Porthkerry 5: multi-terrain running race

Mark took part in the Porthkerry 5 this morning, it's a 5 mile off road (multi-terrain) running race held in Porthkerry Park, near Barry.

It's a tough race, all off road and it has some tough, tough hills thrown in at several points in the race, just to spice things up a bit!

Mark used this race as a training race in the run up to his 'A' race of the season (Holland in July as part of the GB off-road triathlon team) and managed a very creditable 7th pace in a very large field of runners - well done Mark!

Mark provides one-to-one running, cycling and triathlon coaching and online training plans, so if you're in Cardiff, Penarth, Barry or Cowbridge and are contemplating getting a coach to guide you through your 2013 season contact Mark (Cardiff, Penarth & Barry) on 07947 010276 or visit the brand new WhittleFit website for more details on the running coaching services that Mark provides.

5 things to do to kick start your personal fitness program

The most common challenge that people I talk to face is how to incorporate fitness into their lives. They know they have to do something to get in shape but they really don’t know how. It can be quite off-putting because of the abundance of information out there. So much so that you may not know where to begin.

Our society has so many food choices that it is easy to pack on the extra pounds. Also our day to day jobs are far less physical as they where 100 years ago so we have more sedentary life styles. We know there are benefits involved when we exercise and clean up our diet, however, most of us don’t know how or where to start.

So where do we begin? Or is the question: How do we begin?

If you feel you are out of shape you should consider going to your doctor and get their approval to start exercising. Your doctor may also provide some helpful tips as well.

After you get the OK from your doctor, try these 5 things to help you get started:

1. Make the choice to start exercising and eating right: Making the decision to do something provides a form of commitment you make to yourself. Deciding that you need to change your behaviour creates new possibilities. When you say to your self “I need to get in shape”, it means something. You should be answering these questions in your mind: When can I work out? What exercises do I need to do? What foods should I be eating? Make yourself think about the commitment you just made. Only then you can let go of the past and take steps to move forward.

2. Write down what you do: You need a reference that is realistic towards your weekly activity. Write down everything you do during the week. This should include work hours, commuting hours, nights spent with your spouse, your child’s activities and anything else you can think of that you do. You should also include what you do on weekends. You should make a list for each day of the week, as some people set lofty goals like working out for 2 hours a day. This can be due to an old saying, “More is better”. However, this is not the case. Knowing your schedule will help you set realistic goals and help you find a few hours a week to start exercising. You’ll have a visual perspective on what you can and can’t do with your routine.

3. Research and get information: Most people do not have enough information before they start a work out program. So how do we get the information we need? The good news is we live in the information age. Take advantage of your favourite search engine and learn a little bit about fitness and nutrition. However, do not go overboard and lose focus. Find a source of information you like and take notes. Find the simplest and easiest workouts and nutrition tips. Don’t overload yourself with information. If you prefer you can hire a personal trainer for a few sessions to help you get started. Hiring a personal trainer is a great way to get started because you have made a commitment to meet someone to workout. Your goal is to have the trainer show you the basics on exercise and eating healthier. It may also be safer to learn how to perform the exercises (especially if you have not exercised for a while).

4. Create a simple plan and set realistic goals: Keep it simple! Following a simple plan while on a hectic schedule is much easier than following an convoluted plan. You should have a plan of which days you want to work out and a goal to change your eating habits for the next few weeks. For example, “I will work out for a half an hour for 3 days this week. I will eat a little less each meal.” Keeping it simple is a major key to success.

5. Execute your plan: Now that you have a plan, all you need to do is follow it. Sounds easy! However, this is another big step. You should look at your plan every day. You need be mentally prepared for the great day ahead of you. Having your daily schedule in hand will help you achieve your goals for the day. When you complete your workout for the day, highlight it or cross it off your list. It will show you that you accomplished something for yourself.

I hope these things help you get started on a new life of physical fitness. Life is filled with making decisions, knowing your commitments, getting information, planning and execution. Try these approaches for yourself and you will see that having your own workout and nutrition program is not as far fetched or complicated as you think. Good luck!

Running technique workshop - Cardiff

How would you like to run faster, with less effort? Well, with our Learn To Run workshop you’ll learn an effective run technique that allows you to run more efficiently, with no injuries and best of all, faster! With these new running skills you’ll enjoy a more active lifestyle and gain great health benefits whilst enjoying the wonderful sport of running.

