Plan was to go to the running track today but it seemed everything conspired against me. Long day at work and got into Ivor the engine with George at home.

Went to the gym for 45 mins instead - if there is anything you haven't heard before just put it into youtube.

Squat - barbell

Lunge - dumbells - forward/diagonal/sideways/backwards

Split squat jumps

Calf raises

Nordic hamstrings - a killer - professional footballers can touch their nose on the floor and come back up! (I can go about 10 degrees!)

Good mornings

Multidirectional hops

Skipping - one benefit of the blog, had this rope lying around and knew I should be using it, finally got round to it. I have new found respect for boxers. How do they do all that fancy stuff?

Core exercises - will list these in separate page.

Stretching

Hope to get to the track tomorrow - but made me remember some new research about the optimal order for different types of sessions. It is common teaching that your sessions should follow; SPEED then STRENGTH then ENDURANCE whether that is all in a day or for most people over a week.

However some new research looking at muscle biochemistry has focused on two enzymes mTORC1 and AMPK. Both are involved in the desired response to exercise - AMPK by endurance and mTORC1 by strength training - however AMPK can turn mTORC1 off but the effect doesn't happen the other way round. Therefore if you go to the gym, lift weights and then go for a run the run stops the gains from the gym. If you go for a run and then go to the gym both training effects continue!

This is a little simplistic but I just wanted to get to the bottom line - the order in which you do things can have a profound effect. There are a series of rules based on this new research which i'll discuss soon.

The other issue from today which I have to continually remind myself is that you improve when you rest and recover not when you train. A lot of people have a problem backing off and taking it easy, leading to overtraining and poor gains just for the sake of "one more session"