they come in a variety of different sizes. I would recommend that you
err on the side of a slightly lighter kettlebell to begin with until you
become comfortable with the techniques, making sure that they’re correct,
and the weight isn’t too much for you. Going too heavy too soon with a
kettlebell is a very easy way to injure yourself. So pace yourself.

What we’re going to look at today is the basic grips you can use on them,
the different exercises, and how to increase the difficulty of those
exercises even if you only have one kettlebell. So, to begin with, look at
the kettlebell itself. As you can see you’ve got a basic weight at the
bottom and a handle at the top. This is common with all kettlebells.
However, what you can do with these that you can’t do with say, an ordinary
dumbbell for example, is say for example you are doing a bicep curl.
Ordinarily, you would just take the weight, curl the weight up, and down.
That’s what you’ve got there. However, if you rack this up here, all of a
sudden you have shortened the length of a lever and you’ve got yourself a
slightly easier exercise. So therefore if your kettlebell is slightly too
heavy for that exercise, rack it up here, nice firm grip, you’ve got
yourself a slightly easier exercise, and then straight away. Progression,
you go back to resistance. Excellent. So, straight away we’ve seen you can
do bicep curls adjust them very easily.

Another exercise you can do for the arm is a triceps extension. Rack it
onto the arm, push it above the head. Now I’m just turning sideways so you
can see exactly what’s going on, but I would recommend with your spare
arm, support your elbow, keep it in place, drop the arm down so that the
elbow is at least 90 degrees and extend the arm back up again. Be careful
you don’t hit yourself in the back of the head. This is very easy to do.
However, with a little bit of time and patience you should be able to avoid
that eventuality. So the technique here, nice strong stomach, arm
completely vertical, make sure the top part of the arm does not move. That
remains stationary. The elbow is kept in place. That’s why I’m holding my
hand here, just to make sure nothing else moves. Elbow in place, drop the
forearm down, feel the stretch all the way down the back of the triceps,
pause, and extend up. Simple.

Next exercise we’re going to look at is the squat. Now, in other simply
sweat videos we have already examined several different leg exercises.
However, this is an easy way to increase the difficulty of some of those.
For example, the standard squat. Get a nice comfortable foot position as we
examined in the other video. Feet somewhere between 45 and 90 degrees.
Stomach strong, shoulders back. Take a hold of the kettlebell. Now if you
find that the hand space in here isn’t quite big enough for both hands just
have your little finger out the way. Stomach strong, shoulders back.
Squatting down as you would do. Back nice and straight, standing up. Again,
focus on the contraction on the front legs, squeezing the back side. Very,
very, simple. If you want to take this a little bit further, simply hold
onto it with one hand. Put your other hand either out of the way for
balance, behind the back, wherever you want to put it. Again, stomach
strong, good posture, shoulders back, looking forwards, touch it down to
the ground or near the ground and up. So down, pause, squeezing all the
muscles in the leg, and up.

The benefit of doing the exercise with just one side is that, for example,
holding it with my right arm there, all the pressure is going through the
right side of my body. If I’m keeping myself nice and upright the whole
time. All the core has to work a lot more rather than just holding it both
sides. That’s the benefit of destabilizing yourself during these exercises.
Again, because you’re destabilizing your body make sure that you start off
slowly, carefully, and with a manageable weight. So, we’ve looked at the
squat, we’ve looked how to increase that. The next thing we can look at is
the kettlebell swing. This is what most of you will have seen either online
or other people using these in the gym.

Take a hold of the kettle bell. Stomach strong, feet nice and wide, start
position, bend the knees, back nice and straight, looking forwards, and as
you stand up, again, squeezing the front legs, squeezing the backside, push
the hips forward and swing the arms to shoulder height. I will demonstrate.
So, down, up, and down. So power it up, push the hips forward, squeeze the
hips, and just let the weight drop down. Very simple. Again, I will
demonstrate from the side. Feet nice comfortable space. Down, up, and down,
squeezing the legs, squeezing the backside, pushing the hips forward. Very
simple. Looking forwards the whole time. Easy. Again, if you want to
increase this and you only have one kind of kettlebell. Take a hold of it
with just one arm. Hand wherever you want. Either out to the side for
balance, behind the back, entirely up to you. Stomach strong, down, and we
go for the one-armed kettlebell swing. Again, be careful with this. Make
sure your technique is good and you’re doing it controlled the whole time.
Simple. So far, we’ve looked at some basic exercises.

