Easter Egg-cercise

March 22, 2008 – 1:45 pm


Image source Dryicons

This Easter weekend the average British child will consume 5 chocolate eggs plus the chocolate bars included with them. In total some children will consume in excess of 10,000 calories over the Easter period. The research all tends to point towards children but I am sure there are plenty of adults that will indulging in more than their fair share of the eggs.

Bad News
10,000 calories is equivalent to 3 pounds of fat.

Good News
Approximately 25% of these calories will be burned through eating and digestion.

My Advice
A top tip for any holiday period is to BALANCE the calorific intake with calorific expenditure. This can be achieved by:

  • taking the dog for a long walk
  • ensure that you go for a run
  • as it is spring time you can deep spring clean the house/garage and garden
  • leave the car at home and walk to your relatives

It is also important that you balance your diet to prevent a toxic build up of the digestive system. Make sure that you eat plenty of fresh foods, and drink plenty of water.

Easter Egg-cercises

Squats


Squat thrusts


Cross over crunch

Happy Easter

By Daniel Posted in Advice, Nutrition 2 Comments

Hamstring Muscles Strength Training

March 16, 2008 – 6:59 pm

A comment by FGN, on the recent Cardio and Calisthenics post asked:

Daniel, How do you strengthen your hamstrings properly? I like the routine but I think i’m neglecting my hamstrings.

Instead of replying in a comment I will discuss this issue in this post. Sometimes an answer to a question requires more than a few sentences in the comments section, and this is one of those questions.

What are the hamstring muscles?

The hamstring muscles are a group of muscles located at the posterior (back) of the thigh. They comprise of 4 muscles as labelled on the diagram.

  1. Biceps femoris - long head
  2. Biceps femoris - short head
  3. Semitendinosous
  4. Semimembranosus

The hamstring group of muscles are responsible primarily for flexing (bending) the leg at the knee and extend the hip (pull the thigh backwards).

Secondary actions include medial rotation(in towards the midline of the body) of the leg at the knee joint.

Uses of the actions includes the slowing down of the leg at the end of its swing during walking, running, and kicking movements. The hamstring muscles are therefore susceptible to injury as they are required to resist the momentum of these body parts.

The hamstring muscles are often neglected when strength training and also in everyday life. Everyday actions like bending down to pick something up, when performed correctly with a knee bend, are often performed by flexing the trunk forward. Also, the nature of a vast amount of modern occupations require us to be sat in a chair at the desk compared to the jobs of yesteryear that were arduous and labour intensive, requiring knee flexion on a regular basis.

So, going back to the question by FGN…You probably are neglecting your hamstring muscles more than you admit to and without actually realising it.

How to resolve this

Start with improving the flexibility of this muscle group. Muscular strength is largely dependent on muscular flexibility because of the forceful effort required to improve strength. With sound flexibility your tendons and ligaments will be able to manage the large forces experienced during strength training. Consider reading the post on the components of fitness for an in depth review of how different components interact to improve fitness as a whole.

Hamstring flexibility

  • Lie on your back with one knee bent, foot on the floor. Bring the other leg towards the chest, bend at the knee if flexibility is particularly poor.
  • Head and shoulders should remain flat to the floor and relaxed. Inhale, then exhale and gently stretch the leg upwards and outwards from the hip joint, and then towards the centre of the chest.
  • Try to increase the range of movement with each exhalation by bringing the knee closer to the chest, and straighten the knee joint.
  • To stretch the medial aspect of the hamstring muscles stretch the leg upwards and outwards of the hip joint, and then towards the shoulder of the leg being stretched.
  • Swap sides by inhaling, then move the leg towards the opposite shoulder as you exhale. This will work the lateral aspect of the hamstring muscles.

Initially, begin the stretch with a flexed knee (slight bend), as your flexibility improves you will be able to perform this action with an extended knee joint (straight leg).

