Walking benefits

Walking 20 minutes a day lowers the risk of premature death by nearly a third. 

A moderate short walk:

- Reduces cancer death risk

- Cuts chronic disease risk

- Improves your mood

- Digestion improves

- Leg development

- Helps heart

- Fat loss

Increase grip strength and farmers walk

Your grip strength can be defined as the amount of static force your hand can squeeze around an object. Stronger grip strength has been linked to a longer and more healthy life. The 35 small muscles in your hands and forearms are the muscles that are most used throughout your day. Mobility, strength and endurance in the hand and forearm should be good as virtually every activity or exercise uses these areas from playing tennis to opening the front door. Poor grip strength also causes injuries in other areas of the body, for example the shoulders. You don't want to be doing pull ups trying to get in that one more repetition and suddenly your grip awkwardly lets you down and you pull something. The best way to improve grip strength is with the farmer's walk. 

My journey so far

For my 50th blog post I want to write a bit about myself, my journey so far and why consistency is everything. I got into working out at 16 years old because I wanted to be strong, athletic and the physical specimen of a man, I performed body weight exercises at home focusing on full body training . Then from the ages 17 to 19 I trained at my local gym where I used a combination of machines and free weights. Despite going to nearly 20 gyms in that time and very regularly I became disillusioned with going to the gym for many reasons but I never stopped training at home and in outdoor areas that had pull up bars and other sort of equipment or just free space. After the age of 19 I focused on body weight exercises as well as free weight training at home with some cardio in between. My advice is never listen to people who say that you have to go to a gym to build muscle or lose weight. 

Body mass index (BMI)

The body mass index (BMI) is a measure that uses your height and weight to determine if your weight is healthy. To work out your BMI divide your weight (kg) by your height (m) then divide the answer again by your height to get the answer or you can use the BMI calculator. For the majority of adults a healthy BMI falls in the range of 18.5 to 24.9. Having a healthy BMI reduces the chance of developing health problems. An active life with the right diet and recovery is the key to staying in the healthy range and being happy. 

• Below 18.5 (underweight)
• 18.5 - 24.9 (healthy)
• 25 - 29.9 (overweight)
• 30 - 39 (obese) 

Aerobic and anaerobic exercise

Aerobic (with oxygen) and anaerobic (without oxygen) are two different types of exercise. Anaerobic exercise makes you get out of breath and breathe heavy by doing things such as lifting weights to improve your strength or running up a long flight of stairs/sprinting. On the other hand, aerobic exercise which is referred to as cardio is any activity that you can maintain for a longer amount of time. The easy way to tell between the two is simple; aerobic exercise is light activity that you can sustain for a long period of time like jogging whereas anaerobic exercise consists of bursts of activity for shorter periods of time like sprinting. Aerobic exercise focuses on increasing endurance and developing great cardiac health whereas anaerobic exercise specialises in gaining you lean muscle mass.