There’s one more we’re going to examine, and this is a full body exercise
focusing especially on shoulders. Again, choose whichever kettlebell you
want. Take a hold of the weight. You’re going to do several different
movements. Can be a little bit tricky to begin with, but it is worth taking
time and making sure you get it right to prevent bruised forearms. So, as
with all the other things, stomach strong, shoulders back, feet nice and
wide, touch it to the ground, stand up, and as you come up bend the arm
with the spare hand, place it against the kettlebell and rack it against
the forearm. You will see a lot of videos where they just swing it round.
I’ve found in my experience that is a very easy way to bruise yourself. So
grab the kettlebell, twist it round, place it around the forearm, and just
press it above the head. Control it down, spin the arm, and to the ground.
Simple. So I will demonstrate now the whole process nice and slow. Take a
hold, rack it against the forearm, press above the head, back down, to the
ground. And of course, when you’re doing all these destabilizing exercises,
make sure you do exactly the same for the other side.

So there we go, that was a short instructional video on how to do some
basic exercises with the kettlebells. Thank you very much and feel free to
take a look at our other videos, or visit Simply Sweat.com. Thank you.

Our second video in our interactive training series focuses on how to use a gym ball. Gym ball exercises are perfect for building core strength and stability. Many people feel nervous when including a gym ball in their workout, due to its spherical shape  people think its going to spring out from beneath them mid workout.

This interactive trainer will take you through the whole process including a series of exercises perfect for working a variety of muscles such as: sit ups, press ups, squats, leg raises and figure of 8.

Please watch the video below…

Too see Simply Sweats range of Gym Balls, Click here 

Transcription:

Hello. Welcome to another instructional video from SimplySweat. Today,
we’re going to be looking at different uses for the gym ball.

The first thing you need to know when using one of these things is how to
sit on it. It may sound silly, but you’d be surprised how many people fall
off. First thing you want to do, just obviously, stabilize it, sit on it at
the top and just get used to it. Obviously, this isn’t like a normal seat,
this is going to be moving all over the place. This in its own right is a
very good way to start out working your core strength and your core
stability.

To begin with, once you just get comfortable sitting on it, that’s
absolutely fine, try just moving yourself forwards, keeping your stomach
strong the whole time, keeping the body nice and upright, moving yourself
backwards and side-to-side. Start off very slowly, very, very small
movements, and as you gain confidence, then start to increase the movement
each time.

Once you’ve mastered that, you can start to increase it a little bit
further. For example, if you want to, try doing a bit of figure-8 with the
hips. Again, keeping the shoulders as still as can, stomach nice and
strong, keeping tension all throughout. Again, going fairly slow, fairly
small movements to begin with, and gradually increasing as you go.From
there, if you want to increase it, perhaps you should try tracing the
alphabet. Go for an A to begin with, then a B, you may get some funny
looks, but trust me, these things work. All the way through there, that’s a
very good way of building up core strength and core stability.

Once you’re confident there, you can start moving onto different exercises.
For example, you’ve probably seen most people in the gym using this for
crunches or sit-ups. We’re going to demonstrate those to begin with,
starting off with the easiest way to do it, and then gradually increasing
in difficulty.

To begin with, all you’ve got to do: Sit on the ball, walk your feet slowly
out until your bum is around . . . imagine, if it was square, you’re
sitting on the corner. A lot of people when they get to this point get
quite nervous because they’re convinced the ball is going to shoot out from
behind them. It won’t. If you go slowly, get used to it, build confidence,
you’ll be fine; trust me. Feet nice and flat on the ground, you want them
around hip or shoulder-width apart, knees nice and bent, stomach strong.

