Fitness and Balance

One of the reasons you have a personal trainer is that you know he’s going to make you work hard and get the best out of the time spent in the gym.  Ok, maybe that’s two reasons. There are others. So when you arrive and he says, “Today I’m going to beast you”, you know ...

“Are you training for a swimming race?” This is what I was asked on Tuesday as I exercised my knee in the spa pool after a session of swimming which included: Kicking with fins – seems to help my knee Butterfly Attempts to breathe only every five or seven strokes Eight 25m and then three 50m sprints The last three were ...

At the weekend I went clothes shopping – in a charity shop as usual – for a pair of black trousers. Summer weight that I could wear to a band concert. I had refused to wear my winter weight ones the week before so turned up in my shorts. And got some ...

The aim of the nutrition plans I have been given is to lose body fat while building and then maintaining lean muscle mass. The specifics were worked out for me using my current (at the time) weight and body fat percentage. I followed the first one for six to eight weeks, except over Christmas and ...

Don’t be mistaken. Don’t be misled. The smile is not a smile. The smile is a grimace. Roughly translated the smile would say “If I ever get off this Bosu ball without dropping this 12kg weight on my toe, you are for it. Darrell you want me to do how many!? ...

I keep having clothing crises. The sort where you’ve forgotten to do the laundry and you’ve got to magic some clothes from somewhere before you can get dressed. Or is that only me? Well mine tend to be with a difference – the clothes are clean, just I can’t keep them up. Getting dressed for ...

Thanks for the picture Mum, but sessions with Darrell are nothing like this. He does not wear a pink tu-tu. My personal training consultation with Darrell Rabess was on 29th November, the earliest sessions could start was December, and I needed them to be complete before my Level 1 training was due to start at ...

I swam for Solihull Swimming Club until I went to university. By then I had developed a sensitivity to chlorine that means I have the symptoms of a head cold for the rest of the day after a swimming session in a chlorinated pool. A few years ago I started swimming just once per week ...