Welcome to my first blog
I started thinking about doing a blog at the beginning of the year. I am not 100% sure what my main motivation is for starting one but it is probably a combination of using it as a diary of my progress towards my fitness goals and sharing what I discover with other women and possibly men (mustn’t be sexist) of a certain age.
My main interests are:
- the relationship between nutrition and performance ;
- what is the best training programme for optimum health and fitness ;
- how these may need to be modified for the older adult.
Currently we are being bombarded with advice on what is good for us. But it often feels that this advice changes from week to week. We can be heavily influenced by the media headlines which often spin the research findings to make a more sensational read. For example, you may have read recently that strenuous running is bad for you. The headline on BBC News read ‘Training very hard as bad as no exercise at all’. Dig a little deeper though and you find that out of the 5,000 people they followed over a 12 year period only 36 were defined as strenuous runners. Two of them had died. From this it was concluded that strenuous training was bad even though the researchers did not know what had caused their deaths. If both were killed in motor accidents then their deaths can’t be as a result of strenuous training unless they both had heart attacks at the wheel.
I have personal experience of the need to modify training as you get older. What I have found is that I need longer to warm up. I think this may be something to do with my pulse rate increasing faster than my systolic blood pressure. On a number of occasions I have become light headed during a warm up and on one occasion I fainted into the arms of the trainer. Believe me 20 year olds swoon but 55 year olds flop. Fortunately I didn’t dribble from the mouth or anywhere else. I now warm up for 5 minutes on the static cycle before I join the main warm up. But once I am warmed up there is no stopping me.
Well that is what I tell myself.
great first blog. I write as an overweight 52year old women. I have tried many times to be fitter. Honestly! I stood in sheer envy as my two Ramsgate friends literally bounced past me as they trained together for this weekends Paris Marathon. Full of energy & vitality. I’m on the election regime at the moment- lots of door knocking, walking, nervous & emotional energy & toast! Part of my rationale for moving to the coast was the ‘outdoor’ lifestyle ideal. So, I’m a fan of a blog that’s real, of a women that’s real, and if you update your progress towards your goals – I will update mine. I do believe we have one life and we should live the length, breadth & depth of it. Being reasonably fit is a precursor….
Thanks Karen. I look forward to hearing how you progress to your goals. Any help you need please ask.