To begin with, just place the hands flat on the thighs and as you sit back,
go as far as you feel confident, stomach strong, and then up again. That’s
all you’ve got to do to begin with. As you gain confidence a little bit,
feel free to go a little bit further down, move the hands maybe to the
hips. Again, slightly further back; let the back stretch over the ball as
much as you feel confident and as much as is comfortable, slowly coming up
again to the start position. When you feel like you can do around 10 or 15
of those comfortably without too much trouble, then you can take the hands
to the shoulders. Again, each time you move the hands up, this increases
the difficulty.

Hands to the shoulders, nice and far back, feel a good stretch in the
stomach; all the way up. Get the elbows to the legs, and then back again.
Very simple. Again, if you want to increase this further, hands to the
temples. Again, just stretching out, feeling a good stretch down the
stomach, squeezing the stomach all the way back up.If you really feel the
urge, you can go to maybe holding a weight across the chest or something
like that, but to begin with, I wouldn’t worry about it.

To begin with, we’ve looked at just how to sit on the ball, core stability,
and the sit-up and progression through that. What we’re going to look at
now is a different way to work the core, and this is focusing specifically
on the lower abs and the hip flexors.

Place the ball on the ground, lie down flat on the mat, nice and
comfortable, and try to squeeze either side of the ball with the inside of
your foot. Ball nice and still, squeezing the ball there, nice and
comfortable. Flat on the back, make sure you really squeeze the ball nice
and tight, raise it up and down. You’ll probably find that to begin with,
you might find it a little difficult around the hips. If it is too
difficult, bend the knees, and just bring them up like that. That makes it
simpler for you. Again, legs out straight, hands on the ground, raise the
legs up. If you want to make it harder, keep the feet off the ground. Up
and down; simple.

Another exercise you can do is the press-up on the ball. I would recommend
to begin with, if you can, place one side of the ball against a wall just
to make sure it doesn’t move any more than you want it to. However, to
begin with, what we’re going to do here, I’m going to demonstrate standard
press-up on the ball, and hopefully, it doesn’t move anywhere.

Take your hands to begin with, nice and high on the top of the ball, nice
and comfortable there, stomach strong, hips nice and straight, lower
yourself down towards the top of the ball and push the arms up. If you want
to make this more difficult, take the hands slightly further out. Again,
because you’re trying to support yourself there, this is working the chest
even harder. Nice and firm on the outside, stomach strong, all the way
down, chest to the ball, pause, straighten the arms up.

You can probably see there that my arms are shaking while that’s happening.
The reason for that is that obviously, we’re pressing down on an unstable
surface. With the ground, nothing’s moving; but because this isn’t firm,
your body has to work a lot harder for the stability. That means that all
the little muscles around the shoulders and the chest, the core, the hips,
they’re working quite a lot harder. Quite a beneficial exercise.

There is another progression you can do there. Rather than have the hands
on the ball, you can place your feet on the ball. One foot at a time, one
foot on top, the other foot, get yourself nice and comfortable. Looking
forward, stomach strong, shoulders to the ground, straighten the arms up,
and down. You will probably find to begin with, that your feet start moving
from one side to the other, that’s fine. Focus on keeping the core strong,
body in line. As you do the rep, it’s going to be working much more muscles
than just a normal press-up. Excellent.

The final thing we’re going to look at now is the squat. For this, you need
to have it against the wall. Place the ball there, lean against it, feet
out nice and wide, stomach strong, and simply roll down the wall. Down so
the knees are level with the ground, pause, and up. Again, if you feel the
need, you can have a weight against the chest, hold a weight in each hand,
something like that. Backside level with the knees, pause, and up. Simple.

There you go. That was a short instructional video on a few uses for the
gym ball. Feel free to take a look at some of our other videos or visit
SimplySweat.com. Thank you.

Simply Sweat will be releasing a series of interactive workout videos over the coming weeks. We want to provide you with fun ways of mixing up your exercise routines, bringing you expert advice on building upper and lower body strength, in fun, safe and convenient way.

