I absolutely love the soft shell jackets as they are perfect in so many weathers which for this country is ideal. They are such a great fit for a women’s practical jacket as quite often with practicality comes baggy and frumpy. The black jacket with the hood looks smart enough for work days as well as walking days and the fact that is is water resistant is a brilliant bonus. The fleece lining offers just the right amount of warmth for cool summer / spring days and those warm autumn/winter days so is an all round practical jacket.

The soft shell jacket without the hood was ordered in teal, a gorgeous new colour added to the soft shell range within Mountain Warehouse collection. The colour is strikingly different to those already on offer within the ladies department of most stores so was really appealing. This jacket offers the same benefits with it’s soft fleece lining and water resistant outer as well as the great shapely fit that I love about these jackets. Ideal for those days where there’s no rain forecast but the day is still a little chilly. The benefit of there being no hood is you can also pop a body warmer or gilet over the top without having to contend with a hood.

The sandals are super comfortable and totally practical for a summer walk when you just don’t want to put socks on. They are available in two colours and I went for the beige and orange combination. The soles are heavily cushioned so they absorb all the impact of fast walking as well as the stones that you can so easily feel through standard fashion sandals. They are adjustable via 2 Velcro straps so can be fitted to suit. The down side of the sandals is that for me, a woman in my thirties, they are possibly too practical looking and could benefit from some aesthetic changes to make them into a more fashionable style. If practicality and comfort is what you’re looking for, these sandals are ideal and very affordable.

I was non weight bearing in a cast, for those who know you loose muscle very quickly and my calf shrank. I remained non weight bearing for 10 weeks, virtually housebound and bored. I can quite easily say that I did a lot of orthopaedic research and found lots of stories on the Internet, all different and whilst I tried to work out how quickly I would recover and regain previous function I could not identify a clear pathway, what I did find was the plethora of rehabilitation equipment available to support recovery.

When my cast was removed I hoped that I would be walking normally, but my aspirations were dashed due to pain, weakness and loss of muscle. I was using 2 crutches initially, and struggled with walking any distance.

I was lucky to have good physiotherapy support and following their advice obtained some equipment from 66fit, the aim being to restore strength, flexibility, balance and endurance. We know that ankles are exposed to many stresses, we often stand for hours daily and when running our ankles are subjected to four times our body weight, therefore we can not ignore the importance of maintaining ankle stability so that we can reduce the risk of injury. The use of this equipment is not only supporting my rehabilitation and recovery but also providing me the the tools I require to reduce the risks of future injury.

One of my initial regimes was regular foam rolling with a hard foam roller, this enabled me to work on my soft tissue by gentle sustained pressure to eliminate pain and restore motion, this helped my muscles recover from the work they were doing. This treatment is supported by the 8cm soft spiky massage balls which I use on my feet to relive muscle tension trigger points. These are really handy and can be transported in your handbag. I even take them into the office and use them during the day to help reduce pain and discomfort.

The 66fit trampoline is sturdy and able to take the pressure off my joints whilst exercising on it, it can be safely used indoors and is easily taken down by removal of the legs, then can be stored flat.  I have found that this not only supports my ankle recovery but is assisting with my cardiovascular health as I would be unable to run without it flexibility and cushioning. The spring protector fully covers the springs hooks and frame and provides protection from any injury.

The balance pods are made from plastic and are of good quality, I did order 1 set but should have got 2 to assist with balance pod walking vary the instability level. They are really easy to move and store, versatile and great to use for any fitness level. They have a sticky surface and best used on hard floors such as vinyl or wood.

The 66fit balance core trainer assists in improving proprioception, it’s  easy to inflate and to date has not required any additional air. This has helped me improve my ankle stability and function by challenging my ankle on an unstable surface with the aim of developing better ankle control. This is not only useful for post injury but also we know that ankle stability is important for everyday functions and training it can reduce the risk of injury. The balance core trainer can be used on either side and there are many exercises you can do on it, the dome remains inflated but if any air loss noted it’s easy to reintroduce. The unstable surface forces your ankle to work the whole time your standing on it.

