September 2017 Step Stats

I managed to hit the target every day for the whole month. Not too surprising given the coaching, training and playing that goes into a typical week. There some days when I wouldn't have made 10k had I not gone for a walk, and under other circumstances I probably wouldn't have done so had it not been for setting myself the challenge. I even walked from Kings Cross to Fenchurch Street one day to make sure I made my 10k steps when otherwise I would have taken the tube to Bank at the very least and walked from there.

This, for me, is what makes the challenge interesting. Not so much the target, but the commitment to doing to do it. Anyway, just for the record (and with some comparisons to come) here are my September stats.

Steps: 395643
 Aver: 13188
 Max: 24537
 Min: 10064
Miles: 198

Given that I started in August, I've managed 44 consecutive days of 10k or more. I've also passed 500k steps already.

My A360 has been recording too, and the data is as I'd expect with the exception of the "pushchair day" I blogged about recently! Heavy coaching days and days when I either play or train show up really clearly in any comparison. What was interesting was the day I pushed Tobias in his buggy. Because my arm wasn't moving very little data was recorded as activity. I wonder what would happen if you went running on a treadmill but held onto the bars. Would it record any data then?

Overall I'm pleased I've completed a whole month and especially pleased that on those days when I might have chosen to sit on the sofa and do nothing, I actually got out and did something. Let's see what October brings.

Get up, get out, get moving!

It's never a bad time to take on a challenge to get a little more active. I'm probably the most active I've ever been, what with all the coaching I now do. But I still feel the need to "do something". Quite what that is, I don't know.

So it could be time to hit the walking challenge yet again. It's simple, 10,000 steps a day for 100 days. I've blogged about it each time I've done it, and somewhere on my computer are the spreadsheets with all the data of my previous cycles. I've even put a new battery in my old pedometer. Sadly it doesn't seem to want to allow me to set the time etc, but maybe it's just sulking a bit having not been used for 3 years!

If I'm really honest, the thought of doing this again does not fill me with excitement or anticipation. Instead I feel a certain about of something between doom and lethargy about the whole idea. But I know how good it is to set a challenge and actually hit the target. I also know that once I get started it's a lot easier to keep gong than it is to take the first step. 

If you decide to do something similar, you need to know upfront that there will be days when you don't feel like do anything. Days when you will literally have to drag yourself out of bed and out of the house. If you could get fitter just by sitting on the sofa, we'd all opt for that. But the other day I was chatting to someone at the gym and they asked how I felt when I did the challenge. I couldn't quantify my response, it's been 3 years, but I know that there was something special about the experience, even on the hard days. 

Maybe that's it. Maybe it's having done something that wasn't easy, maybe it was persevering when you really wanted to stop. So maybe I need a new challenge, or the same challenge but done in a new way. I don't imagine there are many days when I don't do the equivalent of 10k steps. I might need to think more in terms of simply making sure I do a certain amount of walking each day. Set a percentage of total steps to have to come from walking alone. I don't know. I think I'll need to experiment a bit to find out what an achievable target might be. 

I'll also plot a few routes. I found it really useful to know that if I wanted/needed to do a certain number of steps then this or that route would give me that number.

Well, time to stop thinking and time to start planning and more importantly time to start walking. September will soon be here, and that's a good month to start a new plan.

Polar A360

Having had my Polar Loop for a year, I decided to take the plunge and upgrade to a more sophisticated activity monitor. I did a bit of research and in the end decided to stay with Polar and get the A360.

Now, if you're a runner or triathlete you will undoubtedly want something more sophisticated, but if you're just interested in getting some data about how much activity you're doing, then the A360 looks like a good choice.

The Loop was useful, but the A360 gives you more options. The basic settings for what constitutes your active day stays the same, but now you have access to heart rate data courtesy to the wrist based heart rate monitor. For a more accurate heart rate you have the option to pair, via Bluetooth, the  device to a chest strap. The Loop also did that, but I never actually tried it.

Where the A360 scores over the Loop is the ability to choose a training type and capture the associated data. The display will show you heart rate, training zone, calorie burn etc. From my point of view, the training types are limited. I have to choose "other indoor" or "other outdoor" and then change it afterwards via the 'phone app to tennis or swimming. On the plus side, it can make me look like I sprint 10K on a regular basis!

One of the other positives for me is that the screen is easier to see in bright sunlight when compared to the Loop. This means it's easy to use as a watch when I'm coaching or just wanting to know what time it is. The adjustable strap is also a plus. I can wear it a little loose and tighten it up when I want heart rate monitoring. The clasp, two t-profile stubs that simply press into the holes in the strap, can come unclipped if you catch it on something, but it hasn't come off completely yet, so I'm not overly concerned by it.

The A360 will also vibrate to let you know you have an incoming call or text message or other notification on your 'phone.

