Exercising or training?

A good question and article from Gavin Walsh who runs Bootcamps in the UK.
Do you consider what you do as exercise or training?
How do I see the difference between the two?
Exercise: activities performed for general health and well-being and quite likely weight control. Performed with limited focus on outcome goals. Exercise sessions may involve process goals i.e. working out for a specific time or performing a certain number of repetitions, but with little or no emphasis placed on long-term progression. Group exercise classes fall into this category, as does running for health without any intention of ever racing. So too does general strength training without following a clearly defined programme. In short I believe exercise tends not to elicit notable fitness improvements once basic adaptation has occurred as little thought is placed on progression. Quite often, the main goal of exercise is simply increased calorific expenditure to make up for a sub-standard diet.
Training: working out with a specific outcome goal in mind, for example training for a race, to increase strength to a specified level or improve sports-specific conditioning. Training is often the preserve of athletes (in the widest sense) and involves periods of higher intensity work followed by periods of rest and recovery. The long-term exercise manipulation of training variables results in steady and predictable improvements in fitness and associated performance and each workout and training week includes short-term goals which build toward an ultimate goal.
So what? (!)
In very simple terms, exercise is like heading on a journey without any directions. You might arrive at somewhere interesting if you are lucky but chances are you’ll just end up going around and round in circles until you run out of fuel or, worse still, just get bored and decide to go back home.
Training, on the other hand is like a well-planned expedition. There are maps, an itinerary, back-up plans, detailed logistics and an ultimate destination.
Needless to say, the second scenario makes much better use of resources and time than the first and will get you fitter.
Train, don’t exercise
It is my opinion that if more people trained as opposed to exercised, average fitness levels would be higher, exercise drop-out levels would be lower, gym members would be leaner and stronger, more people would stick to and achieve their fitness resolutions and the world would be at peace and global warming would be a thing of the past. Well I may be stretching it with the last couple of points but I really do believe that training for something tangible is better than exercising 'just for the hell of it'. That's why ultra-FIT is packed full of training articles that will progress your fitness. For example, I've been writing a series on maximising upper body strength for example that adapts a three phased approach and three blocks of training.
But I’m not an athlete
Don’t tell anyone but nor am I – at least not any more. The nearest I get to real-life competition now is ten-pin bowling(!) but that doesn’t stop me thinking and training like an athlete. I have short, medium and long-term goals that my training is designed to take me toward. These goals change from time to time depending on my current fitness interests but whenever I step into the gym or head out for a workout, I know exactly what I’m going to do and more importantly, why. This keeps me focused, motivated and, above all, ensures my fitness improves week by week. Some of my training goals have included rowing 5km in under 18 minutes, performing 200 burpees in less than 20 minutes, deadlifting double my bodyweight, overhead pressing my bodyweight, performing 20 dead-hang chin ups and squatting 1.5 times my bodyweight. Needless to say I have never attempted to achieve all these things at the same time and some are still works in progress but the point is, by having goals, every time you work out, you do so with purpose.


Homework

So, here is your task for the weekend (!) - take a piece of paper and decide on some training goals. Write them down and stick them somewhere prominent like the fridge door or inside your gym locker. It could be a specific amount of weight/fat loss you’d like to achieve, a distance you’d like to be able to run, a race you’d like to complete or a strength standard you’d like to reach. Decide on a realistic time frame. The loftier the goal, the longer you will need. If your goal is very high, break it down into a series of micro goals that you can tick off on your way to the 'big one'.
Next, do your research and find out the best training methods to help you reach your goals and then design a series of workouts. Come up with a series of four to six week training blocks which are progressive and build up in volume and intensity (the articles in ultra-FIT will help you do this - after all we aspire to be your 24/7 Personal Trainer!).
Finally, make sure that your daily behaviour supports the goal you have set for yourself. Remember that an unhealthy diet, too little sleep and too much stress will undermine your progress, whereas eating properly and getting enough sleep and other R&R will increase your chances of success.
So, by Monday, you may well be taking your first step towards a fitter, stronger, more focused and better you. And don’t forget, we at ultra-Fit are here to support and guide you each step of the way!