Once you have a reasonable range of movement in terms of knee flexion and hip extension you can safely begin to strength train the hamstring muscles.

Hamstring Muscles Exercises

Lumbar hip extension/flexion

  • Place your hand on the floor shoulder width apart
  • Flex your at the knee joint of both legs so that your are on your knees.
  • Inhale, bring the knee (flex) of one leg towards your chest, hold for 1 second
  • Extend the knee until the leg is outstretched fully, exhale as you do
  • Repeat

Squats

  • The squat begins by positioning your feet shoulder width apart with the toes pointing outwards slightly.
  • Inhale a breath, slightly arch the back and begin to lower the body by bending at the hips first and then the knees.
  • Keep the head up and your upper body erect, lower your body until your thighs are parallel to the floor exhaling as you do.
  • At the bottom of the exercise hold for 1 second, then begin to rise. Push through your feet and use the muscles of the quadriceps for power. When you return to the starting position exhale.

Isometric knee flexion

Isometric exercises are useful for improving muscular strength, and hypertrophy (muscle size).

  • Take a seated position on the floor with hands slightly behind your torso
  • Raise one leg, and flex the knee with a less than 90 degree angle
  • With force, push the heel of the foot down towards the floor until you feel a reasonable resistance
  • Breath continuously throughout
  • Hold each exercise for 20 seconds, repeat 2-3 times, and change legs.

These exercises will help to improve the hamstring muscle group strength with regular practise. It is important to consider the opposing muscle group that are the quadriceps. The two muscle groups should have a strength relationship ratio that is close to 1:1. Most people will have considerably stronger quadriceps for the reasons mentioned earlier.

By Daniel Posted in Calisthenics No Comments

Cardio and Calisthenics

March 12, 2008 – 11:03 am


Image source laffy4k

Recently I wrote about how I had changed my running route because I have moved house. Well, I have adapted this route slightly so that I can perform calisthenics while I am out on the run. The reason I have done this is basically to save time, always a good thing in my eyes. Instead of exercising twice in a single day I combine a cardio session with calisthenics so now I do not have to get changed twice, shower twice, wash two sets of clothes, and devote two separate hours exercise.

How to combine cardio with calisthenics

  • Choose a route that has areas where you can perform some basic calisthenics
  • Choose a route that lasts for between 45 minutes and 1 hour
  • Wear appropriate clothing
  • Take a water bottle
  • Be prepared to get dirty

The route I take is a cross country track leads me up a hill overlooking the town that I live in. It has several open areas that are very useful for performing press ups, sit ups, back extensions, and squats. I personally run allow the openings to dictate when I perform the exercises but you can divide the overall running duration into 6 stations if you prefer.

Which exercises should you do?

Previously I wrote a post describing the order of a calisthenics routine, it is important that you follow the structure outlines as it allows you to prepare your muscles properly for the impending exercises.

  • Whole body
  • Upper body
  • Core & trunk
  • Lower body
  • Whole body

A basic example of this would be:

  1. Run 10 minutes then squat thrusts watch
  2. Run 10 minutes then push ups watch
  3. Run 10 minutes then cross over crunch watch
  4. Run 10 minutes then back extension watch
  5. Run 10 minutes then squats watch
  6. Run 10 minutes then burpees watch

My advice on the number of repetitions is the same as always. It is dependent on your level of calisthenics fitness. I personally perform 20 repetitions for each exercise and find that it sufficiently fatigues my muscles to make the first 2 minutes of the run feel very difficult.

Why train in this way?

  • Teach your muscles that lactate build is only a short term bi product of exercise and not a reason to quit
  • Save time by not exercising twice in one day, wearing 2 sets of clothes, and showering twice
  • Improve strength endurance alongside aerobic endurance
  • Get down and dirty in the great outdoors, dirt, sweat, and mud are your friends

By Daniel Posted in Calisthenics 4 Comments

EntreCard 125 Design Winner

March 5, 2008 – 6:24 pm

Trophy

Image source notsogoodphotography

First of all I’d like to thank the Entrecarders who each designed a card or two for me. Each design offered something different and unique and can be viewed here and here so take a look and you’ll see what I mean.