Personal trainer John Bruno and running coach Mark Whittle have teamed up to present this amazing workshop. The workshop is primarily aimed at beginners and novices, so fitness levels aren’t important; the goal is to teach you the steps, principles and drills for you to become more successful at running.

The next Learn To Run workshop is:


Date: Sunday 19th May 9.30am - 12.30pm

Location: John Bruno Total Training studio, Glebe Street, Penarth
Cost: £40


So if you live in Cardiff, Penarth, Barry, Bridgend, Cowbridge or Llantwit Major and would like to learn how to run more efficiently, faster and with less injuries, register with John Bruno on 07976 769390 or Mark Whittle on 07947010276.

7 tops tips for healthier and fitter living

More and more people these days are getting sedentary instead of physical jobs. Sitting in the office chairs all day long has become the norm for many of us. The stress, busyness and rush make us forget about regular food and stuff our stomachs with convenient pre-packaged fast food and sugary drinks, which don't do anything good for our bodies.

As a result of such crazy life rhythm, we rarely find time for exercises, gyms or balanced nutrition. As a matter of fact, it's one of the reasons why there are now more that 60% of U.S citizens that are overweight. However, it is possible to change your lifestyle and lose your weight if you are willing to.

These 7 day-to-day life tips provided below will help you to drop your extra pounds, become more energetic and healthier.

1. Drink More Water
Our bodies need a lot of water. Water removes waste from our organisms and carries various nutrients into all our organs and cells. Your body also loses water by using it for various processes within the body. For this reason you have to replace it and drink water more often than you are used to. Start your day with a glass of water in the morning. Drink a glass of water before any meal. Take a bottle of water with you when you go to work. Your body needs approximately 3-5 liters of water during one day. So don't hesitate to drink plenty of water wherever and whenever you can.

2. Eat Fruits and Drink Fruit Juices
Eating fruits and juices helps you eliminate toxins from your body. Eating a variety of fruits also helps you get enough fibre, vitamins and antioxidants, which is one of the main reasons why you should eat fresh fruits and drink natural fruit juices as often as possible. Fruit juices from supermarkets are often sweetened (with a LOT of sugar!). If you want to drink juices, try to make fresh juices yourself. If you think it takes too much of the time, then look for juices with labels that say 100% fruit juice, these are much healthier for your body as they contain many more vitamins.

3. Eat Lots of Vegetables and Vegetable Salads
When it comes to losing extra pounds, vegetables are a great choice. They are natural and contain different vitamins, minerals and tons of other useful chemicals known to provide benefits for your body. Vegetables are low in fat and calories, they help control blood glucose levels, reduce blood cholesterol and reduce the risk of colon and other cancers. All these features also help control your weight effectively. If you feel that eating vegetables alone isn't great choice for you, then make some salads. Mixing vegetables together gives you even more different vitamins and health benefits. There are tons of tasty, healthy salad recipes on the internet. You can also use you imagination to make some great salads.

4. Eat Only When You Are Hungry
How many times you've been to a party where you saw lots of different and tasty looking meals, which you were offered to try. Don't just eat it because you are offered to. Eat only when you want to. Many people also like snacking. In between meals or when have nothing to do. Quit snacking. Most snacks contain a lot of fat and calories. Replace your usual snacks with vegetables or fruits. These are healthy to your body and you'll never get fatter, only thinner.

5. Carry Healthy Food with You
Many of us work busy office jobs and don't have time to eat regularly. In this case, bring your own made food with you. Instead of bringing sandwiches with meat, take vegetable salads, carrots or chicken or turkey salads. Any low fat food will do. This way, you won't have to wait for a break to fill your stomach. It's also quite important to try to eat about 5 times a day, rather than 3 or 2. Eat in smaller quantities, but more often. This helps you to increase your metabolism.

6. Work Out When You Can
Working out in a gym is not only a great way to grow some muscles, but also to drop a few pounds. Exercising helps you burn your calories instead of storing them in your body as fat. Our bodies were made to be active, so exercising slowly and easily can actually help you get more energy and make you feel much better. At the end of the week, try to lose all the stress and burn your calories in a gym or having some kind of physical activity at home. If you have time, then try to do easy exercises everyday.