How to do Press Ups – Simply Sweat Interactive Video Trainer

Please stay tuned for more pro tips coming your way shortly…

Video Transcription:

“Hello, and welcome to another instructional video from Simply Sweats. Today
we’re going to be looking at press ups.

Now, to begin with, we’re going to be looking at the very basic box press
up. This is a very good one for people just starting out with this
exercise.

All you have to do, have a nice box or a step, just to put your hands
against. Get yourself nice and comfortable, knees on the ground about hip
width apart, back nice and straight. Looking forwards, bend the arms to
about 90 degrees, straighten the arms up again. Very simple. That’s all
there is to it.

If you find that even this exercise is too difficult for you, what you can
do is make use of any stairs in your home. For example, if you go up to
your stairs, just lean against maybe the fifth or sixth stair up, do some
press ups against that. That should make things quite easy for you. You
should be okay. As soon as you get to the point where you can do, say, 10
of them, move down to the next step. That will make it slightly difficult.

Keep doing that exercise until, again, you can do 10 of those comfortably.
After a little while, again move down a step. Eventually, by following this
process, you will get to the position where your body has adjusted enough
and adapted to the point where you an do press ups, either on the bottom
step or the box press up on the ground like we’re about to demonstrate.

For the full box press up, hands on the ground, knees on the ground there.
You want your arms just in front of the shoulders, looking forwards. When
you do the press up, make sure you pivot on the knees, like so. Forwards
and up. Very simple. That’s all there is to it.

Now, of course, there is much more you can do with this. The next exercise
we’re going to look at is the basic full press up. From there, we will then
have a look at how to make that more interesting.

Full basic press up, hands on the ground, feet out straight. Keep the feet
together, body nice and straight. Looking forwards, bend the elbows to at
least 90 degrees and then straighten them again, like so. Arms bent. Arms
straight. Very simple. Arms bent. Arms straight.

Now, if you want to make this more interesting, then there are a number of
things you can do, because you shouldn’t think that all this does is work
the chest and the shoulders and the triceps. It can work many other parts.

The next one we’re going to look at, though, is focusing more on the
triceps. For this exercise, hands shoulder width apart, a little bit
further down than you normally would go. Feet out straight. Make sure that
when you bend the arms, the side of the arms brushes against the ribs, like
so. Arms bent. Arms straight. Arms bent. Arms straight. By doing that one,
that will focus more on the triceps and the front of the shoulders.

However, if you want to work more of the chest, you need to take the arms
wider. So again, arms out nice and wide. Feet out straight. Body nice and
strong. Stomach strong. Arms bent, again to 90 degrees. Arms straight. Arms
bent. Arms straight.

As I mentioned, the press up isn’t just an exercise for the upper body. If
you want to work the core, there are a number of different things you can
do. This next exercise is known as the marine press up or the Spiderman
press up. All you have to do, when you bend the arms, bring one knee at a
time out to the side, to your elbow, like so. Again, typical press up
position, as you go down, knee to the elbow. Bent. Straight. Then do the
other side. Arms bent. Arms straight.

By doing that, you’re changing the whole dynamic of the exercise. Because
your leg is coming out to the side, you’ve changed your center of gravity.
Your core has to work a lot harder, and that is starting to work lots of
different muscles.

So there we go. That was a short instructional video on how to do press
ups. Feel free to take a look at some of our other videos or visit
SimplySweat.com. Thank you.”

We all know it’s important to keep fit and keep your body healthy, but we want to look great with it too. By combining our top five body weight training exercises with some cardiovascular work outs and a good eating regime, you’ll be looking great in no time. Here is the top five we recommend.

The Chin Up or The Pull Up
This exercise, used effectively, builds up muscle in the triceps, biceps, shoulders and back.

Stand beneath the pull up bar with your feet shoulder distances apart. Reach up to the bar and place your hands round the bar with your palms facing towards you and your thumbs tucked in. Slowly pull yourself up off the ground in a slow, continuous motion, tucking your feet together and under as you do. Pull yourself as high as you can go. Your long term goal is for the bar to be at chest height.

The Press Up
This exercise is great for all your arms, pecks and core but especially good for the shoulders.