I’m not good at all this competition business so I’ll keep this short and sweet. I have chosen Lucy Sweeper as the winner of 250 EC credits based on the 2 designs that were created.

Lucky Sweeper

Lucky Sweeper

Now, despite the spelling mistake in the first card “calishtenics”, easy to do I know, and the use of a dumb bells instead of bodyweight exercises, I really like the white backgrounds of each design. Also, the shadow effects beneath the dumb bells of each card are excellent. Thank you for the designs and I look forward to sending you 250 EC credits.

The remaining designs are all excellent individually but did not offer too much that makes them any different from what I created for myself, with the exception of the effort from Foolsville and the polar bear image. That was genius and funny. As a way of showing my gratitude to all the entrants I’m going to send you each 25 EC credits.

This little competition has been an eye opener for me because usually I am regimental in the design of my blog. Unlike other bloggers who enjoy letting others come up with designs for their blog, I prefer to keep the door closed and DIY it. That said this has shown me that a little bit of external input can be a good thing. So, thank you for your help.

By Daniel Posted in Blog 6 Comments

5 More Entrecard Designs

March 3, 2008 – 8:21 pm

Over the weekend I received 5 additional 125 card designs from three Entrecarders. They are welcome additions and each offers their own unique details.

Courtesy of Foolsville 2.0

Also courtesy of Foolsville 2.0

Courtesy of Lucky Sweeper

Also courtesy of Lucky Sweeper

Courtesy of Tech Jaws

As you can see they each offer something different and vindicate my decision to pass the 125 image design buck to others. It would have taken me a little while to come up with the creations, so a big THANK YOU to these Entrecarders. If you are reading this and do not actually know what I mean when I speak of Entrecard then simply click on the E below the picture in the first sidebar and find out.

I’d like to mention that some of the designs do not meet the specifications that I set out, but, I’m happy to turn a blind eye simply because I like them all. So far it’s a tough call for me to choose, but I promise to do so within the next 24 hours. So that means I’ll make my mind up by 20:00 GMT, 15:00 NY, and 12:00 NV.

So far there are 5 entrants to this design contest in line to receive 250 EC credits. If you would like to create a 125 for me then check here for details.

By Daniel Posted in Blog No Comments

EntreCard 125 Design Update

March 1, 2008 – 1:14 pm

So far two kind Entrecarders have designed me a new 125 EC card.

The first that arrived in my inbox was this design by Tech Blog

This design was created by Musings of eyespi20

Both creations utilise the specifications that I set out and therefore suitably qualify for the 250 EC credits. If you think you can do better than please feel free to enter your creation.

By Daniel Posted in Blog No Comments

EntreCard 125 Design

February 29, 2008 – 8:33 pm

Since I have changed my domain name, theme, and host I’ve been thinking why not change my Entrecard too. Here are the 3 designs that I have come up with. Now, I’m not Photoshop expert as you can see, but I do have a passion for learning and have been dabbling for a few days now.

These are my 3 related designs:

I know which I prefer as so do you I expect as it’s displayed on EC at this very moment!

I’m sure that there are many Entrecard users that are suitably educated at using Photoshop and can come up with something better than these for the theme of my blog. So if you’ve got some spare time then feel free to do so. I’m not giving any financial reward so please don’t feel obligated to participate. I will show my appreciation with 250 EC credits or a week long 125 ad in the sidebar, whichever you prefer, for the design that I like most. That said, if I don’t think the designs are better that what I already created then I will reward all creations with 250 EC credits shared equally where possible and rounded up if not. So long as less than 25 designs come in that will be 10 credits for you time and effort, I don’t anticipate anywhere near 25 entries.