There have been some negative reviews of the A360. People have experienced issues with synchronising data and with the unit and strap separating. There have also been some issues with the USB port cover. I've only had mine for a few weeks and so far I've not experienced any problems at all. Whether the syncing issues arise from the device itself or the 'phone or tablet being used isn't clear. My iPhone 5S seems to work fine.

Overall I'm quite pleased with my new activity monitor. The watch looks smart and fits neatly on my wrist. It's comfortable to wear and easy to use. At around £140 it's neither cheap nor expensive when compared to other similar devices.

A year with Polar Loop

I've had my Polar Loop for almost a year now (it was a Christmas present last year), and I've worn it almost every day since then. Accepting that these fitness monitoring bands are more about trends that truly accurate raw data, it still makes interesting reading to look at the numbers it produces.

I have my Loop set set to a very active day that would normally take about 1.5 hours of running or similar high intensity effort to hit the 100% target activity level. Given the amount of time I spend on a tennis court, this isn't usually problem, and as some of you know, I often hit 300% on my big training day on Friday each week.

Anyway, I had a quick look at the numbers for 2015 which showed an average monthly amount of activity as follows:

Total time spent being active: 7 days (i.e. 168 hours of activity a month)

Total steps recorded: 429026 (this is all movement converted to steps)

Distanced covered: 326Km

Kcal burned: 88127 (that's around 3000/day)

Those are pretty impressive numbers given that I don't go out of my way to exercise for the most part except the occasional swim, walk or short run when I'm not playing tennis.

I wouldn't want to use this information to plan my diet, but it does give some indication of my activity levels and why I occasionally feel a certain lack of energy when I get to my last coaching session on a Friday evening and find myself ready to flop onto the sofa when we get home after the weekly visit to the supermarket after finishing on court. Imagine what an 8 hour day on court might look like!!

I'm not convinced to Kcal number is accurate because I'm sure I don't eat that much on a typical day. In fact I know I don;t because I've used an app to measure that and it doesn't come near 3000.

I suppose the point is this: if you find collecting such data motivating or at the very least rather entertaining and interesting, and if you understand that it's not a precise measure, then you might find it helpful to wear a device. Having done the data collecting thing a few times using a pedometer and now the Loop, I still find myself intrigued by how the numbers build up and what they might actually be telling me.

Mind you, how loose the jeans are getting is also a pretty good indicator that something's happening!

Setting a new goal

So, yesterday I missed my 10k step goal ending a run of 188 consecutive days. The reasons were simple enough: we travelled to Nottingham for a celebration lunch and I also managed to pop my calf muscle again while coaching in the morning. Taking these two together, I decided to rest my leg and forgo my target for the day.

Now, once the calf strain is better, I need to work out whether to return to focussing on 10k or setting a different daily goal. As you know, I received an activity monitor for Christmas, the Polar Loop, and I could focus my attention on hitting my activity goal every day rather than the step challenge. The interesting this is the difference between the two.

Generally speaking, if I play tennis for an hour or so or do some interval training for an hour, I usually hit my activity goal but not my steps goal. On the other hand, I can go out and walk and hit my step goal but miss my activity goal. I think it will be interesting for a while to focus on the daily activity goal as measured by the Loop, and thereby build a picture of what the impact of doing is likely to be. As you've probably already guessed if you read some of my ramblings about health and exercise, the data fascinates me and can be part of the motivation for getting up and moving in the first place. 

So I think I'll go for activity for a while, and se how the data stacks up!

Inaccurate fitness monitors

Lara Lewington at the BBC's Click has an article on the website about fitness/activity monitors that's quite interesting for those inclined towards gadgets. How long it will be available I'm not sure, but currently you'll find it here. Thanks to Adam for pointing to the article.

In simple terms, the article points out that if you take four of the most prominent players in the market, you will get significant discrepancies in the data they present to you about your activity levels and related data. I have to say that I don't find that particularly unexpected, and it certainly fits with my experience of my Polar Loop (which wasn't among the four tested). I guess the object lesson in all of this goes back to something I learned doing physics at school. We were taught the difference between precision and accuracy. As I recall, and it is a rather long time ago, the difference is that you can have very precise measurements that are inaccurate and conversely you can have accurate results that are imprecise. Sounds crazy I know, but we are talking about the mysteries of physics here. In common usage we might use accurate and precise to describe the same thing, but in science they mean different things.

So what does this mean for the activity tracker you're planning on strapping to your wrist? The most important implication is that the data you get has to be understood against the way the technology works, the kind of sensor it has and the maths it uses to convert what it measures into the data you get to read off the device. I've already blogged about the differences between a simple pedometer and my Loop and how the Loop converts body movements into steps. Even my pedometer doesn't necessarily measures steps exactly.

So why would you spend your hard earned cash on an activity monitor that can't tell you either accurately or precisely why you've been up to? I'm not sure the technology exists to do that, but that doesn't mean a monitor is a bad thing. The reason to buy one of these gadgets lies in a quote from one of the companies making the devices has to say.