7. Don't Lie Down or Sit When You Can Move
Many of us like to watch TV lying on a couch or sitting in a comfortable chair. Of course, when you come home after hard working day, you're tired, and all you can think of, is a couch and a remote in your hand. But such laziness won't help you lose weight. Contrarily, it will make you grow some more pounds. So don't lie or sit, when you can walk and move. Instead of staring at TV, go ahead and work out in your garden for example, clean your garage, fix your car, go to walk in the local park or beach. Breathe fresh air and move more often. Not only does it help to reduce stress after work, but also ups your mood and makes you more energetic.


Remember that all these tips will help you to lose weight, but only if you are determined and are ready to devote some of your time. Don't expect to slim down 4 sizes after eating 5 carrots and drinking orange juice. 

Your body, just like many things in this world, needs time. So be patient. And if you will honestly use at least some of these tips, you are going to change your lifestyle, which in the end will lead you to a thinner and healthier body.

Open water swim training for triathlon

With the triathlon season almost upon us, and many more people deciding to undertake bigger and longer triathlons, I thought it would be timely to highlight a few tips and tricks regarding the open water aspect of triathlon.

Because open-water swimming includes many variables that differ from normal pool swimming, the only way to get better is to practise; therefore you must get out and swim more in the open water. This is one of the biggest fundamentals of open water swimming, nonetheless, here are my top tips to help you excel at your next open water triathlon race:

1. Train in the open water
If you have a race in the open water, then you must train in the open water! Do not use the triathlon race itself as your first open water swim session, if you do you’re setting yourself up for disaster.

2. Practice sighting
When swimming in open water you have to lift your head out of the water to see where you are going (called sighting). One of the best ways I’ve found to sight is to lift your head straight up, look forward quickly, then turn your head to the side to breathe. Try to keep your head fairly low, just so your goggles are just out of the water, as you want to limit how high you lift your head because your hips will drop, causing more drag, thus slowing you down.

3. Sighting on buoys
Swimming in a straight line and sighting on the course buoys can be very difficult at times, due to the size of the buoys or the chop and swell of the water, therefore sighting on landmarks that don’t move (like a pier, house or trees) is the better option. So choose a stationary prominent landmark and swim to that, so much easier than sighting on a tiny buoy that you can only see every few minutes.

4. Practice swimming with others
Swimming on your own is very relaxing. Throw in a few hundred other people and all sorts of strange things happen! Try swimming with a masters swim group or during a "family" swim time and get used to not having the water to yourself. This will help you experience more choppiness than usual in the water, help you deal with unexpected changes of pace of other swimmers and allow you to become familiar with swimming in and around other people.

5. Drafting
Drafting is an integral part of open water swimming. It can help you sometimes and hurt you others. Swimming behind someone (called drafting) allows you to swim faster so you may be able to hang on to a faster group of swimmers, likewise you can also get stuck behind some slower swimmers who will slow you down. Additionally, you can be tempted to simply follow the feet in front of you and not sight the course, this is great if the swimmer in front is swimming the correct line, but please check, as you could both be swimming way off course if left unchecked!

So if you're in Cardiff, Penarth, Barry or Cowbridge and are contemplating an open water triathlon race and would like some help with your swim technique or your triathlon training plan, check out our Vale Sports Therapy website or contact Mark (Cardiff, Penarth & Barry) on 07947 010276.

Enjoy your open water swimming and have a great triathlon race!!!

Open water swim training

Here’s the swim set I did yesterday. It’s great for open water swim training, not too taxing and you can be in and out of the pool in about 40 minutes. 

Give it a try:

300m swim/200m pull/100m kick
4×100m with 20 second rest (25m water polo drill/75m no walls drill)
3×200m pull with 30 second rest (100m easy/100m strong)
4×50m kick with 15 second rest
200m easy cool down
Total: 2000m

Water polo drill: Swim with your head out of the water (like a water polo player). Look forward as if you were sighting a buoy or landmark in open water.
No Walls drill: As you probably guessed, turn before you get to the wall to simulate open water swimming.

More PB's at the Cardiff half marathon!