Design Specifications

  • 125 x125
  • body weight exercise example, like the press up I use
  • RGB colours of:
    • 9C 28 03
    • 38 38 38
    • ff ff ff
  • contain the words HomeCalisthenics and/or Exercise Effectively

And that is about it. So long as you include these specs and nothing more then I’ll honour my word even if I don’t like it I will still reward it. Please do not add more colours, words, non body weight exercises, or anything else. I like simplicity.

I look forward to your designs.

By Daniel Posted in Blog 6 Comments

How Not To Tread In Dog Shit

February 28, 2008 – 7:11 pm

Dog taking a shit

Image source rastafabi

Recently I designed a new cross country running route, my old route was along the beach that I no longer live near - a sad story I know, that encompasses a notoriously popular dog walking location that is laden with dog muck. Not only do I have to try and dodge the shit when I get to the place but I have to dodge it as I jog through the kids park, along a gravel path that backs onto a housing estate, and then on the tarmac that leads to said dog walking location. Compared to dodging large pebbles, driftwood, and the odd sand castle I know which I’d prefer. As it stands this route in my only truly viable option if I wish to run a route that has hills, uneven ground, and beautiful views so I’m going to stick with it like shit to the bottom of my shoes. There are a few techniques that I’m rapidly learning and implementing, this post outlines them.

Eyes wide open - scan the area ahead of you, look out for dogs and their useless owners.

Avoidance - if you see a dog bin then steer clear. Some thoughtless owners will not use the bin but simply shovel it near to the, usually on the patch of grass that you think is safe, failing this they’ll chuck a bag of it into the tree.

Scan the trees - the bags lobbed into the trees have a tendency to fall to the earth by means of wind and gravity. If there is one hanging in the tree then bet your bottom dollar there is another on your running track. Pop open one of these babies and you’ll know about it.

Keep off - if you like cross country routes like I do then you’ll do well to stay out of the long grass. This is a minefield for nasty little surprises. Keep to to the gravel, sand, and short grass.

Aqua run - run through puddles and streams. The likelihood of a dog squatting in water is slim therefore you stand a better chance of avoidance.

Bypass the lamp post - avoid any upright structure; lamp posts, trees, signs, and really tall people. Also, corners of buildings, bus stops, phone boxes, you get the idea.

Reroute - find a desert.

The fact of the matter is that dogs are simply dogs. They are the responsibility of their owners and as such can not con not consciously choose for themselves the correct place to excrete. There are many trains of thought that aim to rid dog feces from our streets and parks but none that can actually accomplish this feat. Ideas include; dog taxes for owning a dog, fines for letting your dog foul, exterminating all dogs except those bred for pedigree and employed as sniffer dogs, guide dogs, and all other forms of working dog. I don’t actually agree with any of those listed but have read them about the web.

In my opinion, so long as there are irresponsible dog owners there will always be dog mess. What do you think? Any ghastly stories to tell? Hit me up with a comment if so.

Links to some opinions:
http://www.sciforums.com
http://istanbultory.blogspot.com
http://www.thehobokenblog.com

By Daniel Posted in Advice 4 Comments

My attempt to migrate from blogger to WordPress.

February 27, 2008 – 7:47 pm

 

Image source tayzar44

 

I author a blog using the free Blogger platform. In the beginning this was perfect for my blogging needs, simply to write articles and publish them. I had zero knowledge of SEO, widgets, web 2.0, plug-ins, adsense, keywords, and all the other jargon terms used to describe web publishing techniques and utilities, in all honesty I’m still sketchy now. What I do know from reading various books, articles, blog posts, forum threads, and via email conversations with established bloggers, namely Mehdi @ stronglifts.com, is that Blogger is for small scale diary type entries and WordPress is for ambitious search engine optimized blogs. I actually knew this from the start due to the research I carried out, all signs pointed to WordPress, but the lure of Google affiliation sucked me in to Blogger.

