Weekly Health and Fitness Roundup: 2nd – 14th July, 2012

Posted on by Jacquie Tran

This week’s Inspire Fitness Weekly Roundup is a bumper edition, covering the first fortnight of July as we missed the first week’s roundup…sorry about that!  To make up for it, we are providing double the content in this post, sourced from blogs, social networks, and videos posted around the world.  Enjoy!

Blogs

“Don’t Wimp Out On Working Out”: When travelling, it’s easy to “wimp out” on maintaining regular physical activity due to the lack of familiarity of your surroundings, the change to your schedule, the desire to go exploring a new town, and so on.  We’ve written popular posts about exercises for travellers before, so here are some more tips from the Healthcare Traveler blog that you might find useful for staying active while abroad.

“Energy Drinks:  A Trigger For Heart Attacks And Stroke?”: Energy drinks are a relatively new player in the field of engineered (read: processed) beverages.  As such, there is little information about the potential effects of energy drinks on health.  However, as outlined in this post from The Conversation, there appears to be a growing case for concern with regards to their consumption, particularly in the context of heart health.

“Keeping A Journal Key To Shedding Kilos”: Successful weight loss doesn’t have to be complicated.  Stay accountable with your healthy eating habits by keeping a food journal, and you will be well on your way to achieving and sustaining a healthy weight.

“Level Up”: Dean Somerset goes through the “simple” act of moving from kneeling to standing.  But here’s the thing: this simple movement is often performed poorly, which indicates weaknesses in spinal and pelvic control, and imbalances between your left and right side mechanics.  Have a read of Dean’s excellent post to pick up tips on the important movement cues to focus on, whenever you perform any kind of exercise that involves a “level change” (e.g., positional change from low to medium to high).

Social Networks

— Health In Balance (@exercise_phys) July 15, 2012

And finally, to wrap up this massive roundup post, here’s a clip of Usain Bolt, the world record holder for the 100 m sprint, walking you through how he ran the fastest 100 m sprint ever, in a blistering 9.58 seconds!  If you get the chance, I’d highly recommend watching the recently-released documentary “Usain Bolt: The Fastest Man Alive”, from which this clip was taken.  It’s an entertaining, engaging, and absorbing insight into the superstar of modern athletics – well worth an hour of your time!