On the floor, place your hands shoulder width apart and rest on your toes forming a plank. Keeping your back straight, bend your elbows and lower your body down until your chest is close to the floor. Return to the starting position and design an amount of reps that suit your workout. For beginners, 2-3 sets of 10 is a good place to start.

When you’re more advanced, you can progress to the suspended push up, with your feet in straps. Make it harder by putting your hands closer together or using only one hand.

The Raised Rear Foot Lunge
These are great for your quads, which will require many twenty repetition sets to bulk up. Assume the normal lunge position but put your back foot on a raise box, say 15cms high. Lunge forward keeping your back straight. To intensify, lift weights whilst squatting.

The Lifting Crunch
Great for your abs but an all over toner too, the lifting crunch is an oldie but a goodie. Lay on your back on the floor with your hands to your sides. Lift your feet slightly off the ground and pull your knees up towards your chest whilst performing a sit up pushing your arms down the side towards your feet. When returning to the original position, keep your legs, feet, head and arms off the floor. Build up to repeat twenty times for three sets.

The Side Plank
This one is great for really targeting the obliques. Put your feet together and elevate yourself on one forearm with your body facing the walls and your weight on the edges of your feet. Keep your back straight and breathe in, tuck your stomach in. Maintain this position for thirty seconds, building up to one minute on either side. Increase the intensity by wearing a weighted jacket and increasing the time.

These exercises are a great short cut solution to working out. We all seem to find it hard to fit in time for the gym. A short round of body weight workouts can decrease your work out time and work all muscles in your body in just 25 mins.

Using body weight training is also a great way to access the after burn effect, burning calories for hours after your work out.

The afterburn effect, formally known as the Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) is an increased rate of metabolic function following a bout of strenuous exercise, which essentially causes a greater amount of calorie burning even after the workout has been completed.

During recovery from an intense workout, excess oxygen is used to restore the body to its natural resting state through balancing hormones, replenishing fuel stores, repairing cells and anabolism of tissue. This requires the use of extra energy and subsequently an increase in the body’s metabolic rate, allowing the body to continue to burn calories until the “oxygen debt”, which builds up during exercise, has been replenished.

The afterburn effect is greatest as soon as intense exercise has been completed and slowly depletes over time, usually a period of 24 hours or so, allowing you to maximize the results of your exercise program. Several studies indicate that there is a direct correlation between the intensity of an activity and the amount of calories burned post exercise.

In one study, subjects engaged in 45 minutes of vigorous exercise through cycling and burned an average of 519 calories. But in the 14 hours after the exercise was completed, they burned an extra 190 calories more than they would have on a day where no exercise was performed. Other studies carried out at different intensity levels have shown that exercises at intensities of above 40-50% of VO2 max are necessary to trigger the metabolic processes responsible for the afterburn effect, and past this point the EPOC increases exponentially.

So what exercises are the best for maximising the afterburn effect? As mentioned already, the heart rate needs to be high in order to see any kind of noticeable increase in metabolism – meaning that you’ll need to be working seriously hard.

Light jogs or walks simply aren’t going to do the job. Optimal levels of post exercise calorie burn occur when exercise is performed at around 80% of an individuals maximum heart rate, and longer workouts also increase the effect.

One of the best types of training to achieve this is High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT. This workout overloads the body with short, very high intensity bursts, alternating with periods of low intensity “rest” sessions. It can be performed on any cardio machine such as a treadmill or rowing machine, and usually consists of a 30 second all-out sprint at maximum intensity, followed by 60 seconds of a low speed jog, alternating repeatedly for around 20 minutes or so.

Circuit training is another type of high intensity workout, which can initiate the afterburn effect. It consists of several different compound movements performed consecutively without a rest in between.

A typical circuit would consist of bodyweight squats, push-ups, pull-ups, step-ups, and abdominal crunches. You would perform 10-12 reps of each individual exercise and only rest when the entire circuit is completed, and then repeat the circuit again 3-5 times.

The key to activating the afterburn effect is always to keep the intensity and the heart rate as high as possible, allowing you to effectively lose fat well after the workout has been completed.

