This blog title may come as a surprise to you since you may not know me as someone who partakes in low-intensity, steady-state activities. I also did not mention this to many people leading up to the race, and even some of my closer friends were surprised to learn that I’ve signed up for an Ironman competition, albeit only half Ironman, and also a relay. If you have always wanted to do one but have
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So a study has been recently published and has concluded that one of the best indicators for cardiovascular health for adult men is by doing a max set of push-ups. This is a pretty big deal as this is the first study that shows push-up capacity being associated to chances of getting cardiovascular disease. This push-up test has been shown to be an even better indicator than the traditional running on a treadmill test which
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If you’re trying to lose some fat, and you know you ought to be eating less, but you just can’t help scarfing down your food as soon as the plate touches down on the table, then this blog post is for you! When you’re about to have a meal it also doesn’t help that you’ve been thinking about eating for the last 15 minutes and because of that your mouth has already started to salivate
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When you’re training HIT, especially in a group where others seem fitter than you (‘seem’ is the operative word), it’s kinda like browsing your WeChat Moments. All you see is people posting how great they are. They may be at a new restaurant or hotel grand opening, or they may be on vacation to somewhere exotic, or how amazing their food tastes. Everyone’s amazing except you! Hopefully you know that not everyone’s amazing except for
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We are not all that different - you and I. Pushing yourself to go to the gym and exercise is a miserable experience and I don’t even mean the activity of exercising! Just trying to convince yourself to go is an experience so unpleasant, it’s enough to derail any focused and disciplined individual - yes, even me. I am also not always at my peak performance. I almost always drop in strength and gain fat
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So you’ve been working out pretty consistently now for at least 6 weeks and you’ve seen some progress in your strength, fitness and maybe your body composition has even improved slightly - nice. But recently, you’ve shown little to no progress and so your motivation begins to wane. Your workout routine which you were so keen on before is getting bland and even boring. Time to change the workout routine and inject some new stimuli to
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So you have aspirations to get fit this year. Maybe you have written down some new year’s resolutions to go back to the gym. You may have been a regular gym-goer in the not-to-distant past or maybe you were even an athlete at one point. But you aren’t exercising now and you can’t seem to get started. You know you should because you constantly hear your friends mentioning how they run 10K every morning; or
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Less than a week remains as Olive Branchers make final preparations before this Saturday morning’s Spartan Race! Some of us may be feeling super excited, especially those who have done long distance sports or obstacle courses before, but others with much less experience in these settings may be feeling a bit nervous - anxious even! For a lot of us who are trying a new event for the first time, it can feel daunting and
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I’ve blogged many times on mental toughness (here, here, here, here, here, and here). And now, one of my favourite bloggers, Eric Barker just wrote another blog on it! In his blog, he provides 3 tips to improve your mental strength. Read here to become a stronger you, mentally and
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This answer from Quora is one of the better pieces I've read online for a while. Although, the piece veers slightly away from fitness and nutrition, the advice is all about improving oneself - and that is the fundamental mission of Olive Branch. It is a bit lengthy, but it’s completely filled with nuggets of wisdom that will benefit you. Read it - and let’s discuss! Comments welcomed! Read Matt Bodnar's What does the 1%
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