The 7 Fitness Secrets We Had Always Known

Fitness Secrets

On a very hectic schedule with efforts to balance work and life, being fit is always necessary. Whether going to the gym, doing home workout routines and yoga, a lot of people haven’t considered these fitness secrets that we have always known. For the reason, that physical fitness does not just involve your body, but your mind as well.

Be conscious and composed

To stay fit means staying mindful about you. Be observant on your moods and emotions. If you are feeling anxious, acknowledge it and take three rounds of deep breathing. This helps in re-oxygenating the blood, hence, you could bring you’re A-Game before working out. This will give you the best results. Playing your favourite song super loud as mood music also helps in setting your mind.

Have a Tea Time

Taking a sip of caffeine could support in boosting your workout as it stimulates adrenal glands, thus improving endurance. A good hour before heading to the gym, taking a shot of matcha green tea could not only boost your performance but also gives you mental clarity. This is due to the potent antioxidants found in the drink. 

Take a Break

We have always put in mind that more workout means more progress, but is it? Rest has always been overlooked, yet it is the most important aspect of fitness. Over-training yourself could cause fatigue, given the volume and intensity of your routines. Oftentimes, we disregard muscle and joint pains and injuries just to keep ourselves in the fitness loop. Little do we know when the body is at rest, it is when physiological changes occur. A good eight-hours sleep and a break from time to time during workouts and exercise are substantive.

Less is more

We have always thought that the heavier the weight the more toned our body is. But for the ladies, lifting more and more weight could cause bulker arms and shoulder. To achieve sexy and slender, keep in mind that less is more. Keep the weights on the low and increase the reps; the more muscles you work out, even on low scales, would be very helpful. This also applies to the guys. If you just started working out, this principle is also imperative in the gradual development of your muscles.

Visual Aids

If you have been battling over going to the gym or not, it is because you lack motivation. Treating fitness as a competition rather a marathon would be a mental dilemma. Keep your eyes on the long-term goals as you build a strong success plan. Be specific in your schedule, write it down and put it somewhere you would always sweep your eyes to. With that, you are always reminded of your motivations.

Variety is the key

Steady and conventional are not a thing when you are achieving a certain physiological goal. You need to keep challenging yourself.  A change in routines is always an imposed need for development. Shift your exercises for beginners, intermediate and advance. Once you have achieved your goal, choose what routines you are going to maintain.

Be consistent

All work requires effort. In that case, working out should take more than just “enough”. It doesn’t mean you have to surprisingly push your body to the extremes but to be consistent and invest effort in your practice. Keep it fun and enjoyable, but at the same time keep it regular. A good week of training deficiency could cost you a month-long effort of muscle development. Hence, be very mindful of how consistent you are in working out.

Wadjarri people gather to ensure extraordinary family legend of endurance and defiance lives on


For generations, a Wadjarri family has whispered the legend of a man in their family line.

Warning: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains images and names of of people who have died.

The story of their ancestor’s exploits was passed down through song as generation after generation wondered at the man’s extraordinary escape and journey of endurance, determination, and family love.

But the legend had begun to die, along with the Wadjarri language and the elders who once sung the story.

Now Wadjarri man Gavin Egan is determined to ensure it lives on.

He has gathered several generations of his family to a remote cattle station in Western Australia’s Murchison region to share the legend.

Standing beside a vast red-dirt clay pan, he made a great sweep of his arm to indicate the site of the story.

For it was here that the story of his great-grandfather, through marriage, known as Isseka, Jimmy and also Isaac, played out some 160 years ago.

Wadjarri elder Gavin Egan is determined to preserve his great-grandfather’s escape story.(ABC Midwest and Wheatbelt: Samille Mitchell)

Family legend

According to the story, Isaac lived at what is now Yallalong Station in the Murchison around the 1860s, though some say it was later.

His people would camp into the hills bordering a large clay pan, and travel to the clay pan and a nearby spring to gather food, hunt and seek water.

But when European shepherds began grazing their sheep at the spring, the kangaroo these people relied on stopped coming, so Isaac speared a sheep to feed his family.

“He had these kids and of course, like all good fathers, he wanted to provide for them,” Mr Egan said.

“Aboriginal people are big on family, we’ll do anything for family — so did he.”

The sheep kill incensed European shepherds who demanded retribution and it was not long before police troopers rode out to the remote camp to arrest Isaac.

According to legend, the police marched Egan some 300 kilometres across the arid land to Mount Gould Police Station, where he was crammed into a single cell with other Aboriginal prisoners.

Mr Egan said his great-grandfather was then chained by the neck to other Aboriginal prisoners and marched another 600 kilometres back to the coast to be shipped from Port Gregory to the Aboriginal prison at Rottnest.

Historical photo of four traditional Aboriginal prisoners, wearing only loin clothes, chained by the neck.
The Egan family believe Isaac Egan was chained to other prisoners by the neck, much like those in this photograph.(Supplied: State Library of Western Australia.)

