26.02.10
Posted in General Colin McNulty Stuff at 12:35 pm by Colin McNulty
I’ve just finished reading Sam Walton’s autobiographical book: Made in America, My Story, and I can tell you it’s one of the best books I’ve read in recent years. I’ll tell you why:
To be honest, I’d never heard of Sam Walton before I accidentally bought his book (yes it really was an accident!). I had no idea he was once the richest man in America, nor that he founded Wal-Mart from scratch, a company that he personally grew from a single franchise store to turning over $50Bn, and that now turns over in excess of $400Bn a year!
Sam was a very down to earth and unassuming man, who devoted his enter life to living and growing the Walmart dream. I say was, because Sam’s dead, and perhaps slightly bizarrely, that fact escaped me for the first half of the book. It was only when I realised that the book had been written nearly 20 years ago, and his picture on the front was clearly a man in his 70’s, that I thought he might be, something Google quickly confirmed. I confess to being a bit sad learning that, as you can’t but warm to the old fella and his affable nature.
What’s most amazing is that his message of hard work, quality products, devotion to your customers, and an unswerving drive for cost cutting (as a multi-billionaire, he always flew economy class!) is as relevant today as it was in the 60’s. I can honestly say, of all the books I’ve read written by entrepreneurs, this book has taught me the most about how to run a successful business. And it works for any kind of business, even a Crossfit affiliate!
What’s more as the book is nearly 20 years old, on Amazon you can pick it up cheap as chips, cheaper in fact: 1 cent in the USA or 1 penny in the UK! I highly recommend it; it’s a book that you won’t want to put down.
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22.02.10
Posted in Crossfit Workout & Exercises, General Colin McNulty Stuff at 7:19 am by Colin McNulty
My daughter attended the England’s first official Crossfit Kids class, at Manchester’s latest Crossfit affiliate on Saturday: Crossfit 3D.
Previously from Crossfit Manchester, Karl and Rachel Steadman are right from the off, launching a dedicated Saturday morning Crossfit Kids class from 9-10am, which happens to suit my Saturday morning schedule perfectly.
In August, Crossfit3D is also hosting the first ever Crossfit Kids certification outside of America. You can get the details off the main Crossfit site but places are limited; I’ve already signed up!
Anyway, as the first ever class, Jadzia was the only attendee! The session’s exercises included bear crawls, tuck jumps, short runs, situps, burpees, ball throws at a bin, with a focus on squat form. Then there was a frantic game of scatterball, followed by a general play session. Here are some pics, next time I’ll remember to take a better camera!
Bear Crawls in the warmup.
Tuck jumps.
Practicing good squat form.
At the top of the squat, you Stand like superman! It ensures hips go through the full range of motion.
Throwing shapes in the burpees.
How low is that squat?!?
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19.02.10
Posted in General Colin McNulty Stuff, The Zone Diet Blog at 5:24 am by Colin McNulty
This is what a kilogram of traditional South African Biltong looks like (50% beef, 50% venison), note the fist sized apple for reference:
Ok I know I’ve posted this from my phone, but I’m thinking that I need accelerate my plans to change my blog template to allow a wider layout. :-S
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17.02.10
Posted in General Colin McNulty Stuff at 7:18 am by Colin McNulty
There was in interesting article published by the BBC recently, entitled: Shoes may have changed how we run. (There’s an interesting slow motion video there showing barefoot heel striking! Worth a watch.)
The basic premise is that use of big heel padded trainers have promoted the heel strike style of running and that naturally we’re not meant to run like that. This is of course exactly what the Pose running technique espouses. If you want to know what the pose running method is, try running 400m barefoot on concrete. If you heel strike, you’ll soon stop!
The principle is that your foot is a natural spring and cushion for the impact of your foot landing on the floor whilst running. But this only works if your foot can flex. This means you have to land with the ball of your foot, i.e. the pad behind your toes. This allows your ankle joint to flex out the impact. Landing heel first destroys your natural suspension, jars your leg and is the cause of typical running injuries like shin splints and dodgy knees etc.
So, if modern day running shoes with their thick heels promote an unnatural and dangerous running style, what shoes should you wear? I was soooo close to buying some Vibram 5 Fingers:
But sadly, I don’t have the right shaped toes to fit properly. However everyone I know who’s bought a pair, think they are the roxors! 