Yes, we managed to get more running PB's at the Cardiff half marathon on the weekend!

 Two of our runners are in training for the Snowdon marathon in 2 weeks time (yes, running up the largest mountain in Wales!), so went into the Cardiff half marathon with some fatigue as this wasn't their most important race. Even though we didn't get the ladies to really taper (to freshen up for the race), I always thought they would both set new record times as their training has been going really well (well, one or two minor distractions, but overall, they've both had excellent training sessions recently).

To cut a long story short, Victoria took her half marathon time down from 1hr43 to 1hr38 and Angharad took 2 minutes off her PB to come home in a time of 1hr49!

Very well done ladies, very impressive running, it bodes really well for Snowdon in a few weeks time!!!

Cardiff half marathon 2012

Cardiff staged the Cardiff half marathon on a new course this year, with 18,000 people taking in the sights of Cardiff city centre, Penarth Marina, Cardiff Bay, Roath Park Lake and the impressive Civic Centre.

This year was a very different year for me, as I was there in a coaching capacity instead of running in the event! I had 4 athletes and a couple of sports massage clients running (I call all my running clients athletes, much to their amusement!) and to be honest, I’m not sure if I was more nervous when I was running in the event or there coaching!

My job this year was to cycle from point to point on the run course during the race trying to spot my runners amongst 18,000 and cheer them on, it wasn’t an easy task!

I'm happy to say that all the people running had an amazing day, with the majority of my runners setting new personal best times for the half marathon. A great day was had by all.

Congratulations must go the organisers of the Cardiff half marathon, they did a wonderful job in producing a great event with an excellent new course. I'm sure to be running this event next year, perhaps you'll be taking part too!

Running strides, what's that all about?

The term “strides” often comes up in running training plans and I use strides within my own training plans too, however, occasionally runners aren’t exactly sure what they are, when to use them and why.

Well, the term “strides” refers to a faster piece of running, often before a race or a planned faster paced training session. The strides are relaxed, easy sprints, at approximately 70 to 80% of your all out max effort for anywhere between 40 and 100m. In fact, the actual speed or distance is not that important, the goal is to run in a smooth controlled manner, with good form.

The purpose of strides before a race or a faster paced training session is to get the body used to what is about to happen to it (i.e. run fast!) and to encourage the athlete to run with a smooth economical style; this is significantly more beneficial than warming up in a slow, steady manner, which only encourages a runner to run slow and steady.

Strides should be smooth and quick, your head should be held high and not looking directly at the ground, you should feel no excessive tension in your neck and shoulders, your feet should feel light and fast as they quickly contact the ground. This fluency of motion should transfer seamlessly across to your “normal” running style, which will enhance your running economy and speed.

Elite runners often use strides in their daily workouts. Some athletes will incorporate them into an easy session, perhaps running a mile or two easy, then include 5 or 6 strides, then return home for another easy mile or two; or add in a few strides at the beginning or end of a normal planned session just to reemphasise a little bit of speed and good running form.

Adding some strides into your running training sessions can have some real benefits and for little extra effort, give them a try, I don't think you'll be disappointed! 

Hydration tips for runners

We’ve all heard at some point or other about the importance of hydration, in particular with regards to running and running performance. But what does it really mean? Our bodies are made up of approximately 70% water and to keep our bodies performing at an optimum level we need to keep those hydration levels relatively constant. As we exercise we sweat, which means a loss of water, salts and sugars; as these levels decrease our bodies become less efficient. Hence, it makes sense that the greater the deficiency, the more inefficient the body becomes.

So how much should we drink and when? Previous thoughts included drinking at regular intervals whether you were thirsty or not, with the intention of trying to get “ahead of your thirst” (i.e. drink before you are thirsty). The experts thought that by the time you were thirsty, it was too late, you were already slightly dehydrated and this would affect your performance.

However, studies out of South Africa by the well renowned Dr Tim Noakes suggest that this slight dehydration has no effect on your performance. Studies show that drinking during exercise only when you are thirsty has no detrimental effect on performance or health. In fact, studies show that drinking at a high rate (to try to get ahead of your thirst) has no advantages at all and has been seen to negatively affect some athletes by causing severe stomach distress by drinking too much.