I have decided to make up for this early error and migrate from Blogger to WordPress. How have I gone about this? Initially, as with all things web 2.0 related, I simply googled “how to migrate from blogger to wordpress”, this search threw plenty of posts at me, and as usual I clicked the first link where I was taken to underscorebleach.net for their take on the migration process. All seemed reasonable and I was ready to begin the migration process until I reached the comments sections where I noticed that despite it saying there were 90 comments only one was showing.

The comment is by Blog Bloke and reads:

Blog Bloke Says:
February 19th, 2008 at 11:37 pm I’ve discovered an easier way to move your Blogger blog over to Wordpress, automatically redirect your old posts and should not lose your pagerank either.

Naturally I was intrigued so clicked on the Blog Bloke id and hey presto; I arrived at this post Migrating-Redirecting Blogger to WordPress: The Complete Guide. I read through the post and was convinced this was the method for me. I’m still no web 2.0 expert or approaching anywhere near that status, so the simplicity of this method coupled with the excellent support by Blog Bloke in the comments section, and the engaging nature of his readers left me with a sense of ‘no need to look any further’, so I didn’t.

This is my version of how the migration has panned out. Prior to anything I logged into blogger to backup my template and all the posts that I had published. Just a precaution because I know things will go wrong if I try to cut corners. The backup process for blogger is somewhat disjointed, you can see for yourself here. This process took me longer than I had anticipated so I didn’t start off with the pace I had hoped for.

Next, I followed step 1 of the Blog Bloke guide – Change Domain Host DNS settings. Simple, I logged into my hosts control panel, located DNS settings, and changed them from the host setting to WordPress NS1.WORDPRESS.COM and NS2.WORDPRESS.COM

Step 2 – Import your Blogger in to your WordPress blog. I had real difficulties here. I’m using a self hosted dashboard and the “Import” feature will not let me log in to Blogger. Luckily Blog Bloke suggested a work around for this so that is what I did.

I tried the workaround offered by Blog Bloke but to no avail. I could not find the import button on my self hosted WordPress dashboard. It was time for a little bit of “googling”. From this process I was able to establish that there is a difference between WP.com and WP.org, and that the help forums are individually tailored to each version of WP. This stage of the game took me an age, literally hours of searching different threads until I hit upon the all important missing piece of the jig saw, found here, the version of WP installed on my host was <2.2 therefore I could not import from Blogger. Finally, armed with this info I was heading in the right direction. Didn’t I say at the start that I am less than capable at this web 2.0 business?

So, in about 1 hour I learned how to install a newer version WP.org using the FileZilla FTP client, and how to setup a new directory using Plesk. Now I have access to an all new WordPress 2.2 dashboard, I have managed to import the old Blogger posts and their comments to my new self hosted domain in WordPress.

Step 3 – Park your old Blogger custom domain name. I didn’t need to do this as I was using a free .blogspot domain name. This is what I believe to be true although I’m not entirely convinced.

Step 4 – Create and/or modify the .htaccess file. Blog Bloke’s instructions are spot on. This section only took me 5 minutes max. I will add that when using notepad to enter the contents of the .htaccess file it is important to make sure the file is saved simply as .htaccess and not .htaccess.txt as notepad will naturally try to do. Another way to get over this is to upload the file using an FTP client and then rename it.

Not as simple as it first seemed. I created the file in no time at all, uploaded to my host in the blog directory, and set permissions to 777, but, no redirect. I’m not sure how the redirect is supposed to work if my host does not know my Blogger address? I had no custom name to park from step 3, could this be the problem? I’ve tried to add my Blogger address to the Domain Aliases of my host control panel and still no luck,

Well, I posted a comment on the Blog Bloke blog asking if what I had done was correct. He brought up the issue of name servers (NS) saying that my domain registrar and host should have emailed me these when I set up the host package. I researched with Google and found the following page that states I need 2 NS and 2 IP addresses. So, I emailed the hosts and used a help desk ticket from the host dashboard, this was sent on Feb 26th at 15.55 GMT, it’s been over 24 hours, I’ve received no reply. In fact the ticket still claims to be new. This is the stage that I am at as of Feb 27th 19.14 GMT.

