Author: Kate O'C

Building dat booty: Curvebuilding with Corpao Fitness

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This post is for gym bunnies and non-gym bunnies alike and it’s about a very serious subject guys. A very serious subject indeed. So, buckle up because we are about to talk about the booty. The glutes. Dat ass. The wagon. The rump. The derriere. The junk in the trunk, yo. You catch my drift.

One of the nice side effects of being one of those people that plays a bit of sport and does the odd (or indeed more frequent) bit of training, is that your physique starts to shape up. Sure, we’re not all instagrammable fitness models (in fact the last thing I posted on our joint Insta account was a picture of my toe after my toenail fell off… true story: I had to shave my toe before I took the photo lest it was deemed just TOO gross by Katie, or indeed any of our lovely followers. But I digress.), but there is no harm at all in being bloody proud of the body you have worked hard for or when you achieve a particular goal you’ve set for yourself.

One of the things I’m working on at the moment, with the help of my long-suffering and eternally patient boyfriend, is squats – I have another post in the pipeline to talk about this some more – but one of the things I have read a lot about in relation to this recently is that squats alone does not a cracking booty make. Rather, if your goal is to work on the shape and lift of your butt, you need to complement those squats with other targeted exercises.

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REVIEW: The Castle Centre – Everyone Active

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The good people at Everyone Active have recently taken over the running of several local authority leisure centres in London, including The Castle Centre, Marshal Street Leisure Centre, Seymour Sports Centre and Porchester Centre & Spa. We’re pretty fond of their mission: to encourage more people to participate in 30 minutes of moderate physical activity, five times a week, and were totally delighted when they asked us to come and check out their newly renovated centres and their facilities.

The Castle Centre is handily located a 10min cycle from my office and on my way home, so I had literally no excuse not to go for a snoop around, and by jingo am I glad I did. I hadn’t been to The Castle Centre before the renovation, but I have no doubt that it has entirely transformed since reopening – the way it is designed means it is full of light and absorbs a huge number of people without it feeling overcrowded, which is handy if you are heading in during the post-work crush.

As you approach the centre, the thing that strikes you immediately is the super-cool, fluorescent sign that sits, human-height, in the floor-to-ceiling window on the first floor, above the front door. It’s the first glimpse of the vibe I think they’re going for in their gym. It’s erring towards a Gym-boxy sort of funkiness, but without being enormously overpriced and full of meatheads. Head up to the first floor and you’ll find the brilliantly kitted out gym – all the cardio and free weights you could ask for an resistance machines for everything, including muscles I didn’t even know I had. My only criticism of the resistance machines is that they aren’t truly weighted, rather you set the resistance by pushing a button that taughtens the cable which you have to push or pull against – so how are you supposed to know how much you’re lifting? Equally though, everything is well maintained and pristinely clean and tidy.

This leisure centre is truly inclusive and appealing to everyone, as evidenced by the packed, shriek-filled swimming pool during family friendly swimming times. This also makes for a chilled out gym – there’s people of all different shapes, sizes, levels of fitness and sporting interests. Sure, there are occasionally a couple of blokes gurning in the mirror whilst lifting with questionable form, but there’s nothing of the uber-lad about this place. I felt just as comfortable swinging a kettle about on a mat as I would have done in the privacy of my own bedroom.

As well as a fab gym, there is a good-sized spinning studio, thought the number and selection of spinning classes is a tad limited currently, with only two pre-work sessions a week currently. Being so close to the City, it seems a shame they don’t take advantage of the current wellbeing trend and offer more lunchtime sessions. Next door to the cycling studio is the large general studio where they have piles of equipment including boxing gloves,pads and bags; assorted dumbells, kettlebells and medicine balls; mats; steps and exercise balls. It’s a fitness class fan’s sweetshop. Which leads me to my main criticism of the Centre.

On seeing the plethora of kettlebells in the studio, I was intrigued. I love a good kettlebelling, me. So, on my way out I stopped at the reception desk to ask for their guidance on what classes I could book in order to use them. Unfortunately, I was met with a look of beffudlement. In fact, when I probed them on the Group Exercise more broadly, they weren’t able to give me much detail on any of the classes and couldn’t tell me what any of them entailed, other than that a step is used in Step. This was a problem I found when attending the Body Conditioning class, which you can read about here – though it has to be said, the class itself was enjoyable. In an attempt to be all things to all people, I think Everyone Active has written some seriously generic copy in their class descriptions, which is pretty unhelpful.

In all, I think the facilities at the Castle Centre easily rival the likes of Virgin Active and LA Fitness but the classes and their availability have got a bit of a way to go. If you live or work in that neck of the woods, give it a whirl.