JOHN DEEGAN 2011 winner of Tom Venuto Fat Loss challenge

John Deegan weighed 348 pounds on Wednesday May 25th, 2011 at the start of his challenge. To take his before and after pictures, he needed canes to help his posture for the standing-up photos.
In his first journal post he said,
“I’ve been saying someday I will be slim all my life. I am now 60 years old. Not too many years left for excuses. And now… I need a hip replacement. However, the doctors will not operate on me until I lose 48 pounds (he wants me at 300). So, I have tentatively set my operation date one week after this contest ends…”
He then continued in Captain Picardesque style…
“MAKE IT SO!”
98 days later, 87% of the other contestants had dropped out… Many of them – almost all of them – were 100% fully mobile and able-bodied… Many of the dropouts were half of this man’s age…
But this man FINISHED THE CHALLENGE… and posted his results:
Before: 348 pounds
After: 314 pounds
Before: waist: 60 inches
After: waist: 54 inches
In his next to last post before reporting his challenge results, he reported the news:
“The doctor has now scheduled me for hip replacement! What a way to celebrate finishing the challenge!” …
“You know, sometimes I look at myself in the mirror and can’t believe I am 61. Inside I feel like a 30-year-old. I’ve wanted to get in shape my whole life and now I am FINALLY doing it!”

JOHN’S WINNING BURN THE FAT CHALLENGE ESSAY
“During this challenge, I learned a lot about myself. I learned that you are never too old to make important changes to your body. Even if you are handicapped with two bad hips, two canes, with bone on bone arthritis, you can still make significant changes if you are motivated.
The key to my transformation was in a large part due to my desire to have my hips replaced. My doctor said he wouldn’t operate on me unless I reached 300 pounds. So, that became my goal. I succeeded by figuring out how to deal with my desire for night time snacking. I found some sugar-free gum drops and this was my treat at night. I found that the longer I was away from starchy carbs, the less I missed them.
I used to think I was at total effect in my desire to lose weight. I have tried a thousand times and never gotten this far. Whenever I was tempted to overeat, I just told myself, “John, in 61 years you have eaten almost everything. This time is for you. You have tasted everything. You are not missing a thing.”
It was difficult going to the gym. People would look at me stumbling along with my two canes and you could just read their minds: “What is HE doing in the weightlifting area?” Well, I hired a gym instructor for a few lessons to teach me how to do some weightlifting being seated. There is a TON of things that a fat, handicapped person can do. After a while, people started showing me respect for being so dedicated to my task at hand. I started going six days a week, sometimes twice a day.
One of the big things I learned is the natural deliciousness of raw food. You don’t NEED to eat sweets. There are substitutes. My biggest win was finding a diet that I could live with for the rest of my life. As time moved on, I could now taste the natural sweetness in vegetables. I started thinking, “Hey, I can live with this.” And that’s the key finding a solution that works every day.
You know, I have lost six inches from my waist during this 98 day challenge. That is SIGNIFICANT. especially for someone my age. My metabolism does not respond as someone who is younger does. I am very proud of my progress.
I feel like a winner mainly because after 61 years of life, I am still trying to get healthy and look good. Many people give up at a much earlier age. I pushed through a lot of pain, bone on bone arthritis of both hip joints, and stumbled along with two canes. If I could do this anyone can. That’s what makes me a winner and that is why I deserve to be the champion.
This is only the beginning. Just WAIT until I can move around like the rest of you!”
Well Done John and keep up the good work.

New world record

Haile Gebrselassie loses his world record after dropping out of the Berlin Marathon and Kenya's Patrick Makau smashed the world record as he successfully defended his Berlin marathon title.
Makau clocked a brilliant time of two hours three minutes 38 seconds, 21 seconds faster than the time set by Gebrselassie over the same course back in 2008.

Britain's Scott Overall on his marathon debut was a credible 5th and inside the Olympic qualifying time. Overall he clocked 2hrs 10mins 55secs, well inside the Olympic qualifying time of 2:12.00.
He said: 'I couldn't believe it. When I got to 40k thought I had got the time wrong, so I was cruising on the home straight, and when I saw the clock said 2:10 I was very surprised.