Managing director of Fitbit Europe Gareth Jones advises people to simply be aware of the trend.
"Rather than get down to the half step or the next calorie is to look at the trend in their step pattern," he says,
"Are they increasing the number of steps in their day all week? Are they increasing the calorie burn day to day, week to week? Because it's that trend that's going to make you healthier."

It's pretty obvious that a device worn on your wrist is unlikely to give you a proper measure of steps taken, but it will indicate how active you've been. It's these trends that help you make choices about what you need to do to improve your health. So buy a gadget if you want, or get someone to buy one for you (mine was a Christmas present) and use it to motivate yourself to move. It's fun to see what yo've been doing, how far you've walked or run, how long you've spent sitting down. But don't get hung up on the raw data, look at the trends. Look at the bigger picture.

150 and still going!

Yesterday marked two milestones. Firstly, it was my 150th consecutive day of 10k steps or more. I worked out that I'm roughly 3 weeks away from hitting 6 months at this daily target. The other milestone was that yesterday was my first bout of the winter with the cold virus! Certainly having the flu jab in the autumn seems to have helped me avoid getting a cold so far, but it's finally nabbed me while I wasn't paying attention. Oh well, it should clear up pretty quickly, and in fact I already feel better today than I did yesterday. Let's hope that's not just a lull!

I also noticed that yesterday was the first day since I started wearing my Polar Loop that I didn't hit my target. I could have gone out in the evening and done enough, I only needed to jog for 5 minutes or so, but I decided enough was enough and I didn't need to push myself out the door for the sake a 2%. 98% of my daily target is quite possibly significantly more than many people without colds manage!

I remember years ago a friend saying that a target was like the bullseye you might aim at in darts or archery. Hitting the bullseye is great, but if you aim at it and miss, then you haven't missed the bigger target. If you run, you'll know all about personal bests. You might even be geeky enough to keep a notebook or spreadsheet about it. It's okay, if I were serious about running I'd have running journal of some kind I'm sure. PB's are subject to all sorts of things: fitness, terrain, weather, how you feel on the day, how many other people are around you and so on. Not making your PB every time you run is not a failure. The same is true of your health and fitness goals.

In the back of my mind I wonder if I can keep achieving my 10k goal every day for a year. I'm a very long way from doing that at the moment, so I don't think about much. It won't become even a remote possibility until I get to somewhere in June, and then not a real possibility until I hit August. Thinking about it now is just not realistic. In fact the only reason to think about it now is to encourage me to go out each day and finish, because if I don't then I can't achieve that particular goal. Okay, so that probably makes it realistic in some way, but the point is I'm not focussed on the 365 target, I'm just focussed on the 1 day target. The big target will take care of itself if I keep hitting the smaller one.

Maybe you set out at the beginning of the year with the intention of getting fitter or being healthier and you said to yourself that you were going to go for a walk everyday. Maybe you've managed it, maybe you haven't. It doesn't matter if you've missed a day or even a week as long as you get back out. Make each day a challenge, and when you can conquer that challenge, make each week a challenge. Do whatever it takes to keep yourself motivated and don't let the things that demotivate you take control.

Today is an interesting day. Now I've missed my activity target do I say to myself it's not worth the effort and give up on it. At least I hit my 10k target. Or do I simply say that yesterday was a good result given how I felt most of the day. Today I feel better, so there are no excuses not to achieve both goals. That's the choice I need to make.

Has anybody seen my tennis shoes!

Activity Tracking Update

I've been using my Polar Loop to track my activity data for 3 weeks now, and apart from the questions I have about the overall accuracy of the data, it's been interesting to say the least. Interesting of course for someone who likes these sorts of things, overwhelming tedious and boring if you don't! I get that.

Since I last posted anything about the Loop I've added using a heart rate monitor. This can be paired (it's Bluetooth) with either the Loop or with an app on my phone. I've only done the latter so far, but will have a go with the Loop at some point.

The app in question is Polar Beat. I can use both Runkeeper and Beat at the same time, and I could, as far as I know, link my heart rate monitor to Runkeeper. The dilemma is that Beat is obviously integrated with Flow, the web based service from Polar, whereas Runkeeper isn't. On the other hand, if I want to set challenges in Runkeeper, I have to use it's tracking facility because it doesn't record manually entered activity against any challenge. It's also a case that as yet I don't seem to be able to get Beat to post activities to either Facebook or Twitter so that impressed and admiring friends can feel guilty about the exercise they're not getting!!

So, apart from the issue of where I store all the boring stats about how far I've walked, run, jogged or moved on a tennis court, I've discovered the fairly obvious fact that when I play tennis it's easy to reach my daily goal and when I don't I have to do something else instead. What is helpful, and interesting to me at least, is to see what kind of exercise I'm doing. I know about heart rate zones and progressive overloading etc from my PT studies, but having a simple graphic showing me that data is nice. I haven't had to sit down and create a spreadsheet to do it for me, it's just all done on the website.