 

#YourGoTri – The time Kate was finally convinced to try Triathlon

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It’s been a super summer of sport and between the Olympics, the Paralympics and the Brownlee’s demonstration of sporting brotherly love at the Triathlon World Series in Mexico a couple of weeks ago, “triathlon” hasn’t been far from anyone’s lips.

brownlee_bros

The Brownlee Brothers (courtesy of mirror.co.uk)

If you’ve been reading or following us for a while, you’ll know that it is Katie F, not me, who is the triathlete of the pair of us. I hate running with a burning passion, and despite being a reasonable cyclist and a not-terrible swimmer, the running alone has always been enough to put me off even considering doing a triathlon. So when British Triathlon contacted us to say that they were running a campaign called #YourGoTri to encourage new people into the sport by pointing out how easy it is to factor all three disciplines into your weekly fitness routine, Katie gave me a look that said “now you really don’t have an excuse”.

I guess now I really don’t. Continue reading →

Mini Recipe Book: Healthy, nutritious meals from Body FX

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We were delighted when Body FX approached us to make a couple of contributions to their recipe book designed to “help you understand the principles of eating for optimal health and supporting cellular function for targeted fat loss or muscle building gains”. This ain’t no diet plan, y’all, it’s a 45 page book of tasty, nutrient-dense recipes that are easy to follow and prevent you falling into the “chicken and broccoli trap”. Because man cannot live on broccoli alone, y’hear!

Click here to get access to the ebook (which, by the way, is FREE)

A whole bunch of awesome fitness enthusiasts and fitness bloggers such as Richard Scrivener, Danielle (Take the Lunge),  Amanda Bootes, Kara Godfrey, Jennifer Helen, Laura White, Stephanie Grace and Emma Campbell have provided recipes, as well as us. But you, our awesome followers, can find a little sneak peek of what the book has to offer below… Continue reading →

10 Problems Sporty Girls Will Understand

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RE-POST! 10 Problems Sporty Girls Will Understand #sportygirlproblems

These Girls Do

Here’s a popular one from the archives for you peeps – still as true as ever! We’d love to hear your #sportygirlproblems in the comments below or on Twitter

1. Your bedroom is perpetually in need of hoovering.

Especially if you play anything that involves wearing studded or moulded boots… Why is it so damn hard to get rid of every last bit of mud / grass / dirt? Or worst of all, these little blighters:

artificial turf

Whoever thought 3G pitches were a good idea has CLEARLY never spent entire weeks, post-training session, picking rubber pellets out of crevasses they hadn’t realised they had.

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Ditch the matchsticks. Get some sleep.

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I love my sleep. I mean I really love my sleep. This isn’t even the first time I’ve blogged about it. The only problem is that I’m not very good at it.

Once, when on an expedition trip to Borneo as a wide-eyed fifteen year old, I was told off by our tour leader for falling asleep on a bus ride through a city – “You’re missing out on all the sights!”. I turned my head and went right on sleeping. We’d been in the jungle for a week, ‘sleeping’ on hideously uncomfortable canvass hammocks and hiking for miles every day. I was exhausted.

Sure, I probably missed a couple of spectacular buildings and some exotic goods being touted on street-side market stalls, but frankly I’m not one of those people who subscribes to the idea that “you can sleep when your dead”. Rather, if I’m operating in a sleep deprived state, I feel dead. I can’t concentrate. I feel unwell. I can’t function. And that just won’t do.

We all know that a lack of sleep is bad for us – at best we end up grouchy and at worst a regular lack of sleep can lead to heightened risk of serious medical conditions such as heart disease and diabetes – so how can we make sure that we’re getting more of this precious luxury?

Our friends at Casper have sent us simple but effective tips and set us the challenge of pledging to make a change to our bedtime habits for a month to see how much of a difference it makes. Casper knows first hand that a lot goes into your sleep and your sleep routine but something as simple as heading to bed 30 mins early or even looking into a new bed, can drastically benefit your nights rest (and wellbeing)!

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For me the problem is no longer the discomfort of rainforest sleeping arrangements, but rather having a lot of thoughts buzzing around in my head, so I am pledging to put my phone down an hour before going to sleep and reading, rather than looking at a screen, before bed.

We’d love to hear any more tips you guys have for getting a good night sleep too – leave us comment below.

Good night!

Pubic hair. Yes, you read that correctly.

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I know this isn’t strictly to do with sport, but given the only time I really come into contact with this as a subject is in the changing rooms at the gym or swimming pool, I’m lumping it in under the women’s sport umbrella. The subject being: pubes.

That’s right people, roll up, roll up, I wanna have a conversation about our bushes. Our beavers. Our foofs. Our lady gardens. The grass on our wickets. Our fuzzy landing strips. Our carpets (whether they match the curtains, or otherwise). Our untamed shrews. Our shaven havens. Our vajazzles.

