Tag Archives: fitness

Five Benefits Of Playing A Team Sport

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My love for team sport started about eight years ago. I played various sports at school and thoroughly enjoyed them all, but went through a rather lazy period in my teens, and gave up everything bar lifting a drink or cigarette to my mouth. Luckily when I hit my mid-twenties, my rather rotund frame got me realising that I needed to get fit and I started running. When I then got together with my husband, I knew he played hockey but thought very little of it, other than it frustrated me that it seemed to take up his entire Saturday and involved a lot of beer afterwards. This didn’t fit in with my new couples plan of, ‘spend Saturday’s lazing around, reading newspapers, lunching, planning our future, etc’. I found myself a ‘Sports Widow’ and spent most Saturdays bored and alone. So, a decision was made, I decided to start playing a team sport and given there are two popular clubs near where we live, I chose hockey. It was time to dust off my old wooden stick.

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IMO chats to: Holistic Core Restore coach Anna Coe

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Now ladies, I’m not normally one to talk about our, *cough* lady parts on this blog (any male readers, this might not be a post for you, or it might be .. ) Anyway, I used to run screaming from any kind of ‘hoo-ha’ talk, as the mere mention of such words used to make me blush profusely, but now that a baby has exited from down there, well quite frankly I’m a bit less embarrassed about such things (although the word ‘s-e-x’ still makes me blush) The pelvic floor is something I’ve wanted to talk about on here for a while, and now a perfect opportunity has come up. If you are a pregnant lady or if you have ever had a baby, this is a post for you.

Remembering to do your pelvic floor exercises is something that is drummed into you if you are pregnant nowadays. It was mentioned in all of my NCT classes, the NHS classes I attended and any midwife appointment that I had. I had to remember to ‘clench’ and try not to pull ‘I am clenching’ face at traffic lights, bus stops, during TV ad breaks, whilst reaching into a cupboard etc, the list goes on, you get the idea. When I started doing Buggy Fit classes, at every class my awesome instructor Anna Coe would talk to us about our pelvic floor muscles. We’d stop the buggies and do some exercises based around that area and she’d always ask if anyone needed to talk to her about any issues or was experiencing problems. It’s something Anna is passionate about, ensuring that women understand the importance of strong pelvic floor muscles and making sure that we know what is normal and what is not. Whilst Anna is an amazing Buggy Fit instructor, I saw recently that she has become involved in something called Holistic Core Restore, and seeing that this was to do with the pelvic floor, this caught my interest. Since having my baby to date I haven’t experienced any post baby issues ‘down there’, however as time has gone by I’ve found that things feel a lot less, erm, strong, so it’s still something I am very aware of. I got in touch with Anna to find out more about Holistic Core Restore.

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My Royal Parks Half Marathon

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Dear reader, it appears to be December and I, a bit like Sleeping Beauty (albeit a bit more snorey) appear to have slept through October and November, what happened?! The last two months have been a blur filled with husband and baby sickness (when does the baby stop catching EVERYTHING going??) then I caught a horrific bug, and suddenly whoo, it’s December guys!! Best get that ‘Christmasy’ feeling out!! You might be able to tell from the noticeable absence of posts that I haven’t had the energy to write, but I’m feeling like I’m back on Planet Earth now and I thought a little update on how my Half Marathon went, was long overdue. Continue reading →

My Royal Parks Half Marathon Update

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Tomorrow is the big day, it’s Royal Parks half marathon time. I wont beat around the bush, I’m cacking it slightly as my training hasn’t gone quite to plan. Okay let me re-phrase that, it hasn’t gone to plan at all!! It started off so well and positively, that back in July I easily hit the eight mile mark, yay go me! I was feeling pretty smug I have to tell you, half/smarf marathon, easy peasy I was thinking. All I needed to do was sustain the eight miles and push a bit more over September then I’d be there, but a family holiday with much cheese, bread and more wine that you could shake a big wine stick at got in the way and well, my body just gave up! It’s quite frankly been a struggle even hitting five miles since that holiday (I blame France!) and my knees are all but knackered, but tomorrow sees me attempting 13.1 miles, taking in the lovely sights of London town.

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Is Team Sport Important For Children?

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When I was little, I loved sport. I did classic activities like ballet, horse riding and tennis and at school I loved rounders and netball. I was obsessed with horses and was lucky enough to have my own and I played tennis every Friday night. My older brother made me play endless hours of cricket and rugby. I spent many an hour in the garden either having cricket or rugby balls thrown at me, being tackled to the ground or learning to spin pass. I vividly remember laughing hysterically playing badminton in the garden – it’s funny when the shuttlecock gets stuck in the racquet, no?! However outside of garden games, the reality was that the two main hobbies I did, riding and tennis were actually quite solitary sports. I often spent weekends on my own at the stables because people went at odd hours to do their horses and playing tennis, we regularly played singles matches, so I never had that feeling of being in a ‘team’. When my teenage years hit, unsurprisingly I started to find these solo sports rather boring. This, coupled with a move to a new school for sixth form and the freedom that I was given, meant that my previous love of sport went out of the window. No longer made to do it as a compulsory lesson, I stopped completely. With my sports mad brother at University and no more garden games, the tennis club was ditched and my lovely horse was sold. Given the option to be lazy, I quite happily took it.

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