There is a wide range of rehabilitation equipment available from 66fit, the equipment is good value for money and of high quality.

Functionally I’m improving and using the equipment daily, without it I would not be progressing as quickly as I am. For those who have had injuries having the correct equipment at home supports recovery.

It’s has an outer layer that is guaranteed waterproof for three years and a comfortable warm shell inner layer.

It can be worn outer only, inner only or together whatever suits you or the conditions. Here are a few pictures:

Worn together it is very warm, lightweight and comfortable with loads of zipped pockets. The two side pockets are fleece lined all around for hand warmth. An outer breast pocket and an inner breast pocket are cleverly concealed inside the coat zip flap making it very secure and weatherproof for phones, iPods or hand held GPS. There are two more pockets in the shell coat along with inner patch pockets as well.

The coat is mesh lined with underarm zips for ventilation on warmer days.

The peaked hood is a good size and can be detached and stored in the coat collar.

All in all, the Bracken Extreme 3 in 1 is a very good jacket and very good value for money.

When I tried this coat on I can only compare the feeling to if I’d got out of bed, got dressed then popped my duvet back around me to go out for a walk. On a cold winter’s morning when the kids need dropping off at school or the dog needs a walk this coat is going to be amazing and so cosy!

One of the features which is particularly impressive is the inner section on the waist which can be fastened before the coat is zipped up so even if you bent over to pick something off the ground (as you do when walking the dog!) the coat itself remains in position, no riding up or adjustment needed when you are back in an upright position. And when you have two children under 5 and a puppy, it’s surprising how many tricky positions you can get yourself into. I also love the cuff that pops over your thumb, keeping the sleeves in place and your hands that little bit warmer.

The coat length is perfect for covering everything up that you need to keep warm but not so long that you can’t walk freely and the hood is also a good generous size. I found the sleeves a little long however the Velcro adjustment strap fixed that issue by keeping the sleeves in place around my wrists.

I think the range of products at Mountain Warehouse is excellent and I struggled to choose just one. The website splits the range of jackets into easy to follow sections so you can find ski coats, waterproofs, soft shell etc and also shows size availability without having to click through several screens. Overall an excellent product and service from the guys at Mountain Warehouse.

I am delight to be able to write this review on the TomTom Multi-Sports Cardio Watch. I have been using this watch now for the last month and can honestly say I am very impressed.

The big selling point for me is that this watch will measure your heart rate without the need for an additional heart rate strap on the chest, well there is actually more selling points too so read on to delve deeper into it’s specs and why it’s a winner!

There are lots of GPS running watches out there so the first to know is what to look for and this is going to be different for everyone due to needs, one thing to really consider is that this kind of technology is developing at a very quick pace with new watches promising more and more. Sometimes I wonder if some of the watches cram to much in and over complicate things to much for beginner or elite.

I’m here again with a review of one of the latest gadgets to help you with your pursuit of health and fitness!

The Nuband Activity and Sleep Tracker

I’ve been using this tracker now for a few weeks so will give you my findings in sections below.

The Nubandis an innovative piece of technology perfect for those with an active lifestyle, wanting to improve their active lifestyle or anyone wanting to get active.

The band comes in a nice simple pack that is easy to open with even simpler instructions to get up and running.

The nuband is of oval shape with a rubberised case so its nice and secure on the wrist and look good.

The band has an accelerometer built into it to help monitor whether you are awake or asleep which is handy as sleep is massively important for your health so is vital to know this information in order to make improvements. As with most fitness bands it can tell  when you are walking or running while recording the distance you have covered as well as the calories you have burned due to the intensity of your exercise. This is all present in a handy app that is easy to use and read the information, you upload the info collected by the band via the speaker jack.

The band syncs to the app and records all the information from the last 28 days. This is handy to reflect on so you can change your work out, walking or sleeping pattern for better results. For extra motivation you can share this data with your friends on facebook and twitter!

One of the key features of the app is being able to set workout goals so it acts as your own personal trainer, a cool little feature is that there is a alarm feature to get you moving more if you have been inactive. For the beginner this is very handy as it is easy to dismiss moving more….no excuses! Plus there is a silent alarm (vibrate) on the actual band to wake you up in the morning so you should never sleep in anymore either now.

