Workout: Tabata Thursday

Workout:

Tabata Intervals (A 24 minute workout - including rest periods) *

• 20sec Pull-Ups, 10sec rest - (repeat for 8 rounds).
• rest - 1 minute
• 20s Burpee w/Press-Up, 10s rest - (repeat for 8 rounds)
• rest - 1 minute
• 20s Crocodile Walk, 10s rest - (repeat for 8 rounds)
• rest - 1 minute
• 20s Farmer's Walk, 10s rest - (repeat for 8 rounds) **
• rest - 1 minute
• 20s Backwards Bear Crawl, 10s rest - (repeat for 8 rounds)

* Go as far as you can and as fast as you can during those 20s periods of work and play

** Go as heavy as you can using kettlebells, dumbells, stones or a couple of sandbags/sacks

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Note:

Please scale all Fitness Explorer workouts and playouts to your current ability.  This may mean increasing or decreasing the weights prescribed, modifying distances and times, or changing number of sets and reps to complete.  Get adequate rest and sufficient nutrition to fuel the activity and to aid in recovery.  Work hard and play hard but never sacrifice correct form.

Please visit the exercise FAQ for details on individual exercises or consult the advice of a registered exercise professional to ensure safe execution of the above movements.

If you are new to this mode of exercise, try one of the beginner's circuits

Perform a warmup prior to activity, here's an example Fitness Explorer warmup

Watch    Fitness Explorer video's here on YouTube

"The first wealth is health"

"The first wealth is health"

- Ralph Emerson

I bumped into an ex-work colleague today at Canary Wharf who works in banking.  Been 10 years or so since we last spoke.  He asks me what I am up to nowadays.  

I tell him I am a health, nutrition and movement coach.  He mutters in a condescending tone: "Not much money in that PT stuff is there?  How do you survive in London?"

I reply, that I earn a small fraction of what I used to, but I have gained far more: a state of health, vitality and happiness.  Now for me that is priceless.  He however just didn't get it!

"It is health that is real wealth and not pieces of gold and silver."

- Mahatma Gandhi

News: Is Jessica Ennis Fat???

(C) Getty Images

Victory!

Jessica Ennis came away from the recent athletics meet in Austria as the most dominant heptathlete in the world today, beating Tatyana Chernova the current world title holder.  Jessica lost both the heptathlete and pentathlete world titles in the past seven months so her critics say she has a lot to prove.  

The events I will be most looking forward to at the London 2012 olympics will include the heptathalon (and decathalon) because of the need to dominate in so many abilities rather just being a specialist in one or two.

Here were her event times:

• 100m hurdles - 12.81s
• High jump 1.85m
• Shot put - 14.51m
• 200 metres 22.88s
• Long jump 6.51m
• Javelin - 47.11m
• 800 metres - 2:09m

Shocking:

The most fascinating news story in relation to her victory is the claim that a high-ranking UK athletics figure labelled her "fat and needing to lose some weight".  I am dismayed that a women in an athletic and healthy physical condition can be labelled as fat or overweight when she is seen as a role model to so many women who already struggle with body image issues.  Hopefully Jessica is strong enough to discount this background noise and not succumb to impossible and unhealthy images of a "supposed" ideal regardless of her performance on the track. 

She's not fat, she's an athlete.

What do these senior officials want her to look like - a size zero model?

Quote of the Day: The Art of Conversation

"A satisfying conversation is one in which you say what you have never said before."

- Theodore Zeldin

So important to reflect on this when so much of our communication can be relegated to the superficial. Whether this conversation is online or eye-to-eye, we should treat the art of conversation as an adventure where two or more minds interact with the potential to create something new.  Do not assume that you already know what the other person is thinking or feeling. 

Challenge the desire to be proven right: seek to stimulate and educate, in conjunction with being stimulated and educated.