Paula Radcliffe had mixed feelings despite achieving the Olympic qualification time after coming third in the Berlin Marathon.
The 37-year-old crossed the line in two hours 23 minutes 46 seconds, behind Kenya's Florence Kiplagat and Irina Mikitenko of Germany.
It was the former world record holder's first marathon since coming fourth in New York in November 2009. She was disappointed not to win but was glad to finish the race after her recent troubles. I need to get away and get fit and healthy.
'After the training this summer it has been very up and down. If I look at it this way I should be happy but I'm not - I wanted to win.'

Ginger curry and copious cups of tea: World's oldest marathon runner, 100, reveals secrets of his success

A lovely story from the Daily Mail a few weeks ago.. Been so busy not had time to post.

He's the world's oldest marathon runner - and at the grand old age of 100, Fauja Singh is certainly showing no signs of slowing down.
The quick-footed centenarian, who has completed seven marathons since turning 89, has become the first person to sign up to the 2012 Edinburgh race.
And he has revealed the key to conquering his daily 10-mile training regime is eating plenty of ginger curry and drinking copious amounts of tea.

'I am not a learned person in any shape or form. To me, the secret is being happy, doing charity work, staying healthy and being positive,' he said.
'If someone says I must stop running I ignore them - invariably they're younger than me. The secret to a long and healthy life is to be stress-free.

'If there's something you can't change then why worry about it? Be grateful for everything you have, stay away from people who are negative, stay smiling and keep running.'
Despite being born on April 1, 1911, Mr Singh insisted his age is no April Fool's joke. He is indeed 100 years old and still as fit as a fiddle.
He said he developed his love for running whilst working as a farmer in the Punjab.

But it was not until he moved to the UK, half a century later, that he took up the sport seriously.
With the help of his coach, Harminder Singh, he started challenging other pensioners to races and has now run five marathons in London, one in Toronto and one in New York.

Mr Singh, a Sikh, holds the world record for the men's over-90 category after completing the 2003 Toronto marathon in five hours and 40 minutes.
He now hopes to take part in the Edinburgh Marathon Festival 2012, 26.2-mile race, as part of four-man relay team with an average age of 86.


Training: Fauja Singh has revealed the key to conquering his daily 10 mile run is eating plenty of ginger curry and drinking copious amounts of tea.

Sounds Bloody marvelous to me, Keep it up...

Justice at Last!!!

Brazil: Ruling in Nun’s Killing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 6, 2011
A court on Tuesday upheld the conviction of an Amazon rancher for orchestrating the 2005 killing of an American nun and rain forest activist. A court in Para State said the rancher, Regivaldo Galvão, must serve his 30-year sentence. Last year, a jury found Mr. Galvão guilty in the killing of Sister Dorothy Stang, but he was quickly freed on appeal. Prosecutors say Mr. Galvão and another rancher, Vitalmiro Bastos de Moura, had Sister Dorothy killed because she was blocking them from illegally obtaining a parcel of land.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/07/world/americas/07briefs-NunBrf.html?_r=2&scp=2&sq=brazil&st=cse

How many more?

Another one bites the dust - Amazon MST Leader Killed in Pará, Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – A leading figure in Brazil’s Landless Workers Movement (the MST, or Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra), was assassinated last Thursday evening in the Northern state of Pará. Valdemar Oliveira Barbosa was shot to death by two gunmen while riding his bicycle through the streets of his home town of Marabá.
Barbosa became the fourth person involved in environmental or land rights movements to be murdered in the state in the last three months.
He was an active member of the Marabá branch of the MST and had coordinated the invasion and occupation of an abandoned former cattle ranch known as Fazenda California one year ago, only to be moved on by police towards the end of 2010. It is thought that he may have been killed to prevent his planned return to the property.
According to statistics released by the land rights watchdog group, Catholic Land Pastoral, more than 1,150 rural activists have been killed in Brazil in the last twenty years – an average of between four and five killings every month.
The organization speculates that local farmers, ranchers and loggers are hiring killers to silence or dissuade protests over illegal logging and land rights in the environmentally sensitive region.
According to the Brazilian Justice Ministry, the state of Pará is particularly dangerous, with a homicide rate of forty murders per 100,000 people in 2009 – almost double that of Rio de Janeiro, which came in at around 24 murders per 100,000 people, and almost seven times the average homicide rate registered by the Pan American Health Organization for the U.S. during the same period.
Valdemar Oliveira Barbosa was shot to death in his home town of Marabá, Pará,
Pará, with a population of over 6 million, is the most populous state of the northern region, and second largest state of Brazil in area, second only to Amazonas.
The most recent spate of killings to blight the state began in May this year with the double murder of activists José Claudio Ribeiro and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo, who had been receiving death threats from loggers in the area since 2008. Despite intervention by the Federal Police by express order of President Dilma Rousseff, as of yet no suspects have been arrested.
The Pará killing spree coincided with a sixfold increase in deforestation rates in the area in March and April this year compared to the same period last year, according to information from the National Institute for Space Research, or INPE.
“It’s a very dangerous time,” said Philip Fearnside, an ecologist with INSPA (The National Institute of Research in the Amazon), speaking to the Financial Times.
MST is considered the largest social movement in Latin America with an estimated 1.5 million landless members. Since 1985 the MST has coordinated peaceful occupation of disused lands while petitioning the government to grant titles, and has achieved a good deal of success along the way.
According to the MST website, titles have been granted to 350,000 families in more than 2,000 settlements, amounting to a total expropriation of more than 35 million acres.