To charge the band is dead simple insert the nuband via the speaker jack to a USB Port and the battery lasts up to 10 days!

I think for anyone wanting to improve their health the Nuband offers great value for money at £49 and is sure to make a difference to your health as it has done with mine and the only thing I would say if I was being picky would be to wireless sync the data from the band to the phone rather than the use of the speaker jack.

Be sure to check out Qudos Direct on facebook, as they are launching a competition soon, giving away some free Nubands to people who like and share the Facebook page.

Thanks and stay healthy.

Firstly, the quality of both products were exceptional. They withstood my hardest punches over a two week period and they hardly look worn. The Training Gloves I reviewed were 16oz and are designed for heavy bag training, mitt work and sparring.

They have ‘Core’ technology designed for maximum breathability and cushioning. M:Core is specifically selected breathable, ventilated fabrics that regulate the temperatures of the body to help keep cooler for longer. L:Core delivers increased cushioning and protection, through a unique use of multi-layered closed cell foams. Provides unsurpassed shock dispersion and maximum absorption.

The Pro Hook and Jab Pads are one size fits all and are suitable for all boxers and trainers.The pads also help improve agility. Practice your combination shots with this excellent training aid!

Enclosed hand improves ability to perform precise speed combinations. Contrast target on palm for target practice improving precision and reaction. Secure velcro straps for quick and easy fitting. Two inch premium foam channels the force of impact away around the hand.

If you’d like to see more photos of the products you can see them over at my blog Father Fitness by clicking this link: http://www.fatherfitness.co.uk/unleash-the-lion/

Thanks for reading and keep training hard!

If you have read my last post in my blog section you will know that I am doing a 26mile cycle for Parkinsons UK in Durham on June the 30th this year.

I have been lucky enough to have been given the loan of a Keiser M3 spin bike to help me prepare for the event by RowHire.co.uk and can not thank them enough as its making the difference in my health and my fitness for the event.

Now me and spin bikes have history! and what I mean by that is that I was often found making comments when I was running a large sports complex that “Spin bikes should be smashed and have no place in a sports complex” and  “The money spend on the spin bikes could have been used on something better like cleaning products!” and “No one uses them in class I’m losing money so sell them”. It’s properly fair to point out at that the bikes in the complex where Argos jobs and really not user friendly (the seat was so uncomfortable and were always broken).

What my business blindness didn’t see was a piece of equipment that offers users more than meets the eye!

Fast Forward 6 years to 2013 and to the Keiser M3:

Sleek, Sexy, User Friendly, Quiet and Reliable! a real piece of art for a piece of kit! so much so much that I want to buy it!

Here is a quick summary of the Keiser M3 from RowHire

Reliable

• Featuring numerous patents in its design and receiving numerous design awards, the unique resistance system is what sets this machine apart.
• Traditional resistance methods were noisy, high maintenance, and inconsistent. The M3s magnetic system provides non-contact, no wear, no noise resistance.
• Couple this to the ply-v belt drive and you get  a hugely reliable machine for years of trouble free ownership
• Alloys, Stainless steel and high quality plastic guards give the bike exceptional resistance from corrosive sweat
• The fly-wheel is located at the rear of the bike to keep it out of the sweat zone
• Engineered purely as a gym class machine and located in the biggest and most prestigious gyms in the UK – check out your nearest David Lloyds!

Quiet & easy to live with

You can enjoy the benefits of your exercise bike hire without fear of disturbing the peace for family and neighbours.

• The magnetic eddy current resistance mechanism is perfectly silent
• The ply-v belt drive is silent in operation too, replacing noisy chains found in other machines
• With a small foortprint this machine is easily moved out of the way after exercise
• Long life battery power for the monitor enables you to locate the machine where you like with no messy electric cables trailing on the floor
• Stunningly designed with finely machined alloy components – its simplicity is its beauty

Excellent Feedback

• Simple to use monitor with no buttons to press and no menus to learn
• Despite its simplicity the monitor gives you information on:- cadence/watts/calories burned/gear/heart rate/trip distance/total distance
• Auto on/off
• To enhance the enjoyment of your exercise bike hire, we strongly recommend the use of a heartrate monitor whilst working out on the Keiser M3 and indeed undertaking other forms of aerobic exercise. This enables you to work at exactly the correct intensity for you as an individual to best achieve your goals and enjoy being able to measure how your fitness is improving. Use a polar coded chest transmitter belt to interface wirelessly with the Keiser M3 performance monitor.  Transmitters are available at our checkout or see accessories.