Escape

While no records existed of an Isaac, Isseka or Jimmy Egan having been imprisoned at Rottnest, the Egan family believed Isaac escaped from his island prison.

Some said he swam the gruelling 18 kilometres to shore, others believed he stole a boat to flee to the mainland.

Once ashore, Isaac began the long trek home — some 800 kilometres back to Yallalong Station — determined to return to his family.

A gruesome past

Filmmaker Glen Stasiuk has completed a PhD on Rottnest’s past as a prison, and produced a documentary on the subject.

He said some 4,000 Aboriginal men and boys were sent to Rottnest over its 100-year history as a prison, about 400 of them dying there in horrendous conditions.

“There was no sanitation, you just basically slept in your own urine and faeces and, if you were sick, your own vomit,” he said.

Dr Stasiuk said records showed about 30 prisoners had escaped Rottnest, though most were re-captured.

He’d heard no stories of prisoners having swum back to shore, saying even rowing back to the mainland would have been an incredible feat of endurance.

Escapees, and those who were released, were simply dumped on the mainland and forced to make their own way home, often through unknown and hostile territory.

“It would have been really hard for a lot of these Aboriginal prisoners to move back to your traditional country so anyone who did that is a grand story and one that needs to be applauded,” Dr Stasiuk said.

A Wadjarri man is dwarfed by a vast red claypan landscape in the WA Murchison.
The claypan at which Isaac Egan was captured, and to which he later returned to be with his family.(ABC Midwest and Wheatbelt: Samille Mitchell)

Recapture

Several months after Isaac’s apparent escape, Mr Egan said, the police returned to the Yallalong range where Isaac’s family lived.

The legend went that the police spied Isaac on the claypan, saw him flee for the hills on foot and galloped him down, the trampling hooves of their horses damaging his foot and crippling him. Once captured Isaac was again sent south to prison.

Some said he managed to return once more, later dying in the region of tuberculosis.

Whatever the case, Mr Egan was determined to keep the story of his great-grandfather alive by sharing it with his family.

“I think that he was a brave soul, I think that a lot of people took it upon themselves to defy authority and to say that we can survive, and we have survived with all those atrocities,” he said.



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HUUB launches crowdfunding campaign amidst endurance sport boom


Derby based HUUB, leaders in the £60 million UK triathlon apparel and accessories market, today announced the launch of their Crowdcube crowdfunding campaign as they look to raise a minimum of £250,000 to accelerate growth into new territories, and through category expansion and extension.

Olympic medallist triathletes and long-term HUUB athletes, brothers Alistair and Jonny Brownlee, have kickstarted the raise which will enable HUUB to continue to scale it’s direct-to consumer offering, expand the product range in its fast growing cycling category, cater for the increasing number of women taking up endurance sports, and grow its presence in international markets, most notably the US and Germany.

Originating in the innovation-led swimwear and triathlon categories, but now embracing all endurance sports, HUUB’s product range is focused on performance and innovation, incorporating scientific research, continuous athlete feedback and cutting-edge technologies. In 2019, HUUB turned over £4.8m and from 2015 to 2019 has achieved average sales growth of 32% year-on-year.

Despite the triathlon competition schedule being wiped out during 2020 as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, HUUB’s 2020 turnover is on a par with last year’s as endurance sport take-up has soared during lockdown. The business has experienced a huge increase of 681% in cycling apparel sales, as well as a significant diversification in audience demographic for their products across the board. Specifically, women’s wetsuit sales are up 68% and there has also been a shift in the average customer age.

HUUB founder, Dean Jackson, who started the business in 2011 by designing a wetsuit on his kitchen table, says; “We are at a really exciting stage of our growth, with new categories performing incredibly strongly and our product range across the board continuing to appeal to professional and amateur athletes alike. Our average order value is up significantly – up 63% in the last six months – and our direct to consumer business is growing rapidly too.”

He adds; “Our Crowdcube crowdfunding campaign is designed to help accelerate the growth we are experiencing on so many fronts and, I believe, offers a really exciting opportunity for those in the endurance sport community and beyond to invest in a brand that is on a steep upwards trajectory. And with both the Brownlee brothers already onboard, investors know they will be in the good company of two of Britain’s most successful Olympic athletes. Alistair also happens to have a master’s degree in Financial Economics, so he knows his way around a P&L statement and a good investment opportunity when he sees one!”

As well as the partnership with the Brownlee brothers, HUUB also have relationships with the likes of current female world triathlon champion Georgia Taylor-Brown, world triathlon series medallist Jess Learmonth and cycling world cup winner Dan Bigham, the latter of which is HUUB’s in house aerodynamicist.

Dean founded the business after losing his job in sport sales back in 2011. At the time he was himself an amateur athlete and, having worked with other sportswear companies that made claims that were not backed by any in-depth research, he wanted better. He therefore set about creating his own wetsuit which fitted his criteria of a performance enhancing suit that was backed up by research. When a fellow competitor heard Dean’s story, he put him in touch with a group of 12 private investors which lead to him being given an initial investment of £25,000. The key to unlocking further investment, however, was to secure £200,000 of orders and find an Olympian to wear his suit.