Noakes would be the first to admit that drinking to thirst is not a perfect indicator of your hydration status, but it does seem to be a good indicator of optimal drinking rate and the limited dehydration that may occur from drinking to thirst will have no negative effects on your performance.

I think the bottom line is, like many aspects of running and running training, to try these things out in training. The old adage of “practise makes perfect” is key here. Everyone is different; therefore it is worthwhile trying different hydration strategies during your running training and see what works best for you. Good luck and enjoy your running journey! 

Want to run faster? Running coaching is the key!

Our running coaching service is aimed at people of all abilities. Your goal might be to get fit, stay fit, attempt a challenging endurance event or set a new personal best time; we’re here to help you achieve your goals! Our running coach, Mark Whittle, has trained countless people, from housewives simply wanting to get fit to nationally ranked athletes.

Whether you choose to work with Mark in person or simply online, he can definitely help you to achieve your running goals. His structured, progressive approach will provide you with the motivation and accountability required to achieve the results you desire.

Mark believes the key to quality coaching is the appreciation that everyone is an individual and “one size does not fit all”. You must balance your training and goals with your lifestyle and commitments. And let's face it; you won’t get that from a generic training plan.

Mark’s philosophy is that coaching is an educational process. High quality coaching/education allows the runner to understand the process and why they are training in a certain way, rather than simply “training”. This holistic approach is proven to provide the runner with a greater likelihood of improvement and achieving their goals.

 


Mark is a qualified British Triathlon Federation coach, a Newton Natural Running Form coach (one of only 12 in the UK) and has over 22 years experience in competitive sport within the military, which includes multiple Ironman triathlon races and representing Great Britain at the European Age Group Triathlon Championships.

Services available: 

Online bespoke training plan:

The online training plan is structured to include and integrate all the stresses and commitments of our hectic daily lives (including life, family, work & financial), with the goal of achieving a balanced life, thus leading to consistency in training, which in turn leads to significant improvements in performance.

Mark writes a fortnightly plan that is totally bespoke to the individual (most coaches provide 4 week plans as it’s VERY time consuming to update a plan every week). There is nothing copied and pasted from the internet, it is totally individual to that person, their goals, fitness level, work/family/social life, etc. Our view is that there is no point in piling on loads of training sessions on top on of our hectic daily lives, it has to be integrated into our life, this is the key to our highly successful training plans.

The service includes an initial consultation, goal setting and season planning, an individual training plan structured to fit around your life, unlimited adjustments and updates to the training plan and unlimited email and text contact and advice.

Price: £50 a month (based a 3 month minimum commitment)

One-to-one running coaching:

Mark offers one-to-one running coaching in the Cardiff area. This predominantly covers running technique but also includes pace control, breathing, understanding of training methodologies and correct warm up and cool down protocols.

The one-to-one running coaching session teaches the runner an efficient and effective run technique. This technique allows you to run more economically, with fewer injuries and best of all, faster! With these new running skills you’ll enjoy a more active lifestyle and gain great health benefits whilst enjoying the wonderful sport of running.

Price: £35 per session

Combination of online training plan and one-to-one coaching:

A bespoke combination of online training and one-to-one running coaching sessions can be arranged to suit the runner’s needs. 

Price: depends on combination of coaching required

So if you're a runner or want-to-be runner and are seriously looking to improve your running and general fitness, lose weight, look and feel great, and get faster, then check out our Vale Sports Therapy website or contact Mark (Cardiff, Penarth & Barry) on 07947 010276. 

Sports massage in Cardiff, Penarth and Cowbridge

With many sporting events coming up (Ironman Wales, Cardiff Half Marathon, Cardiff 10K, Swansea 10K, etc) more and more of us are getting out there and doing some serious fitness training. This occasionally brings along aches and pains, but have no fear, Mark and Delme are here to help and support you through this process and get you back fighting fit!

Sports massage is designed to assist in correcting problems and imbalances in soft tissue that are caused from repetitive and strenuous physical activity and trauma. The application of sports massage, prior to and after exercise, may enhance performance, aid recovery and prevent injury.

So if you're in the Vale of Glamorgan, Cardiff, Barry, Penarth, Cowbridge or Bridgend and need some sports massage, check us out at Vale Sports Therapy.

