22 September 2016

How to structure an exercise plan based on your personality

Kirstin Ahmed
Exercise psychology
exercise for your personality type, gradual exercise, intense exercise plan, sports club
0

SCORE 1 POINT FOR EACH TRUE ANSWER AND 0 FOR FALSE

Exercise plan preparation

  1. Are you patient
  2. Do you fear public speaking
  3. Are you in debt (except mortgage)
  4. Are you laid back and content
  5. Are you the boss at work
  6. Are you a leader amongst your friends
  7. Do you sing at karaoke
  8. Do you have friends of both genders
  9. Do you get irritated easily
  10. Do you play a team sport

Score = 3 or less yes’s

You should build an exercise plan focused on gradually incremental sessions making sure that you cross train and integrate variety of movements within your training. An example would be to sign up for a triathlon, marathon or endurance race of some description. You should look for something that is unachievable with your current fitness about 3-4 months away. You should design a plan that your friends and colleges can either come and join you on or at least support you on the day.

Score = 4- 6 yes’s

Your exercise plan should be intense and focused on one goal in 4-8weeks time. You should feel it is going to be very challenging with your current fitness to get a time/score that you will be happy with. Your training should be entirely aimed at improving your time/performance in the goal you have set for yourself.

Score = 7 or more yes’s

You should choose a goal with your friends or family, maybe your sports team/club. Select something that everyone can do together, perhaps a mud challenge or multi stage event you can do in relay. Better still if you can raise money for a charity you are all supporters of and use that as a way to generate camaraderie amongst your peers. Train alone or together and keep it fun and varied.

16 September 2016

How healthy are our leaders?

Kirstin Ahmed
Healthy aging
age healthily, body mass index, exercise for older people, immune system, obese
0

trump-clinton state of health

Politics is full of promises, some are kept and others are not. But when a politician makes a promise you want him/her to be around for their term to see it through. Right? So what if the potential leader of a country is not in good health?

David Cameron at 43 became the youngest prime minister of our country in 200 years, and if we take BMI (body mass index) as an indicator of how much care someone pays to their health its clear to see he was a healthy investment for the nation.

Over the pond the picture is less clear; 2 candidates twice Cameron’s age are battling it out for premiership. What’s catching the media attention is Clinton’s recent diagnosis of bacterial pneumonia; and rightly so because despite her campaign’s attempts to debunk any fear the condition can become nasty. People over 65 with a weakened immune system are prone to the bacteria causing the infection. Yes the antibiotics can clear it up, but if her immune system was this weak to start with then how sure can we be about her general state of health. She already takes blood thinning medications for a blood clot that was found in her head 3 years ago whilst only 65 years old.

On the other hand we see Trump cherry picking medical reports to show the media, typical of his subversive manner, whilst joking about needing to loose a few pounds. A FEW POUNDS ? Clinically he is OBESE at 121kg and 181cm tall!

At 70 years old this makes it firstly much harder to loose the weight but secondly, and perhaps more importantly, it means that at the stage of life where the body is in a state of decline one really has to ask whether putting so much extra pressure on his internal organs is wise….usually wisdom comes with age, but with Trump we’ve seen enough to not put the words in the same sentence I think!

10 September 2016

Were you born to be an Olympian?

Kirstin Ahmed
Healthy body
coordination drills, genetics for sport, olympians, olympic athlete, positive mental attitude, resting heart rate, speed agility quickness
0

Rio olympics womens gymnastsWhat makes an Olympian? – Is it indeed true that they are genetic freaks or are they just so driven that nothing could ever stop them?

Well there’s probably some truth in both.

Firstly you do have to have some genetic predispositions; you don’t see many short basketball players or high jumpers. An Olympic athlete’s build is usually optimised for his or her sport for example:

  • A large lung capacity can well place them for aerobic participation; think swimming or running disciplines.
  • Having large hands makes a great water paddle for the swimmer and having long legs makes a great long distance runner – whilst having shorter levers (arms and legs ration to body length) provides great mechanics for the power lifters.
  • For the long distance runner the volume of their calf is said to aid the biomechanics in that a smaller one means less mass to move per stride. Combine that with long legs and you can begin to see how the African athletes are more naturally built for these types of events.

And for the rest of us? There are things you can change with a little dedicated training, the things that you or I could work to improve upon because we play sports that we love even though we are short with chunky calves!!!

  • Like decreasing our resting heart rate through aerobic activity.
  • Increasing our reflex speed through SAQ (speed agility quickness) and coordination drills.
  • Working at our positive mental attitude and believing we can be better
  • And of course becoming leaner so that the weight we carry around for whatever sport we play is useful muscular weight and not energy wasted in carrying around excess fat

….So there is still lots to play for guys, train hard, be as good as you can be and if you’re not heading for the Olympics watch in awe and amazement as I do, at the wondrous feats of the human body!!

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