Has the UK lost all sense of proportion?

I sadly read this article in the Sunday Mirror and have to ask is this right? Is this the society we wish to live in where people contributing nothing receive so much and a young lad gives so much receives so little?
Home fit for a hero? While £1m homes go to asylum seekers, a soldier who lost three limbs serving his country is put in a tiny flat ... on the SIXTH floor

He lost three limbs in a bomb blast while serving in Afghanistan.
Now Private Alex Stringer is fighting another battle back home – against a housing allocation that has left him trapped in a tiny sixth floor flat.
As some families living solely on benefits are housed in multi-million-pound properties, the 20-year-old struggles in a flat so small he says he is unable to use his wheelchair indoors.
He cannot get into the kitchen or his daughter’s bedroom, and when the lifts for the building break down, he has no way of entering or leaving his home in Chadwell St Mary, Essex.
He said the council had installed a wet room but his injuries made sitting on a chair under the shower uncomfortable.
The tiny apartment appears entirely unsuited to the soldier’s needs.
In contrast, a family of refugees from Afghanistan lived in a £1.2million, seven-bedroom London mansion paid for by an astonishing £3,000 a week in housing benefits.
Private Stringer, of 23 Pioneer Regiment Royal Logistics Corps, had more than 30 operations after losing both legs, shattering his pelvis and suffering injuries so severe that his left arm had to be amputated at the elbow.
He still spends three weeks every two months at the Army’s rehabilitation centre in Headley Court, Surrey, and struggles at home with fiancée Danielle Taylor, 19, and daughters Millie, three, and Harlie-Rose, one this month.
They have been told by Thurrock Council there is a five-year waiting list for a more suitable home.
Private Stringer said: ‘I knew the risks when I signed up and I have no complaints about what happened to me or the Army.
‘But our flat is unsuitable for a triple amputee.
‘I want to be independent again. I rely on Danielle and friends for everything. It’s demoralising.’
His plight will be considered by many to be a clear breach of the Military Covenant – enshrined in law in July – under which the Army can expect to be provided with adequate housing.
Last night Conservative MP Patrick Mercer said of Private Stringer’s situation: ‘[He] deserves much better treatment than this.
‘I wonder how this accommodation compares to other council tenants who have not risked their lives in the service of their country?’
Private Stringer’s living conditions contrast sharply with those of the Afghan family whose controversial living arrangement, which first made headlines in 2008, led to an overhaul of the housing benefits system.
Toorpakai Saiedi and her family – granted leave to remain in Britain after claiming asylum – lived in a series of large properties, all paid for by local authorities, including the seven-bedroom home in Acton, West London.
A spokesman for Thurrock Council said: ‘We are doing everything we can to support Mr Stringer’s return to independence.’
A spokesman for the Ministry of Defence added: ‘The MoD works closely with injured personnel to ensure that they can obtain accommodation which meets their specific needs.’

Plastic Brits for the Olympics?