Deano’s Overview

I’m using the M3 three times a week for fasted steady state cardio in the morning at 6am, so with the M3 being silent is a god sent as my partner Kelly and my two children Brandon and Jodie would kill me if I woke them up. The other times I use the bike is for a quick warm up before I do more specific warmups for weight training and for Fartlek Training to help me with my event. The other great thing is that with the bike being so quiet I can have it in the front room while everyone else is watching TV and its not causing any issues (I hate to miss The Simpsons with My Wife and Kids).

The settings on the bike are brilliant I can move the seat up or down back or forward very easy allowing me to ensure its suits my height and leg length best not causing any injuries, this is the same for the handle bars and the pedals. The bike is great as its low impact and not damaging my knees and ankles more like a treadmill would if I was training very hard and the re handle that allow you to change the gear is OUTSTANDING! its the best bit as far as I am concerned. The handle allows you to glide from gear to gear without having to reach down and turn that annoying knob like on so many spin bikes meaning that the transition when training is more effective.

The M3 comes with a excellent LCD screen that picks up the heart rate form a POLAR heart rate band. The band I use is the H7 heart rate sensor as it links up to my iPad to show and records me how I am training on the polar app called Polar Beat. The M3 Screen shows RPM, Watts, Heart Rate, Time, Gear settings, Distance.

I am seriously impressed with this piece of kit and as I said earlier do want to buy one.

The other important thing to outline is the service Rowhire provide, the bike was shipped out very quick by UPS in two big boxes with simple instructions to follow and followup emails were sent with more detailed PDF files outlining more about the bike. The team are on hand at any point to answer your questions and very friendly and make you feel valued.

The website is very good and easy to use and outline key information and if spinning is not for you they Rowhire hire out water rowers which are another great piece of kit and the ElliptiGO  which is something that I would love to have a go of! It looks great fun! Check out the video below.

Overall I’d say if you wanted to improve your health without spending hundreds of pounds and hassle of joining a gym that you would never go to check out www.rowhire.co.uk for a easy solution!

Thanks,

I’m very pleased to be writing this review tonight as I’ll be showing you some great home test kits that will prove invaluable to you in the quest of better health and lifestyle.

Food intolerance is something that always causes a bit of a debate or confusion and getting the doctor to approve blood tests to check for this is sometimes impossible. Due to this a generation of Britons could be putting their health at risk by wrongly self-diagnosing a food allergy or intolerance, ‘Instead of having their condition medically diagnosed and treating the root cause of their symptoms, millions of people are needlessly cutting whole food groups out of their diet, (Dr Carina Venter, allergy specialist at the University of Portsmouth).

The other key problem is that people don’t understand what intolerance means. It is different to allergies as this is an immediate reaction that can be serious, “where as intolerance is much more common and people eat certain things and get bloating, headaches, aches and pains, migraines all of which are very difficult to pin point and associate with a food as it could be something that you have 3-4 days ago and avoiding foods is very difficult.”

Remember if your not assessing your guessing!

One Man’s Food, is Another Man’s Poison – Lucretius 50BC

YorkTest is the only food intolerance test on the UK market that has passed clinical trials and is approved by the charity Allergy UK. These food intolerance tests offer the most scientific approach available on the market and the most professional in my opinion.

The tests (bar the gut health test) is a simple finger prick blood test that allows the lab techs to analyses IgG antibody reactions to food and drink ingredients. Once you have your report back from the First Test you will have a simple yes or no. If you do have a yes then you can upgrade at a special price within ten days to find out what sensitivity to what food or drink you have. You then get a full report back like this one foodscan113 results.