So far I've managed to exceed my daily activity goal everyday. Some days by small margins, others by quite some distance. Last Friday, for example, I managed 300% of my daily goal. Now, because the Polar Loop is a simple device, I'm not exactly sure what constitutes my daily goal, although I can hazard a guess from the "to go" information and what I personally have to do to reach it. According to Polar the level 3 goal (that's the highest one) is about 1.5 hours of high intensity exercise.

Beyond all this information and data, the big question has to be, "Does it keep me motivated?" I think the answer is yes. By monitoring my activity I do tend to check it and make sure I reach my goal rather than assuming I've done enough on the basis of how I feel. But then again, as I've said before, a simple pedometer can do that for you. In the end it comes down to one simple thing: Whatever it takes for you to get out and get moving, it has to be worth it. I have my gadgets, you'll find your motivators if you really want to.


Just in case you're interested, here's the summary from 29th December to today. Distance and steps are from actual steps and body movements made, which is why it overestimates steps.

December 2014 walking stats

I'm not planning on going far in the next couple of hours, in fact staying awake will be enough of a challenge! I'm not big on seeing in the new year.

Anyway, as December ends, it's time to look at the numbers once again. The bear facts are as follows:

Steps taken: 398898
Approx. mileage: 199.45

With no missed days that makes it 122 consecutive days over 10k and a grand total since 1st September of 1592575 steps. My biggest day was 18971, and there were several days over 15k.

So I quite pleased with the effort but now I need to up the intensity of I going to get any fitness benefit. 10k walking will always help keep my heart healthy, but I'm interested in improving my fitness too. Interestingly I set out today to run/walk to the gym for a swim. I actually ran almost all the way. That's about 3 miles, 4.5Km. Knee problems have stopped me running for a long time, but today it just felt okay to run. I'm not planning any long distances, but if I can begin to run 5k on a regular basis that would be great.

The only problem is that the more running I do the fewer steps I take over a given distance. At the moment I estimate I take 20% fewer steps per Km when I run compared to walking. Consequently I'd have to run about 10Km a day to do the 10k steps I do walking 8Km. Given that I ran 4.5Km is 30 minutes, 10Km would take about 66 minutes, which is still faster than I reckon it takes to walk 8Km, but that's all academic given that I can't yet run 10Km!!

What I'll probably do is continue to do my favoured interval training and then do some additional walking.

Just playing with a couple of apps

It's not easy to run two activity apps at the same time, you have to start one and then the other, but I thought it might be quite interesting to run Runkeeper and Polar Beat side-by-side this morning.

There's not a lot to say really about the two programmes. The possible value of PB is that it links to my new Polar Loop, at least I think it does. It's all a bit confusing to be honest.

Anyway, with so many ways to capture all your activity data the only thing that is probably missing is the motivation to get up and do something!!

I've had my Loop for a few days now and it is quite insightful to see how the day pans out. Long periods of sitting, punctuated by little bits of movement with the occasional bursts of frantic activity as I hurl myself around a tennis court.



The one thing Runkeeper can't do is recognise interval training. I have to set it to running or walking. But that's not really a problem. Most of these apps will work with a range of bits of kit like heart rate monitors and stride measuring devices. I think you are either the kind of person who sets them up really accurately and keeps a detailed training dairy, or like me, you just use them to keep a rough track of what you're doing and to help with motivating you to get out and get moving.

A simple pedometer works just as well, but I do love a good gadget, and my Loop is a nice gadget!

Anyway I need to get ready to go and do a job before setting off for a drive to a tennis tournament. No problems reaching my daily activity goal today! I might blog a bit more about these apps later if I'm not busy trying to run round the block to earn some stars on Everymove!!

Polar Loop

Look what I got for Christmas!

Having done quite a bit of reading about different activity trackers, I decided the one I wanted to try was the Polar Loop. I looked at the Vivofit from Garmin, Fitbit and Jawbone and would love to be one of those folk who gets asked to test and compare them all without having to pay for them!

However, not being in that position, I had to choose. First of all I eliminated the Jawbone because it isn't suitable to be worn while swimming. The others, as far as can remember, were pretty much the same. I think the Vivofit didn't have a rechargeable battery, so that fell off the list too.

Anyway, I liked the look of the Polar and having made up my mind I pointed Anne in the right direction.

Setting it up has been fairly straightforward. Like most things these day, instructions are sparse, and it's a bit trial and error working out some functions. For example, the enclosed instructions point you to a website for the purposes of setting up the device, or so it seems. When you get there and register a new account it doesn't register the device. You do that at another website once you've downloaded the Sync software.