So why did I say yes this time? Honestly I have no clue, it just felt right.  Maybe it was recently noticing the gradual expansion of my belly.  Maybe it was giving up cigarettes last winter and a nagging desire to be fitter again.  Maybe it was the realisation that despite denying the taunts from my girlfriend, I was at the age of 37 in fact middle aged and needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t past it.

In short I suspect I’m suffering from a mini mid-life crises, after all I’m not alone in doing my first marathon in my late 30’s – the average age of first time marathon runners is reported to be around 38 – perhaps I’m just conforming to the norm at last.

So where to start?

There is certainly no lack of advice for first timers, but which advice to heed?  Which training program to select?  How often to train? How far to run? What target finish time to put on the application form? What should I be eating before running? Aaaargh!

The best advice I got was to dust of my trainers and just go for a run.  Nothing too far, don’t try and break any records and if you want to stop and walk for a bit just do it – there’s no point killing yourself after all.  So that’s what I did.  I have to say though I was surprised and not a little bit shocked at hard it was on that first run, there was a lot of walking and lot of panting and I started to wonder if I’d bitten off more than I could chew.  That first run out took me nearly 50 mins to run 4 miles, that’s well over 5 hours to complete the 26.2 miles.  Time to get training….

Choosing a marathon training program

Down load the app or get a schedule off the internet?  Join a club or train solo?  Whatever suits you is the answer.  I decided to go with one of the training plans on the Edinburgh Marathon website -http://www.edinburgh-marathon.com/?marathon_training_plans  – there’s plenty to choose from to suit different abilities and the 16 week schedule is laid out to take you right up to race day. By the time I cross the finish line I will have run over 428 miles! The most important thing is to pick one that you can commit to, there’s little point in selecting a program that has you training 7 days a week if you simply can’t fit it in around your life commitments.

This week marks the first week of the 16 week training program and already I’m feeling much better.  Considerably less walking, in fact last night I ran the first 3 miles of the 4 mile route without stopping at all and I’ve got my pace down from  the 11:58 min that I started on to 8:44 min per mile.  At this rate I might even get finished on race day before it starts to get dark.   Wish me luck.

Spin Yoga, though it also goes by many other names, is a trend that has originated across the Atlantic, in the States. It is a whimsical workout that incorporates the cardio-intensity of cycling/spinning as well as the relaxing and flexible nature of yoga. Specialised classes, usually lasting for a traditional 60 minutes, tend to balance the two very contrasting exercises in a 50/50 mould, with the yoga aiming to loosen up the muscles tightened in the earlier spinning class.

It’s an odd union, considering the intensely different stress levels involved within both activities, yet its increasing popularity cannot be overlooked. For many, exercise can be one of three things: choosing to burn calories, sustaining muscle tone or simply relaxing and unwinding. Spin Yoga allows them to do all three at the same time, in one health class. Instructors place a great deal of stress on the link between mind and body and much of the yoga focuses on the muscles affected by the spinning class before, usually the hamstrings and calves.

Benefits

Its benefits are clear for many to see with the primary answer being its efficiency at balancing out exercise technique and exertion, countering the cycling with the yoga. It’s a wonderful way to detoxify as well, sweating out during the cycling and then stretching out further in the yoga.

For others, it’s the chance to try something new and adds a bit of motivation to the regular workout routine. It’s fun, different and something that many won’t have tried before which will help to wind down the clock, making it seem like an easy and exciting way to exercise. It aids people in both high- and low-cardiovascular workouts, which can be vital during exercises. It’s a perfect workout for those who tire quickly of one continuous workout technique and wish to keep motivated.

Another way the hybrid works is through the way the two exercises fully complement one another. Cycling for a half hour gets the heart rate going, the blood pumping and really pushes the muscles. When stepping on to the yoga mat, the blood is still racing, the heart still going, making it perfect for the individual to get into the full flow of yoga, allowing them to push themselves in the tight poses and postures, stretching out the legs and lower back, resulting in a full-body workout in just one hour.