Once again this subject comes up of people using and abusing nationality issues to compete in International competition. I read this article in the Mail last weekend.
There is something indefinite about nationality, we are told by those that seek to defend the opportunistic laissez-faire around qualification for the Great Britain Olympic team.
They pretend the Plastic Brit debate is motivated by side issues, like foreign athletes claiming lottery grant money. It isn't. And when the Games start and the public see the extent of the manipulation that has taken place in this quest to finagle a way up the medal table, those who truly care for the principles of international sport will be repulsed.
This is about a wealthy country stealing athletes, or being willingly used by ambitious ones, in a mutually self-serving pact.

Thanks but no Yanks!!! Team GB hurdler Tiffany Porter was born in Michigan (photo above)
Nationality is not a matter of semantics or a bureaucratic brainteaser to be overcome with money and lawyers. It is the founding principle of international sport: without it, the Olympics is a glorified club meeting.
You probably know nothing of Great Britain's wrestling team right now, and that is just as well. In 2002, Nicolai Kornyeyev, a Ukrainian, was appointed coach and five years later, following an injection of £2.5million from UK Sport, he hit on a brilliant ruse.
He introduced two young European champions from his own country, Yana Stadnik and Olga Butkevych, to assist with training and act as sparring partners for the British women.
Soon after, Krasimir Krastanov, a Bulgarian, followed to help train the men. You can predict what happened next. The training partners became the team, and the British-born wrestlers were relegated to sparring roles. It helps that wrestling's national qualification rules seem to have been drawn up on the back of a fag packet after a six-hour lunch break.

Dreamy: British-born Leon Rattigan could miss out on the London Olympics
The World Championships even allow each country to select two team members that do not hold a relevant national passport. There are two other Ukrainians in British wrestling's World Class Performance Programme, Myroslav Dykun and Oleksandr Madyarchyk, bringing the full complement of convenient imports to five in a select group of seven.
Great Britain will have a minimum of three competitors in London, with an outside target of five: Stadnik, a European Championship silver medallist, is almost guaranteed a spot, while Dykun was a recent Commonwealth Games gold medal l ist and Krastanov came fifth at the 2009 World Championships in Denmark.
Leon Rattigan talks of his dream of competing in a home Olympic Games; but he's from Bristol and only got a Commonwealth Games bronze. Maybe he can dream of watching it on television instead. Shaun Morley, performance director for British wrestling, is full of the standard bull.
'They have been here for a substantial period of time and have put us in a position we wouldn't otherwise have been,' he says of his talented ringers. But that's the point. Drugs put you in a position you wouldn't otherwise have been, too, but use them and people want you thrown out of sport.
The studied manipulation of the rules, however, is indulged and perfectly legal. 'Our elite wrestlers are now regularly among the medal contenders at international events,' Morley continues, but that isn't true, either. Ukraine's wrestlers are the real medal contenders; they just come wrapped in a Union flag for presentation purposes, with the usual cheerleaders in complicit denial.

Oldest person in the world

Oldest Person In The World Credits Local Diet For Long Life

On September 3rd an indigenous woman who’s spent her entire life in the Amazon will become the oldest known person in the world.

A very Happy Birthday to Maria Lucimar Pereira is one of the Kaxinawá tribe who today is 121 years old, bless her, and has never lived outside the western Brazilian Amazon. On Saturday she will turn 121 years old. She says she will spend her birthday with her family.

When asked about the secret to her longevity, Pereira says eating a diet full of foods that are native to the forest she inhabits, like grilled meat, fish, manioc (a root vegetable), and banana porridge, helped her to stay active and healthy. She does not eat salt, sugar, or any processed foods.

“All too often we witness the negative effects forced change can have on indigenous peoples,” Survival International’s Director Stephen Corry. ”It’s refreshing to see a community that has retained strong links to its ancestral land and enjoyed the undeniable benefits of this.”

Community leader Carlos told Survival that despite her advanced age, Pereira is still able to walk around the village sharing stories, and visits her grandchildren in neighboring areas. She only speaks Kaxinawá (not Portuguese), and occasionally travels to the nearest town, Feijó.

And although Pereira holds the record as the oldest, attaining ages of 100 or more does not appear uncommon in her village. Carlos says out of its 80 inhabitants, four are over 90 years old. They eat natural foods, and do not use soap or any artificial products from the city.