Woody Wonders

How do you like your pyramids?  Ascending?  Descending?  Complete?  What am I talking about I hear you cry?! As we near the end of yet another month, I thought I'd stay in line with Mash-up May for this week's blog and make the most of it before we move into June's theme. We all know that exercise can become a little bit tedious sometimes, the workout you once loved may now fill you with dread, you might have reached the inevitable plateau, or you might simply be looking for a new way of training. Have you tried pyramid training?  Pyramid training can be a really effective way of training to increase your strength, improve your muscular endurance and for increasing your muscle mass.  Our muscle mass decreases with age so it's really important to increase / maintain it for as long as possible. First of all, don't panic when I start going into fitness instructor talk about pyramid training - it's suitable for all ages and abilities, and I use ...

What does positive mental health look like? As we near the end of mental health awareness week, it's made me think about my own mental health. I consider myself to be extremely lucky in that I've never suffered from depression or any kind of mental health issues.  I'd go as far as to say that I believe I'm incredibly strong in terms of my mental health.  Why?   Is that down to my genetic make-up or is it the things I do in order to keep a positive mindset?  A combination of the two?   I simply don't know.   A number of years ago I lost both my own sister and my sister-in-law within 3 weeks of each other.  If that isn't a good enough reason to be depressed then I don't know what is.  But, even though I had some horrendously bad days and was incredibly sad, I don't think I ever felt depressed.  I remember one particular day where I sat in my dressing gown all day and cried.  I also remember thinking to myself "this is ...

Pomodoro Technique - It's all about the tomato For those of you who are new to this concept, it was 'invented' in the late 80's by Francesco Cirillo, a university student, who used one of those natty little tomato-shaped kitchen timers to help him manage his study time, hence the name 'pomodoro'. This technique is so simple and so obvious that I first thought "really, no sh*t Sherlock", I couldn't believe a whole time management system had been built around it.  Then I tried it for myself and wow, it did actually make me so much more productive and I found I could translate it across all areas of my life, from work to home life to running. Although there's no absolute evidence and, depending on what the task is, there's a theory that most adults can only focus for around 20 mins at a time, which is why it's always best to breakdown tasks into bitesize chunks rather than keeping going for hours without a break.   This is w...

Who's up for a mash-up in May? So what exactly is a mash-up I hear you cry?  Why it's quite simply ... "A mixture of different, often contrasting, elements" Throughout the month of May, we'll be looking at how to get more bang for your bucks.  Mash-ups work particularly well when you're short on time but still want to achieve as much as possible.  They're also a great way to incorporate some variety into your life to jazz things up a bit.  Whoa there, I didn't mean in THAT area of your life, let's keep it clean folks! We are kicking off the mash-up month by focusing on exercise this week.  The  mini, but challenging, circuit below can be completed in a ridiculously short period of time.  The only catch is that in order to achieve the best result you must put in your maximum effort. This circuit which will help you develop upper body, lower body and core strength, balance and stability, there's even a few fast runs thrown in fo...