This is just a quick announcement that I will be attending the Maddog Mudder event in Gilford, NH on Saturday, June 2nd, and I’d be delighted to meet you if you can make it out for the race, too!
In fact, I can’t think of a better way to spend a summer day, than crawling around in the mud with a bunch of other sweaty people!
See?
If you don’t know anything about the Maddog Mudder, it’s a 5k race littered with obstacles quite similar to a military-style boot camp o-course. It’s not all that unlike the popular “Tough Mudder” races, just a much shorter distance. Suffice to say that if you enter, you will get tired, you will get muddy, and you will have fun – lot’s of fun. I could spend the next 1,000 words trying to convince you it will be the highlight of your summer, but I’ll leave it at that. Continue reading Meet and Greet with John Sifferman in New Hampshire This June
I’ve seen a recurring theme about exercise in some media outlets recently, both in mainstream and smaller sources. It’s the notion that exercise somehow makes you fatter, or similarly, that it won’t actually help you get thinner. If that wasn’t outrageous enough, I’ve even seen claims that exercise doesn’t improve fitness at all. Of course, it’s all complete nonsense, and in some cases, blatant lies. Humanity has known for a long, LONG time all about the various benefits of exercise. And if millennia of culture, tradition, and common sense isn’t convincing enough for you, then you can scour the research archives that have grown to a monstrous level over the past several decades. Of course, the overwhelming evidence is that exercise is extremely good for us, and for the most part, people have been doing it just fine all along.
In fact, the many benefits of exercise are now extremely well-documented. It is an indisputable fact that exercise, or to be even more general – physical activity – is good for us and that it comes with a myriad of physical and mental benefits, among many other things. It is arguably the single best thing you could do to improve your health, fitness, body composition, and quality of life. Anyone who says otherwise, or even hints otherwise, should immediately be dismissed as someone who is misinformed, but more likely a complete quack who is not worth a moment of your attention. You see, it’s one thing to investigate an issue that may have some loopholes that we just haven’t figured out yet, and report on that. But it’s quite another to do that while also ignoring logic, reason, and the massive quantity of evidence in the research data that has already been compiled and verified in peer-reviewed journals. Yet, this seems to be happening more and more often, and not just from fringe groups either. Does TIME magazine ring a bell?
Two days ago, you might have noticed that some websites you normally use were down or just weren’t working correctly. This wasn’t a coincidence or a mere fluke. On January 18, over 7,000 reported websites shut down to protest legislation that threatens some of the fundamental internet freedoms we enjoy today. And these weren’t [...]
With the busyness of the holidays, and the arrival of my daughter just before the New Year, I’ve had my hands full for the last several weeks. Things are mostly back to normal now – a new normal for us.
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We’ll be back to your regularly scheduled programming very soon. [...]
George Hood. That’s the name of the man who will be entered into the Guinness Book of World Records after holding the plank exercise longer than anyone else ever has – obliterating the world record by nearly 30 seconds…wait…I mean minutes – 30 minutes.
Maybe you’ve done a plank before, and maybe you thought you’ve done pretty well. Depending on who you talk to, a three minute plank hold is generally considered the gold standard – and anything beyond that is just gravy. Once you’ve hit 3 minutes and beyond, your core is already plenty strong – or so they say. However, I think a growing number of people have already proven that much of successful planking is all in your head. Mental toughness was certainly a deciding factor with the 5 minute plank challenge I posted last year. And I mean, come on, once you’ve done it for 5 minutes, you’re in the elite club, right?
Well, don’t tell that to George Hood, a former Marine and now 54-year old personal trainer from a small city in Illinois. This man is a multiple world record holder and added one more feat to his list of accomplishments after he held a plank for over an hour and twenty minutes – coming in with an official time of 1 hour, 20 minutes, and 5.01 seconds. Hood fought every minute to capture that record, too. It was not a walk in the park, but an act of sheer effort and uncompromising willpower.
Take a look at some of the clips taken during the event. He noted that it started to get difficult around 50 minutes, and the last 8 minutes were brutal. I’d rather walk the plank than try to endure this – har har har.
Note: this free offer expires tomorrow at midnight (Thursday, June 9). Act quickly!
Wicked. No, not the type of wicked that implies evil and moral corruption, but rather the slang term we use way up here in New England. You see, we say wicked. A wicked lot. My apologies to people from Iowa.
Jack has been one of the most inspirational fitness icons in our nation’s history, and he will be missed by many. I’d like to take this opportunity to share a couple of my favorite clips of Jack. His teachings are timeless, and if nothing else, even more relevant today than when they were first broadcast.
Jack LaLanne completed many feats of strength and endurance that included towing boats while swimming handcuffed.
In fact, the many benefits of exercise are now extremely well-documented. It is an indisputable fact that exercise, or to be even more general – physical activity – is good for us and that it comes with a myriad of physical and mental benefits, among many other things. It is arguably the single best thing you could do to improve your health, fitness, body composition, and quality of life. Anyone who says otherwise, or even hints otherwise, should immediately be dismissed as someone who is misinformed, but more likely a complete quack who is not worth a moment of your attention. You see, it’s one thing to investigate an issue that may have some loopholes that we just haven’t figured out yet, and report on that. But it’s quite another to do that while also ignoring logic, reason, and the massive quantity of evidence in the research data that has already been compiled and verified in peer-reviewed journals. Yet, this seems to be happening more and more often, and not just from fringe groups either. Does TIME magazine ring a bell?