So far I've trimmed the strap using the enclosed guide. It's a bit loose, but I'll leave it as it for a while before any further trimming.

It will be interesting to see how the Loop performs against the simple pedometer I carry and the Runkeeper app I use from time to time. It will also be interesting to see if it actually motivates me to move more and if it helps me improve my fitness over the next few months.

There's quite a detailed website (Polar Flow) that tracks your data and keeps a diary for you.  So let's see what happens in the next few weeks/months!

Obstacle runs, boot camps and other madness!

I've just caught the end of a programme about the London "Survival of the fittest" obstacle run. It's a 10K run with a difference. Running through drains, streams, over hay bales, under wires and nets. Name an obstacle and it's probably in the race.

The best part about the whole things was the obvious fun everyone was having. Even the elite competitors had big smiles of their faces. Oh to be younger, more agile and considerably fitter! I suspect I might not even make it over the first hurdle in such a race. Interestingly, this sort of outdoor exercise is probably far better than working out in the confines of a gym. Every muscle group is put through its paces and worked hard. you are constantly climbing, crawling, pushing, lifting and moving in ways that are typical human movement patterns. No isolated exercises, just all-round movement requiring to shift your own body weight, nothing more, nothing less. It reminds me of the principle espoused by Mark Sissons in his Primal blueprint stuff about walking more, running sometimes, lifting heavy things from time to time or however he describes it. The idea is simple, exercise in a way that mimics what you do normally.

Of course, if normal is sitting on the sofa watching endless drivel on the TV, then things will need to change. But let's assume we all know that being a couch potato is not what we were designed to be.

I've just finished my 100-day challenge to move the equivalent of 5 miles a day every day. I'm currently on day 104 by the way! This is a good start if your goal is simply to be healthy, to maintain a healthy cardiovascular system. So now I'm beginning to think about what to do next. What to add to my routine. I'm thinking of planning my own variation of a boot camp. I've done some interval training before and I like being outside and doing primary body weight based exercise. I'm hoping I might be able to find a training partner. I think it will make some things easier, and it certainly helps with the motivation.

Watching the obstacle run made me wish I was able to do that sort of thing, but it also made me think about what I can do, or what I might be able to do. It's easy to wish away your fitness goals on the basis of what you can't do today. It's much harder to put a plan into place and get out there and do it.

So, over the next couple of weeks I'l work on a plan. I was going to say "perhaps I'll work on a plan", but that's a get out clause and is really just another way of saying I'd like to, but I know I won't.

100 days done!

Day 100 went smoothly with no injuries and no late night walks to make sure I passed my 10k daily target. A couple of hours tennis, a walk to the bank and back and an hour coaching took me over 13k steps for the day and over 1.3 million for the 100-day period.

Statistically, comparing this time round with the first time I did the challenge, I've taken more steps and covered more miles. The difference is only about 20 miles, which is about 350 yards a day, but there are other differences. The second time around hasn't had as big an impact on my health and fitness. I'm fitter now than I was 4 years ago, but I'm also 4 years older. That probably wouldn't be significant if I was 25, but at 57 I think it's been a factor. The older you get the harder it gets to maintain and improve fitness. The first time I did the challenge, it was part of a programme to get fitter and healthier. Naturally, because I was starting from a lower point, the improvements and changes were much more obvious.

Motivation is something else that has been different. This time around it was all about proving to myself that I could do this again and that I could motivate myself to keep going with only the simple target of hitting 100 days to aim at. Although I do feel better for it, I'm not sure I feel noticeably better or that if I'd measured my baseline fitness it would have improved over the 100 days.

Anyway, here are the comparative figures for the record.

2010: Steps-1,260,290, distance-630 miles

2014: Steps-1,301,291, distance-650 miles

So, what next? 10k steps a day is all about maintaing a healthy heart. It is not a fitness routine. If I want to improve my fitness I need to change one or more of the so-called FITT principles (Frequency, Intensity, Time, Type). I was thinking of looking to maintain my 10k a day habit until the New Year, but I do need to consider doing something else too because I want to be as fit as I can be. I'd like to do some circuit training, and I'd like a training partner with whom I could do that. Mainly to keep me motivated and accountable. Walking is fine, but somehow I find the more intense training harder to keep up on my own. Maybe I could start a fitness group, train with them and make a bit of money at the same time!

Countdown to 100

The walking challenge is going well enough and barring some major interruption I should make my 100 day target on December 9th. Do I feel fitter? No. Do I feel healthier? Again, the answer is no. Odd really, but there you have it. If feeling either fitter or healthier were the goals, then I'd be somewhat disappointed at this stage, but given that neither were of great importance when I set out, I'm not underwhelmed by the outcomes!