3-4 (means avoid)- means you have raised IgG antibody levels to these foods and you should try to eliminate these foods completely from your diet. With the grading 4 is the highest and indicates the strength of your reaction. Although it won’t necessarily correspond to any severity of symptoms you may have. They advise removing those with the highest result first.

Below 1 (Borderline)-indicates you have a borderline reaction to these foods and may or may not benefit from limiting their consumption.

0 (No reaction)- these foods can be eaten without restriction, unless you already know these foods do cause you a reaction and you have already been avoiding them, in which case you should continue to do so.

You now have good strong evidence that you will benefit by eliminating the ingredient(s) identified, from your diet.

If you order any of these home test kits you will get a bio hazardous envelope, a finger pricker, an absorbant wand to soak up the blood and a small vile to place the wand in. Once you complete the protocol, you pop it all in the box and envelope and send it off in the post and await your results.

I have outlined the tests that YorkTest provide:

I received a rather interesting call a few weeks ago that made me smile. A company had heard about the running challenge I set myself over Christmas and asked me to review a product called the ‘Vibram Five Fingers.’ I said absolutely!

So what are the Vibram Five Fingers? I had heard of them but didn’t know very much about them. These shoes offer the exhilarating freedom of going barefoot with the protection and sure-footed grip of the Vibram sole. Five Fingers act like a second skin to shield your feet from rugged terrain and hot surfaces. They also let you move in a healthy, more natural way. Deano told me he had a pair already and he loved them.

Since I discovered they’re a barefoot running shoe, I’ve researched them loads. I plastered it all over social media as I wanted to get people’s opinions on them first. Some people were for and some against, just like any other running shoe really.

From what I read, I predicted the Five Fingers would take some getting used to. I did three small runs in them first and then I did a 5k, just over 3 miles. I’ve decided not to give this review any stars, instead I’d rather just talk about what I think of the product. I’ve been working on this post over the past couple of weeks so apologies if it feels a little bit disjointed. Let’s start with the negatives and then I’ll finish with the positives.

First things first, I don’t think they look great to be honest. I felt like I was wearing ladies shoes at first and my Wife laughed. Not exactly the reaction I was looking for! Secondly, my gut instincts. I found myself questioning the technology without knowing anything about it. I wasn’t convinced and knowing what already works for me, I ordinarily wouldn’t consider swapping to barefoot. My third and final point is the fact I needed to slightly change my running style. Not a massive deal but if you’ve been running for a few years, some people may find it difficult to adapt.

Now the positives and there are a few. Despite what the shoes looked like and what my gut instincts were, they were actually a really good shoe. Over the weeks I can really feel that my legs, core and feet are stronger. It’s difficult to explain to be honest but I just feel much, much stronger. I feel like I could take them off and actually go running barefoot. I feel like I could climb trees with ease and actually grip things with my toes. If you’ve worn them before you’ll know what I mean, or maybe it’s just me! My core does feel stronger too but I’ve been doing quite a bit of weight training and boxing over the past few weeks so it may just be that.

Here are a few photos I took from receiving the box to running in them.

The Vibram Five Fingers definitely increased my balance. This is one of the reasons why I decided to take them into the gym with me too. When performing deadlifts and squats, these shoes are absolutely brilliant. They also improved my posture and good posture equals a healthy mind and body. The benefits of barefoot running have long been supported by scientific research, coaches and athletes who believe that training barefoot allows you to run faster and further with fewer injuries.

Conclusion
I did say before I started this review that I’d be honest and I’m doing just that. In a nutshell, I’m impressed. Will I continue to run in them? No but that’s not to say I don’t recommend them. I’ve decided not to run in them because I prefer my existing running shoes, simple as that. If you aren’t happy with your existing running shoes, these may just be for you. I’m still wearing the Five Fingers in the gym though for boxing and weight training. I actually think they’re a very good, all round training shoe and I’ve definitely witnessed the benefits of wearing them.

One thing I always live by is ‘don’t ever knock anything until you’ve tried it’ and the Vibram Five Fingers are a perfect example of that.

Thanks for reading,