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Braitling is an endurance race, says anti fracking Hopper


By JULIUS DENNIS

Almost 14% of the Territory has already had their say in the August 22 election via early voting, says the NT Electoral commission.

Here in Alice Springs voters have been streaming through the early voting centre at the old ANZ bank on the Todd Mall.

In Braitling, where the grand total of seven candidates are jockeying for around 5600 votes, 693 ballots are already in the box, in an electorate that will surely go down to the wire.

Independent candidate for Braitling Kim Hopper says that with so many days of early voting, whoever comes out on top in Braitling will be the winner of  “an endurance race.”

Ms Hopper, who is running on a pro-renewable, anti-fracking policy slate, says that the implementation of a Safe Drinking Water Act is essential for the future of the Territory.

“At the moment water testing regimes in most of our bush communities are legally unenforceable, unregulated and the water supplier (usually Indigenous Essential Services) is not legally accountable to residents.

“There are no enforceable minimum drinking water quality standards across the NT, and drinking supply is unlicensed in remote communities (unlike major towns). 

“The water crisis is set to intensify with a huge number of communities across the NT at risk of running out of drinking water as we enter a hotter, drier climate with less certain rainfall,” says Ms Hopper.

“Many more have been left for years to drink water with unsafe levels of contaminants caused by reckless mining and government neglect.”

The Independent says while a Safe Drinking Water Act would hold people and organisations accountable, vested interests and poor policy are the heart of the cause of these problems.

“The Gunner Government’s regulatory framework for water is wholly inadequate to protect our water supplies from high-risk activities like gas and oil fracking. 

“Fracking, supported by Labor and the CLP, is an extremely water intensive industry, and undermines the Territory’s fragile water security.

“A single fracked well can use up to 60 million litres of water. There exists a wealth of peer reviewed scientific literature that demonstrate the risks fracking poses to water.”

Ms Hopper points to the NT Government’s own inquiry conducted in 2017, as proof of the dangers posed to the Territory’s water supply by fracking. 

That inquiry found that the data regarding the NT’s water supply was “insufficient to permit the risks associated with the development of any onshore gas industry in the NT to be assessed.”

Ms Hopper says legislative action must be taken to stop SANTOS and Origin Energy from accessing the nearly 400 million litres of water they have been permitted from the Barkly tablelands, an area that is currently in extreme drought. 

For Ms Hopper, all of this ties into reducing government debt.

Ms Hopper says, as in Independent, she would fight for legislation that enshrines confidence in the fact that “liveability of our Arid Zone is at the forefront of our Government’s agenda”.

By doing this, the government can attract investment and make the Territory the “renewables powerhouse” it should be.

This in turn would create jobs and drive up the population and ease debt, says Ms Hopper.

Every policy sticking point and difference will likely make a difference in Braitling, where preferences are sure to play a role.

For example, Ms Hopper, who completely opposes onshore drilling, has a relatively similar stance on the subject to the newly formed Territory Alliance.

That said, they agree on little else. Hopper has placed TA candidate Dale McIver sixth out of seven on her how to vote card, indicating that the surprising anti-fracking stance of the new conservative party is not enough to gain her support. 

Instead, Hopper has placed the Greens’ candidate Peltharre Chris Tomlins as her second choice, followed by recently stepped down councillor turned Australian Federation Party candidate Marli Banks as her third preference.

The Battle for Braitling is already one-tenth over, but the result is impossible to guess.

Photos: top, the female side of the Braitling race; above, fracking wastewater, online image.



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MISSING: Endurance horse lost in Coffs bush


A family is desperately trying to find their horse, Akaysha, who went missing early Wednesday.

The chestnut mare escaped her paddock in Karangi and was sighted multiple times along Mount Brown Road with no luck of being recaptured, before heading into the bush.

The family who bred her, the Fosters, said she entered the bush at the top of Jacaranda Drive and Mount Browne Road.

After a desperate two days of searching, the Foster family are calling on property owners backing onto the state forest in the Boambee Valley and Friday Creek area to check their fence lines for any sight of Akaysha.

“There are a lot of peoples boundaries that back onto state forest, she could be waiting there trying to get in,” Akaysha’s owner and breeder Sharon Foster said.

“We’re trying to get a message to people in those areas to please go to their back boundaries and check them to see if there has been a horse there.

Akaysha is a 14.1hh chestnut mare with a white blaze, two white socks on the back and one on the front, bred. She is an experienced endurance horse used to heading out on trails.

She is microchipped, has a brand in the shape of an upside-down horseshoe with a nail in the centre and left the paddock with no rug, halter or anything on.

“We think she’s either heading towards the Gleniffer direction or doubled back and heading in the area she left.

“She’s normally very friendly, you call her name and she comes. She loves people and will come up to them.

If you have sighted Akaysha or have further information, call Sharon on 0429 692 299, Chris on 0439 403 337 or Isabel on 0429 669 947.

Akaysha (left) has been missing in the Coffs Coast bush for two days.





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