The goal was simply a matter of being active. I'm already pretty active, playing and coaching tennis, but I wanted to make sure I was being active everyday as far as that was possible. For me, tracking the level of that activity is a great motivator to keep going. Setting a goal like my 100 consecutive day challenge means that I can't start tomorrow or miss a few days and pick it up again. It means I can't get to 8 o'clock in the evening and think I'll do the missing steps the next day. It all helps to get me in the trainers and out the door.

I guess the obvious point is that you need not only a goal but also to know what will help you achieve that goal. If, having completed my challenge, I decide the next step is to improve my fitness, I will need to do two or three things. First, I'll need to measure my current fitness somehow. This can't be some subjective thing alone like how I feel after playing tennis or walking to the gym. It will need something a little more objective than that. There are some basic fitness tests you can do that measure things like strength, flexibility and endurance. Whatever you choose as your baseline criteria probably depends on what you're trying to improve.

From a tennis playing perspective for example, you might want to try and measure explosive power by using a jump test or endurance by doing short shuttle sprints. One test I used when I first did the 100-day walking challenge was to see if I could maintain 6.5Km/hour for an hour. I'm sure you get the point.

Once you've got your goal, and you've made it realistic and achievable (remember the SMART principle), you'll need a simple plan and a way of testing your change over the period of the plan. Simply repeating whatever you did to measure your starting point is the obvious way to do that. Thirdly, to get an improvement you will need to make a change to some aspect of what you are doing. The training principle is called progressive overload. In training terms you do this through changing one or more of the FITT principles. These stand for:

• Frequency
• Intensity
• Type
• Time

To get an improvement you need to vary one or more of these aspects of your routine. If you only ever do the same thing over and over again, you won't get any training benefit. You won't get fitter or healthier. Some are easier to do that others. If you walk 3 times a week you can increase the frequency by walking 5 times a week. If it's 30 minutes, you can increase the time by making it 40. Intensity goes up by walking faster or uphill, and changing type might mean running rather than walking.

My favourite approach is to use intervals. Intervals are simply alternating periods of high and low intensity activity. These can be evenly spaced, 2 minutes fast walking, 1 minute slower walking, or randomly spaced, 5-3-4-2-6-1. Each of the FITT principles are covered doing this type of training.

With the New Year fast approaching, don't just make some bland resolution to get a bit fitter or become a bit healthier, make a definite plan. You could even start right now and beat the New Year rush. Be the person who goes out on New Year's day for your mooring walk with a smug look on your face as you pass all the folk who've just started out!

You could even put in a request for an activity monitor for Christmas as I have done! That way you'l be able to track your activity everyday!!

The cost of getting lean

Earlier this year I was invited to do a couple of seminars with some dance students at a local college. It was a busy day, but very interesting. One of the questions I asked the students was about their ideas of being fit and being healthy. The point I wanted to make was that the two are not synonymous. Some very fit people are actually quite unhealthy and some healthy people are very unfit.

When you start a fitness programme you need to know what your goals really are going to be. Is it about fitness or is it about health? Are you confusing getting fit with getting healthy? In the world of Personal Training you will sometimes hear a reference to the "mirror muscles". Big guns, six-pack abs, all the things you might see on the front cover of the latest men's fitness magazine.

Inside the magazine there's usually an article detailing an exercise and eating regimen that will transform your body from the flabby dough-like consistency it currently has into the chiselled and sculpted adonis that adorns the cover page. No doubt it will work for some readers, but many more will be left exhausted in a pool of sweat and seeing a rather less than finely tuned athlete staring back at them from the bathroom mirror.

The truth is that some people have a naturally lean and well-defined, muscular appearance. There's a technical term for this type of natural physique but most people just call them something Anglo-Saxon and uncomplimentary! For the rest of us we have to work with what we've got and settle for something less than perfect. You may be able to get leaner, but you won't have all those impressive muscles.

So what are the costs, the pros and cons of getting leaner or fitter or healthier? To reveal that six-pack (oh yes, you have one it's just that it might be hidden by a party-7) might actually require you to measure all your food, every meal of every day and to work out longer than you are able to sustain. In other words, it might just be too costly, both in terms of your ability to commit to the process and possibly even your overall health.

In an interesting article about the costs of different lifestyles, expressed in terms of body fat percentage, Ryan Andrews & Brian St. Pierre set out some interesting information. Personally I believe that body fat percentage is a far better measure that BMI, particularly if you are in any way athletic or playing sports regularly. If you're a 6'3" rugby forward weighing it at around 18.5 stone, then your BMI would say your obese even if your BF% is only 12.

So, as the weeks tick down to the New Year and you're getting ready to set yourself yet another lose weight/get fitter resolution, think about what you are truthfully trying to achieve, whether it's possible and what you will have to do in order to reach and maintain your goal. Me personally, I'd love to be leaner, fitter and faster, but I am also hopefully realistic about what I can commit to achieving. That doesn't mean I won't try and reach some goals that are tough, but I'm enough of a realist to settle for the possible rather than reach for the impossible.