The other day I read an article extolling the virtues of something called ‘Bush Oil‘, a British-made mix of essential oils designed to make pubic hair smoother, shinier and healthier. ‘Delightful!’ I hear you cry, ‘what has that got to do with anything?’ Well, seeing as you ask, it goes some way to evidence the fact that many of us are turning our backs on the painfully trendy fad of waxing off most, if not all, of our pubic hair. In fact, I would go so far as to say, the bush is back. Hooray!

I’m not sure whether this is weird or not (you can be the judge) but the only time I really give a monkeys about the state of my wax (or lack thereof) is not in the bedroom – frankly, if you have enough time to worry about it during the throws of passion, you’re probably doing it wrong – rather, it’s in the shower after the gym, swimming or playing sport, when the only people who’ll see are other women.

Kim Kardashian once proclaimed that women shouldn’t have hair anywhere but their heads, and Victoria Beckham suggested we should all be made to have our first Brazilian waxes at 15. As if we don’t give each other a hard enough time as it is! We judge each other on so many other beauty standards – how clear our skin is, how much make-up we wear, whether we are too fat or too thin – do we have to eyeball each other’s nether regions and pass judgement too? Is nothing sacred!? And why is it that women believe they should be bare down there in the first place? A number of things, but primary amongst them, porn. There’s a school of thought which theorises visual pornographers actively seek to infantilise women, but on a simpler level, pubic hair is a no-no in the porn world because it gets in the way of a clear shot of the action.

That’s all well and good, but porn movies don’t ever show the realities of the potential side effects of shaving or waxing the old lady garden – or at least I don’t think they do; there’s probably a whole sub-Reddit devoted to the ingrowing hairs, infections and razor rash that I haven’t stumbled across yet. In fact there’s loads of benefits to sporting a bit of fuzz down there; not least of which is that is saves you the time, pain and money it takes to get it waxed.

To summarise, my boyfriend is happy so long as things are trimmed and tidy down there (which makes practical sense to me anyway – spilling out of ones bikini bottoms isn’t a feminist statement, and it will get your Instagram account deleted… that’s a story for another day though), but I am judged by my fellow woman in the gym showers because my pubic region looks too womanly and I’m not in a state of perpetual readiness for filming an adult flick? Great.

 

An unabashed listicle: 5 Motivational Quotes from Women in Sport

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A short post today, written more for my own benefit than anyone else…

I’m flagging. I’m having a bit of a wobble. Nothing major, just a bit of a wall, and as I’m sure all you runners can attest, a wall can be overcome with determination and the willingness to feel the burn. And boy is it burning. No, I’ve not run my first marathon, I’m knackered because of life in general. Masters Degrees are hard work – who knew??

So, in an effort to motivate myself, I’ve turned to our beloved world of Women in Sport for some motivation, inspiration and perspiration. Time to keep my chin up and power though. I hope they might bring a bit of light to anyone else who might be in need of it too 🙂

1. “Whoever said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,’ probably lost.” – Martina Navratilova

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The New Year Bandwagon – Ditch the detox and kick-start healthy habits instead

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It’s January. I had a hectic December and, much like everyone else, ate and drank waaaaay too much. On top of that, I am four months in to a significant change of lifestyle, i.e. student life, and playing a lot less sport as a result. Things were beginning to look grim. Not to mention wobbly. Something had to give, so here I am shamelessly piggybacking off Katie’s recent post about Dry January and friendly sabotage to talk about the January Bandwagon.

It’s still one of the most popular New Year’s resolution in the UK – “I will lose weight”, so people up and down the country part with wodges of cash to join gyms (a lot of Twitter angst was felt towards this by regular gym bunnies) and slimming clubs. Now, I’m not in dire straits by any stretch, so paying to have someone weigh me once a week and talk about ‘syns’ or ‘points’ wasn’t something I felt I needed to do, and as someone who already hits the gym of my own accord I felt fairly well equipped to take myself in hand, but having stood on the scale on New Year’s Eve morning to be faced with 69kgs it was clear I needed to do something. Now.

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Sport for girls should be pink

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Happy New Year, everyone! For my first post of 2016, I have been gifted a topic by a red hot (or should that be hot pink?) debate raging in Ireland right now.

[Sidenote: I wrote the first draft of this using a Bic for Her ballpoint pen… If you haven’t read the Amazon reviews I implore you to do so. For the good of your hand health.]

Whilst idly browsing Twitter this morning, I came across something posted by Her.ie magazine that made me double-take. An Irish company appear to be promoting a new product, marketed at women, to encourage the uptake of Gaelic Football by female players – enter, the Ladyball. That’s right y’all, the squidgy, pink #Ladyball.

Image from theladyball.com

Image from theladyball.com

“The all new Ladyball specifically designed for a lady’s game – soft touch for a woman’s grip, eazi-play for a woman’s ability, fashion-driven for a woman’s style. Play like the lady you are.”

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