Running PB for one of our clients

One of our local runners, Victoria, managed to claim an amazing PB (personal best) at the Cardiff ParkRun (5K) this morning! She had a great run, particularly as she's in the middle of marathon training so is not really doing too much speed work at the moment.

Victoria gave us a great testimonial a few weeks back (thank you!), but the improvement we've been seeing is purely down to her hard work and her consistency in training. I'm positive she's going to achieve all her goals this year!

So if you're a runner in Cardiff, Penarth, Barry or Cowbridge and are contemplating running a 5K, 10K, half marathon or full marathon and would like some help with your running training plan, check out our Vale Sports Therapy website or contact Mark (Cardiff, Penarth & Barry) on 07947 010276.

Hidden injuries and how to avoid them

Sometimes when you are feeling great about your training, you appear to be injury free, and you are looking forward to achieving new heights in performance, your muscles may actually be in a state of chaos. No hobbling, or even niggling pain will necessarily reveal this chaotic state, and only a disappointing performance in a key competition will show that something has gone seriously wrong. The poor performance will be an indication that your training has injured your muscles significantly – and yet kept you in the dark about the nature of the problem.

How can athletes be unaware of the damage they are doing to themselves during training? Unfortunately, some muscle problems can exist below an athletes “radar screen”; they may significantly interfere with muscle function and yet produce few or no symptoms that something is wrong.

For example, think about what happens to an Ironman triathlete or a marathon runner after completing their event. A week after the event is over, the athlete usually feels great, with no pain, stiffness or swelling to announce that anything is wrong with their muscles (unlike the day after a race, when their discomfort is usually intense). However, if the athletes muscles were biopsied and the cells examined under a microscope, many problems would be apparent. Recent research from Harvard reveals that portions of some muscles would be missing, other cells would be swollen, muscle membranes would be ruptured, blood vessels would be damaged and glycogen levels would be low. Yet, despite this, the athlete would be “feeling fine”.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take an Ironman event or a marathon to induce such muscle damage. If a significant increase in training is undertaken over a prolonged period, then this will produce a similar effect. Causing such damage is not a trivial thing. For one thing, it is simply not possible for muscles to perform at optimal levels when muscle glycogen levels are low, energy producing mitochondria are damaged and contractile proteins within muscle cells are disrupted. For another, these kinds of problems can not be cleared up overnight. The research from Harvard suggests that it may take three months for muscles to be restored after such damage, and complete restoration may occur only if an athlete trains lightly or not at all.

As an athlete, what should you do to achieve your greatest possible improvement in fitness without doing damage to your muscular system? First, you should make sure that your training program contains adequate recovery time; at least one day off each week and at least one week of light training for every three weeks of strenuous training. Recovery periods allow your muscles to “catch up” on key repair processes, which are often retarded by the relentless pace of high frequency, high volume training.

Second, you should attempt to emphasise quality over quantity in your training. High intensity training is the most potent producer of fitness, and pathological changes in muscle cells appear to be much more closely related to training volume rather than training speed. Research shows that when a comparison is made between what happened to runners muscles following a marathon and a 25km race, they found the muscle damage to be much more extensive after the marathon, even though the 25km competition was completed at a much faster pace.

Third, you should engage in functional strength training two to three times a week. Such strength training should revolve around movements which actually mimic the biomechanics of your chosen sport, so that you will be less likely to get frayed around the edges as a result of your training and competition (compared with weak muscles, strong muscles are damaged much less by the forces created during exertion).

Finally, you should devise a performance test with which you can assess your progress over time. For running, this could be a 6 minute test on the track, for cycling it could be a 10km time trial and for swimming it could be an 800 metre all out effort, and so on. Such tests can be performed every 4 to 6 weeks or so during training, and if you are feeling good but you test results are getting worse rather than better, chances are good that there are muscle problems “below your radar”. The solution is not to work harder and damage your muscles further; the optimal strategy is usually to significantly reduce training volume, maintain fitness with an occasional intense workout, and thus give your muscles a chance to recover from all the abuse you have put them through. For most athletes whose performances have headed south, such periods of lighter training will help to wipe away any muscular chaos and get performance capacity on an upward slope again.

So if you're a runner, triathlete or endurance athlete and would like some advice on training concepts, training plans or injury prevention check out our Vale Sports Therapy website or contact Mark (Cardiff, Penarth & Barry) on 07947 010276.

