Fitness in 30 Days: Are You Up to the Big Challenge?

The winter weather can play havoc with your weight loss and fitness regime, and yet it is at this busy time of year that you should work even harder to protect your wellness and wellbeing. It’s easy to lose sight of your fitness and nutrition goals when you are either bored or frantically busy, and it’s also very easy to give yourself lots of excuses for not sticking to your goals.

 

One of the best things that you can do is to set yourself a 30 day fitness challenge. The best thing about this is that you don’t need to be super-fit or even belong to a gym to sign up to take part in this challenge, and – best of all – the routine can be tailored for your interests and individual needs.

 

The point of the 30 Day Fitness Challenge is to help you do something different every day (fitness related of course) so that every muscle in your body gets a workout at some point and in some way, and you do not become bored with your fitness regime. The structured nature of this kind of plan helps you to follow it and stick to it, and the changing nature can be really beneficial if you are feeling a little bit of the January blues. The fact that the routine changes each day also gives your muscles a good amount of recovery time in between each exercise.

 

In order to make your own personal Fitness Challenge, you first have to draw up a chart with 30 spaces, and in each space you should allocate a different type of exercise. These exercises should be in the form of mini challenges.

 

There are all kinds of challenges you can set yourself, such as doing 100 push ups, doing 100 crunches, moving a mile in any way you like, doing plank exercises and so on.

Categories: big, bored, challenge, day fitness, fitness, fitness challenge, fitness regime, nbsp, Routine

Brain Training: Could it be a Way to Keep Your Brain Young?

Your brain is not a muscle, but when it comes to exercise, you should certainly think about it as if it was one. People focus on the wellness and wellbeing of their bodies all the time, but rarely stop to consider the fitness of their brains. Few people actually realise that brain fitness is something that you can work on and continually improve. You can (and should!) exercise your brain every day, and the results can be hugely rewarding and empowering.

 

In order to get into the right mindset, so to speak, it is useful to think about your brain in the same way that you would think about a muscle. If you are working on a physical muscle, you can’t simply do the same exercises over and over again, because they soon cease to challenge your body. You have to keep varying the exercises and making it more of a challenge for your body. In the same way, you can’t simply repeat the same brain exercises over and over again otherwise your brain will become used to tackling them and they will not force the brain to form new neural pathways. You need to master the easy exercises and then push your brain on to the next level.

 

Your brain has an innate neuroplasticity, which means it has an ability to grow and change in order to respond to new challenges. This is where brain training comes into play. Studies on neuroplasticity show that the brain continues to grow and change during adulthood and that it needs guidance and challenge in order to ensure that new neural pathways are formed and the brain continues to thrive.

 

Studies have been carried out recently at Stanford University, which showed that just 12 weeks of brain training could lead to improved processing speed, increased mental flexibility and improved ability to perform working memory tasks.

Categories: Brain, brain continues, Brain Training, challenge, exercises, health, neural pathways, order, training

Local Companies Compete in York 10k Corporate Challenge

A 10k event in York is bringing together the city’s business community to raise funds in memory of cancer sufferer Jane Tomlinson. After being diagnosed with terminal cancer, Jane, an amateur athlete, spent the last years of her life raising money for charity by embarking on a series of demanding physical challenges before her death in 2007.

After the first York 10K corporate challenge took place in 2009, the gauntlet has again been thrown down to businesses in York and across Yorkshire to raise funds for the event, which takes place on August 4 in York.

Companies that have already given their backing to the 10k include Morrison Utility Services, Turner & Townsend Consultants, Balfour Beatty and Plusnet.

The challenge is for local companies to enter their own teams into the race and along the way raise money for local charities, including the Jane Tomlinson Appeal. The late athlete established her own fund in 2002, which raises cash for children’s and cancer charities.

Her husband, Mike, has described the York 10k as one of the highlights of the year for many of the firms who return year after year to compete. The event aims to help companies build team spirit, enjoy a competitive environment and help good causes along the way.

The York 10k corporate challenge is open to teams of 10 with an entry fee of £550 and to teams of 5 from smaller companies who pay an entry fee of £275. The race is run through the streets of historic York. And the company whose team finishes fastest will take the accolades from their competitors in the corporate hospitality suites once the race is over.

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Categories: challenge, Corporate, York 10k