The article mentioned above has a really interesting series of graphics that set out the benefits and trade-offs for a range of BF%'s. It's worth a read.

Walk, walk, walk, walk!

With only three days of October left I'm well on my way to completing my 100 day walking challenge. I've already done 58 days, so by the time I hit the mid-way point of November I'll be three quarters of the way through and maybe even past the 1 million step goal. I've had a couple of injuries in October that could have set me back, but they were fairly minor things and with a little careful rehab I managed to keep going.

It has to be said that four years on and without the incentive I had that time, It's a more difficult thing to keep going. By talking about it and blogging about it I feel somehow more accountable and therefore more committed to seeing it through. After two months it certainly doesn't feel like a habit yet, and everyday I have to motivate myself to get out and put one foot in front of the other. Some days are easy because I play tennis. Take Friday for example. This week I'll have 3 hours on court which should mean more than enough steps. But then there's today. apart from the sheer determination to do it, I have no real reason to get out the house and walk anywhere. I might take my book, walk to Lakeside and sit in a coffee shop to do some reading, but that's about it.

I find the best thing to do is to get out as early as I can and do at least 45 minutes. That usually takes me past 6k steps and I feel well on the way to achieving my daily goal. If you only think about do 10k at a time, it's a lot of steps and would typically take me 75 minutes to do. Not many people have 75 minutes a day to set aside simply to walk. But maybe two lots of 30 minutes and then the odd stroll to the shop or round the block can easily push you past the target. You'd be surprised how many steps it takes just to get to the post box and back!

I guess what I'm trying to say is that you jut have to get out and do it. Stay determined, set realistic goals, push yourself ocassionally and make it a discipline not an option. So I'm going to get my trainers on, get my stuff together and head out.

Well, maybe in a little while....

Taking up the walking challenge again!

I can't believe that it's 4 years since I set myself the challenge to walk a million steps in one hundred days. It all started with a challenge to walk 200,000 steps in August 2010. From there I started walking every day and kept a record of steps for the next year. I remember purposely choosing not to walk my daily target of 10k steps around day 105 to try and avoid becoming overly obsessive about it all, but continuing to record and challenge myself over the course of the following year. In August 2011 I set myself the target of walking 500,000 steps in a single month.

Well I think it's high time I took up the challenge again, so I've started to load up my pocket with my trusty pedometer and hit the streets. When it comes to being achievable, targets have to realistic. I'd like to do the 100 days again, and I think I can do it but it's more challenging this time than it was 4 years ago. Back in 2010 I could easily hit my target by walking up to the station and back twice a day. I'd get up and walk with Anne, call in at the office or just walk home again and then later in the day walk back into town or wait until the evening and walk up to the station to accompany Anne home. Now the station is only 8 minutes away, about half a mile, and so I have to make a plan to go and walk each day rather than simply incorporating into my schedule.

We're back to the discipline thing again, something I discovered last time and often talked about when asked how I managed to keep to the plan. So discipline it is. Actually, the last couple of days have been interesting because I've had a cold and not really felt like exercising. So instead of seeing my walk as exercise, I've simply gone out to get some fresh air. I've wandered more than walked purposefully and the steps have accumulated. I find getting a good 30-40 minutes done in one hit is great. It makes a good dent in the numbers game and rather than looking at the pedometer in the afternoon to discover I've only done 1,000 steps I might look and see that I only have another 2,500 to go to hit the 10k marker.

So how about joining me in this challenge? Let's make the first target to achieve 10k steps on 10 consecutive days over the next 2 weeks. That give you 14 days to do it and the chance for a couple of restarts if something should get in the way. I might even offer prizes to those who are nearby enough to not need me to post them!! Or maybe you can offer yourself your own prize. It doesn't have to be extravagant, a water bottle for example might be all you need, or if I'm giving out prizes, all you will get!

The rules will be simple enough: I'll trust you to be honest about what you actually do and the only criteria is that you manage 10 consecutive days. If you don't have a pedometer then I'd recommend the one I use. It's an Omron Walking Style II. It's been replaced I think by the mark III version, but I've seen the MkII still available in a few places. I like it because it seems to work quite well and you can stick it in a pocket rather than having to strap it to your hip like you have to with some devices. You can of course get an app for it with some devices I'm sure.

If you don't have a pedometer or can't wait for delivery to get started, then why not use a mapping app to measure the distance of your walk to the station or the office. For the purposes of this challenge we'll assume that 5 miles (8Km) is equivalent to 10K steps. Or you could use something like Runkeeper or Map my Run on the iPhone to measure a walk.

So that's it. 10 days is the first marker. If you don't quite make it first time around, keep going. when I first started in August 2010 I spent the first month working out was normal for me. That's not a bad idea, there will be plenty of time for you to pick up the challenge, it's never too late to have a go. It might be that hitting 5K will be a big step up for you personally and that 10K is just a step too far (puns intended and apologised for too!)