Product reviews coming soon!

Coming soon to this blog will be a whole set of product reviews, from nutrition products, to training equipment, to coaching and training plans and even some things you wouldn't think of!!! However, if there's something you'd like me to review, just let me know.

Herbalife sports nutrition

Herbalife 24 is the new range of sports nutrition from Herbalife, now being used by Barcelona FC, LA Galaxy FC, Reading FC and the new Worlds Strongest Man!

For more information or to order, contact Delme at www.completehealthandwealth.co.uk

Running workshops in Cardiff

Mark has just finished a series of 4 running workshops in Run and Become in Cardiff in the run up to the Cardiff half marathon. Mark was joined by Personal Trainer John Bruno and Physiotherapist Karen Pearce to provide advice to the half marathon runners on running injuries, run technique, nutrition, mind focus and general run training advice.

The workshops were well received, giving the novice runners a boost before race day. Look out in 2012 for more running workshops in Cardiff, as we'll be supporting the Cardiff half marathon again next year. Have a great race everyone!

Product review:Newton Momentus trail shoe

I reviewed the Newton Gravity trainer back in September last year and I must admit, I have become a huge fan! So when I received the Newton Momentus trail shoe, I was very excited. And as you can see from the picture, the colour of the trainer is simply stunning (well, in my eyes anyway!).

The Momentus is the first shoe in the Newton range that is designed for off-road. There have been some complaints in the past about the other models in the range, stating that they weren't hard wearing enough to use on tracks and trails, well, this is the answer. Even though it is billed as a trail/offroad shoe, I think that is a little misleading, the reason I say that is because it is great on the road too. Most Newtons have an upper with an open mesh (great for ventilation), therefore they aren't great for colder days, but these are a real good outdoor hard wearing shoe, offering greater traction and durability over some of the others in the range.

Without getting too technical, the Newton range offers a more natural running style by having a very small heel to toe drop (making them effectively flat), the drop on the Momentus is about 3% (some of the more performance Newton's are nearer 1.3%), with most other brands having a far greater drop. This low heel to toe drop makes the shoe almost flat (i.e. natural), therefore is closer to a more natural running style, i.e. barefoot.

What's the deal with those crazy lugs? Again, I won't go into too much of the science, but suffice to say they are there for a reason. The raised lugs (ridges on the forefoot) act independently from each other, compressing into a rubber membrane on impact, this effectively reduces impact shock by up to 44%. The lugs then return that stored energy (a bit like a coiled spring) which reduces fatigue and allows for reduced occurrence of injury.

Bottom line is, I love 'em! I am very much into the whole natural running philosophy and these shoes definitely help you transition to a more natural running style. I want people to run faster, more efficiently and with less injuries, and in my opinion, the Newton Momentus will definitely help with that.

Newton Natural Running Form coach

Yesterday Mark attended a running coaching clinic to train existing running coaches new skills and techniques inline with the Newton running company's philosophy of Natural Running. It was an awesome clinic taught by Ian Adamson (7 times world adventure race champion) and Mike Trees (world masters 10k champion), and was the first clinic of this type to be held outside of the USA.

Mark was lucky enough to pass the clinic and is now only one of 12 Newton Natural Running Form coaches in the UK. Mark will now bring those new skills and techniques to south Wales and incorporate them into our own hugely successful Learn To Run workshop. For more information about running technique or our next Learn To Run workshop (held in Penarth, near Cardiff), contact Mark on 07947010276.

Learn To Run course

How would you like to run faster, with less effort? Well, with our Learn To Run workshops we’ll teach you efficient and effective run technique to allow you to run more efficiently, with no injuries and best of all, faster! With these new running skills you’ll enjoy a more active lifestyle and gain great health benefits whilst enjoying the wonderful sport of running.

Running well and running fast is a skill and as such, it can be taught. Why not try our Learn To Run workshop, you'll be amazed how easy running can be!

The workshop will be held on the 30th January 2011 at the John Bruno Total Training studio, Penarth starting at 9:30am for approximately 3 hours. For more information contact Mark Whittle on 07947010276 or check out the John Bruno website athttp://www.personal-trainer-cardiff.com/