Heavy kettlebells
I’ve had a 40kg kettlebell for almost 10 years now, which I bought for swings and to use for weighted chin ups and dips. At the gym I mainly have students use it for deadlifts, as I find KB deadlifts are very handy for group classes. So, around this time last year I took advantage of a sudden discount and bought 3 other big kettlebells - a 48, a 56 and a 68 - to increase the progressive overload potential
Last adventure before the summer
I wanted to do one last trail running adventure before the summer travels, but we couldn't find a suitable race - they were either too long or too short - so we picked a track with the characteristics we wanted from a book I stumbled upon at the library.
Instant gratification mindset
I was thinking yesterday how weird it is that most ads I see in relation to physical training or nutrition are about promising fast results…
‘Everyone is a little weird once you look closely enough’
I had just finished teaching a private session when my student told me this sentence..
The adventure lifestyle
About a month ago I was reading about training for adventure racing, and I saw someone mention that it’s much easier if you have an ‘adventure lifestyle’…
‘think about your social media platform as a savings account..’
I read this quote in Jonathan Goodsman’s newsletter and I really like it, as it sums up nicely the way I’m thinking about my social media accounts and this website
Just do it!
In March we moved into a house with a larger balcony that has much better sun exposure, so we decided to just do some container gardening, and the results are quite good!
The commute
The daily commute to one’s workplace can be a dreaded moment - but it does not need to be. Now that the weather is getting better, I am enjoying going by bike to the physio clinic I teach at twice a week …
The doorstep mile
If you’ve never heard of Alastair Humphreys, check him out. He’s an adventurer that came up with / popularized a number of interesting concepts, and one of my favourite goes by the name of ‘the doorstep mile’ …
Cycle-adventuring on our new bikes
As I mentioned a few posts ago, we bought two new bikes..
‘Trail running races’ Quest completed
At the end of 2023, while housesitting in the Dordogne, we set out some goals for 2024, as part of our usual brainstorming on New Year’s Resolutions. One of these was to run 3 trail running races - though, in a way, I didn’t really think I’d actually do them, as I have been thinking about getting back into running for years and never really followed up on it
‘Dinner with a view’
A subset of hikes I really enjoy is the ‘dinner with a view’ kind. Grab a bunch of friends, some tasty food and head to a peak in time to eat dinner while the sun is setting, to then come back when it’s dark..
Explore
The first word of this blog is ‘explore’ because it is an activity I have always loved - mainly in the virtual world of videogames when I was a child, and now in the real world as an adult.
Adventure racing
After a few years without easy access to a bike, we’re enjoying spending time on the saddle. This renewed enjoyment of cycling that we are experiencing also reminded me of a discipline I heard of a few years ago, that seemed interesting at the time but a bit too difficult to access - adventure racing...
Rites of passage
It’s been said by many thinkers of this era that our western society’s lack of proper rites of passage is a great detriment to our personal development, that we need to be challenged in physical ways, to ‘reintroduce the metaphorical tigers’ in our lives - and I very much agree with this
Ode to the home gym
A home gym is a luxury that everyone into physical training came to appreciate during lockdowns. Mine was born 10 years ago, when I started going down the rabbit hole of training articles and realized I could train at home rather than going to the gym…
Mat intuition
‘Mat intuition’ is a term I’ve seen used to describe that quality of instinctively knowing how to move one’s body in scrambles, how to transition from technique to technique in a fast paced situation, how to improvise and appropriately adapt to the continually changing conditions of a roll.
Blogging VS social media
I’ve been enjoying putting my thoughts on my Instagram account, but since I created a website for my coaching business I’ve realized that blogging is a much better avenue for what I am doing