I hope to get fitter and healthier as a result because in the end just being able to say I've done 100 days again isn't really the point.

Steps again

So, after a few weeks of "normal" activity it's fairly obvious that some days I easily reach my 10K target, and some days I don't. Nothing unexpected there. We've had a few weekends when we've gone to visit family and that's one reason my step count has been down, but as I said before, this is about seeing what normal looks like.

The next step, excuse the pun, is to work out some routes and their approximate step count. When we lived in Upminster I knew that if I walked to the station with Anne in the morning and then to meet her in the evening, it was going to take me past 10K steps a day even if I did nothing else. I also had a series of routes I followed and I pretty much knew what I needed to do in order to add that last 750 or 1000 steps at the end of the day.

Part of the fun of working on a routine for me is doing this kind of number crunching. Just putting in the miles is too tedious for me, so having a plan of where to walk and see how many steps that takes keeps me interested enough to get started. It takes time to build a new habit. When I was setting targets a few years ago I discovered that actually getting out and walking was fairly easy because I had a goal. Just churning out the miles or even the steps can become monotonous if you don't have a purpose that motivates you.

After a few weeks, I'm not sure how long it takes, I usually find a rhythm and I know I've got into a routine when I feel like running rather than just walking. I don't run long distances any more, mostly because of a knee problem that I haven't solved yet and that get irritated by running.

So, I think I'm all set to set a goal for September, and now I seem to have addressed a minor issue with my plantar fascia (see here for that story), I'm ready to set myself going. So fire up Runkeeper, dust of my music library on my iPhone and let's hit the mean streets of South Essex!

Counting steps-again!

I'm revisiting my walking 10,000 steps a day principle, easing myself back into at the moment. This time around I've decided to start by simply measuring how many steps I take a day without setting out to achieve the 10K goal. I think this is helpful because it gives toy a baseline from which to work. Anyone who has ever set themselves a health or fitness goal knows that starting is the first hurdle, but once you start, the initial phase is full of enthusiasm. This can lead to over extending your efforts, and then it's down the slippery slope of relapse and failure through injury or boredom!

Getting a baseline is also useful because it tells you the truth about how sedentary you've become. It might surprise you and tell you that you're more active than you thought, but I suspect the former is more likely. It's important at this stage to record the data. It might sound a bit OCD to do that, but you need to know where you started. Getting fitter and healthier (the two are not the same) takes time and discipline. You will need a way of measuring the changes and it won't just be through the scales.

Once you have your baseline data, then you can start to get a bit more active. I'd suggest (assuming you have no medical reason not to do this) that you find a route that's a mile long and see how long it takes to walk it comfortably. Then maybe try it again and do it as quickly as you can without having to stop. control your pace and note down the times. This will give you another measure.

Having done my challenge before I know that I can walk 4 miles (6.Km) in an hour when I've been practicing. That's not too fast but fast enough. I also know that I can sustain that over at least 5 miles without any problems. That will be one of my first tests, to go out and see if I can walk 4 miles in an hour. This will help me work out how fit I am compared with two years ago.

Being healthy is another thing, and that really comes down to getting out of breath for at least 30 minutes 3 to 5 times a week. Given that I play tennis 3 times in an average week and at least 1.5 hours of that is playing singles, doing the extra walking will do the healthy part. fitness only improves with a progressive increase in effort. The technical term is 'progressive overload', and you get this by changing at least one of the following principles:

Frequency
Intensity
Time
Type

So, for example, if you're walking your 10,000 steps a day and your fitness has improved over say 3 to 4 weeks, the next stage will need you to change of of these principles. But you might not have any more time available, so you can't walk for longer or more often. The easiest thing to do is to find a hill to add to your route. That will change the intensity. Easy if you live in Nottingham, where I grew up, less easy if your out in the fens! The other choice would be to change you speed. Walk faster, even add a little bit of running. When I go out walking I sometimes run for short bursts, say 3-4 minutes. That pushes up the intensity quite nicely.

The point of this is that it's not actually that complicated to do something about improving health and fitness. small changes, discipline and determination go a long way, provided that is that you get off the couch and into those rather too clean pair of trainers you keep hidden at the back of the wardrobe.

Not quite ATP, but fun!

Well, with Wimbledon just around the corner, I thought I'd share my current tennis status with you! I started to play about three years ago and, after some pushing by my coach, decided to have a go at a few competitions. I don't have any pretension towards greatness. In fact winning a first round match would be nice! But, because I've entered one competition and just taken part is a pre-qualifier for a clay court tournament (lost again!), I now have a national ranking! It's not that impressive, but it's fun to see oneself on a list! Here are the details after one result.

I'm in a few grass court competitions over the summer, so you never know by the end of the season I may have accumulated a whole two or even three points!

Getting through a first round match is my first goal. After that we might just have to try and take over the world!