Archive for November 27, 2015

Are you gunslinger fast? Do you rate yourself when it comes to reaction times? Most of us like to think we are pretty sharp.

We associate fast reactions with elite human performance. Table tennis players, sprint starts, goalkeepers, clay shooting, jet pilots, motor racing… they are “lightening”. In it’s simplest form when discussing “reactions”  we are talking about speed of response to a stimulus. In most sporting contexts this response is expressed in terms of a physical movement with the selection process of eliciting this movement being either sub-conscious (essentially involuntary),

Winter 2006 The World Health Organisation recognise that AIDS, SARS, Bird Flu are not going to be the primary destructive health concerns facing our global population. Obesity with it’s associated medical conditions of type 2 diabetes, glaucoma, high blood pressure, renal failure and vascular disease will claim more lives and present vast financial challenges to even the most affluent nations in the coming decades. It will be 10 years on from this announcement next year. Have things changed?

Well they hadn’t this week whilst I listened to a radio interview with

This video blog follows up on the recent gait analysis one where I mentioned that I would film you some examples of strength exercises to compliment a runners training…. and I fancied a bit of a skip round the woods anyway. But before the main feature starts please read through these important trailers:

Strength underpins function. Strength comes first… what you do with that strength is up to you. Think of it as the fuel that you put into your running sessions. It’s like driving a car… fuel in, then go somewhere.

I decided this weekend that I needed a syndrome. I don’t mean that I should start shouting rude words on buses or develop something ferociously sore on a bony bit of my body. I have the utmost sympathy for any currently recognised syndrome sufferer, but I wanted a new one. What I really mean is that I wanted to invent one… or more accurately I am at that stage of my career where I should be “identifying” one. I could then talk about it a lot, which could pad out

I watch a lot of warm ups and I do a few myself, or with groups, or write about them, or even research them. They are everywhere. In magazines, on posters, there are probably many hundreds of thousands of them on Youtube… including a few of my own efforts. And they are without doubt… The Law. If you don’t do a warm up and you sustain an injury doing the thing you should have warmed up for then someone will almost certainly remind you that you “didn’t warm up properly”…

It’s a video blog this time… always a risk.

We are talking running gait analysis thoughts. As ever, there is hopefully a message hidden away behind the light entertainment (and a smattering of exaggeration).

No CGI was used in this production… those really are my legs.

I really love my trainers. Here they are taking a wee break from looking after my feet and having a welcome frolic in our garden…

I got them from a bloke whilst we were waiting in a check-in queue at Valencia airport. He had blagged them from an Asics rep but they were too small for him and gave him blisters whilst caddying. So I convinced him they would go better on my feet and he fished them out his bag. They are “not for resale” pre-prods (which is one of their allures).

This is my blog and I am trying to make sure I am providing useful information and not blether. So this edition is going to showcase a unique piece of research I did last year, although it is entirely anecdotal, non “scientific”, has a small cohort number, and won’t include many tables or flow charts (there is a graph)… and to be honest is poorly referenced. Sorry… it also lacks an “instant expert” abstract, although could certainly be described as abstract. I am going to present it mainly in abbreviated

The word “functional” is all over my web site, my resources, course flyers and even embroidered into my clothes. If I was younger and drunker I’d probably have it tattooed across my back, may be in some form of Sanskrit or Chinese symbols to make me feel more unique… even though it will almost certainly spell “gullible” in that age old inkers private joke.

When we first jumped aboard the functional steam ship some 15 years ago now, it seemed like an exciting word, it seemed right and apt. One word

Most recreational athletes would definitely prefer not to be injured, they may not be doing a great deal to ensure this, but they’d rather this was the case. It is improbable. If you commit to an athletics based sport (sometimes for a lifetime) then it is highly likely, if not guaranteed, that at some stage you will sustain an injury…. and sustain is the key word here. Let’s talk mainly running….  the majority of what are termed “running injuries” are non-traumatic. Their primary cause is some form of sustained dysfunction