I wanted to post this as one piece demonstrating how easy it could be to migrate in a time period of 24 hours using the masterful advice of Blog Bloke. As it happens, it has been a good 2 days so far and that’s no fault of BB. I’ll publish a follow up post when and if I get the vital pieces of information from my hosts.

In the meantime, have you successfully managed to migrate from one blog host to another? If so, how did it go? Let me know with a comment or an email. Cheers.

By Daniel Posted in Advice 11 Comments

Limits of the human body

February 19, 2008 – 7:24 pm
This stuff is shocking

Image source mteson

Have you ever thought about the limits of the human body? I know that I have. I used to watch athletics on the T.V. all the time as a young boy, my favourite event to watch was always the 100 metre sprint. I used to watch Linford Christie storm down the home straight and think to myself “That man can outrun a bus easily”, maybe this was me being naive, but if a young lad cannot be naive then who can? Another sport that I watched religiously was boxing, at that time Mike Tyson was the king of the ring, his special weapon being a deadly “good night” right, not that I’m saying his left was any weaker!

If you are anything like me then you will enjoy the following scientifically tested limits of the human body. The BBC magazine Focus carried out scientific testing and mathematical calculations using Olympic Committee rules, no drugs, gene therapy or bionic implants, to find the answers to questions that have bugged humans since the dawn of civilization. I discovered the article in a newspaper and have decided to blog it simply because the limits are fascinating as I’m sure you will agree.

Q How much blood can you lose and still survive?

A up to half. You will feel dizzy from 15 per cent loss. At 40 per cent blood pressure drops fatally.

Q How hard can a human punch before the arm bones would shatter?

A Theoretically 50 kilonewtons of force - equivalent to 5,000 kilos or 2,000 five pound bags of potatoes dropping to the ground. The arm muscles contribute half of the force of the punch so you would need a tricep of around 22ins circumference to do it.

Q How much electricity can pass through the body without killing you?

A Most humans cannot survive an electric shock of 20,000 volts on dry skin - on wet skin, a tenth of this would kill you.

Q How hard can you get struck by a car and live?

A when a car hits at 23mph there is an 87 per cent chance of survival. At 30mph that falls to 27 per cent. At speeds above 38mph it’s less than one per cent.

Q How much alcohol will kill you?

A Nine or 10 drinks an hour are enough - a blood alcohol level of 0.4 per cent.

Q How many bee stings can you survive?

A The greatest number of bee stings ever survived was 2,243. But suffer 600 stings and there’s a 50 per cent chance that it will be fatal.

Q What is the hottest curry you can stomach?

A The active ingredient in chillis is capsaicin. While capsaicin does not actually cause a chemical burn, the effect on the nervous system is similar to an allergic reaction, causing incredible pain, body spasms and severe breathing difficulties. More than 100 bowls of vindaloo and you risk a heart attack.

Q What is the lowest body temperature you can survive?

A Hypothermia sets in if body temperature, normally 37C, drops by even a small amount. At 32C most will collapse. At 20C the heart stops beating.

Q How loud is too loud?

A The loudest sound you can safely hear is 160 decibels before the eardrums rupture. A jet taking off 50 metres away is 125.

Q How fast can a human being run?

A Running faster than 26.9mph requires forces high enough to rupture the quadriceps tendon, which attaches the thigh muscle to the knee. 100m record holder Asafa Powell runs at 22.9 mph.

Note - no humans were harmed in the finding of these limits.

What are your thoughts on these limits? 2,243 bee stings has to hurt, not as much as 20,000 Volts though. The human body never ceases to amaze me.

By Daniel Posted in Research 1 Comment