So I’ve been on the hunt for other “barefoot running” type of shoes, and would welcome any recommendations? I’m quite looking forward to the TerraPlana Evo Barefoot Running shoe out in a month or 2:
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09.02.10
Posted in General Colin McNulty Stuff, The Zone Diet Blog at 7:31 am by Colin McNulty
One of my news years resolutions was to give up sugar which has gone pretty well. I’ve had no sweets, chocolates, cakes, sugary deserts or drinks since 31st December. Yes it has snuck in the odd item of processed food here and there (sugar in smoked salmon and also in slices of Ox tongue would you believe!), but I’ve tried ahrd to keep that to a minimum.
However I have to tell you that this has not been easy. In fact, as I’ve given up smoking twice in my life, I have the experience to tell you that giving up sugar is as hard as giving up the cigs! So rightly or wronging, I had a thought. I wondered if perhaps giving up entirely was the wrong thing to do, and maybe I should allow myself a day off, once a month say?
However what I don’t want to do is make chocolate / sugar etc to be a “treat”. Or this to be something that I start and stop on a whim. The trick to dietary change is just that, to change your diet, and to do that on a permenant basis. Especially as really sugar is bad for you. Despite the protestations to the contrary you’ll find on the internet, the world is slowly coming round to the idea that sugar is the root cause of diabetes. And this week I’ve read that they are linking sugar to pancreatic cancer now.
However last night I decided to have that day off. Or night as it really was. I’d been shopping for my weeks food and loaded up on sugary carbs in the form of a large pile of chocolate. I was going for the aversion therapy approach (you know, catch a kid with a cigarette and make him smoke the packed till he’s sick) and I can tell you, it damn near worked too!
By the end of the evening I could barely bring myself to finish the last of it. Not only was I feeling sick, I felt terribly lethergic too. Had no energy and pretty much didn’t want to do anything. I was in a major insulin induced low.
This morning was worse; I could barely get out of bed. I had what my family has coined: a proper Carb-over. I feel bloated too and the scales show that I’m 2lbs heavier than yesterday. Maybe the aversion therapy has worked, as certainly I can’t contemplate the idea of doing this again!
Hopefull I’ll feel better by this afternoon when I’m off down the gym. Breakfast this morning is roast lamb, strawberries and milk. Yum!
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08.02.10
Posted in General Colin McNulty Stuff, The Zone Diet Blog at 10:10 pm by Colin McNulty
I ate something tonight which I’m sure satisfies on a level that most food simply can’t manage. Here’s what I did:
- Take a leg of lamb, on the bone.
- Season simply with a little oil, mixed herbs (or rosemary if you prefer) some pepper and salt if you must.
- Bang in the oven at a high temp say 230 degs C for 20-30 mins.
- Reduce the temp to 140 degs and cook for another 45 mins (more or less as you prefer)
- Take out an leave to rest, covered in kitchen foil, for 15 mins.
Now as I was cooking this for cold meat to eat over the next few days, I took a small sharp knife and cut of most of the meat. Actually I cut off all the meat I could, and you can get a reasonable amount off if you take your time.
But here it comes. When left with the still warm bone, pick that sucker up and get to gnawing on it! Go on, get those teeth in there, in all the nooks and crannies. Use those incisors and canines for what nature intended and rip that meat off.
I tell you, there is *nothing* more satisfying than chewing on a warm roasted bone (don’t forget to suck the marrow out of the bone too!). What really shouldn’t be amazing either, is that your teeth are far better at getting the last bits of meat off, than a knife will ever be. It’s almost like they were designed for the job…. spooky! 
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03.02.10
Posted in Crossfit Workout & Exercises, General Colin McNulty Stuff, The Zone Diet Blog at 9:42 pm by Colin McNulty
I’m experimenting with dropping my carb intake a bit and upping my fats. I’m still doing about 15 blocks per day of protein, but only 8-9ish of carbs and about 30 of fat. And to be honest, I’m feeling pretty good this week.
Did 2 major WODs this week, yesterday’s Crossfit Snatch workout which was damn hard but I managed it. And today I did:
- Clean & Jerk singles up to 3 x 90kg. Just concentrating on technique.
Then I did the WOD off the main Crossfit site: Kelly, which is:
- 5 Rounds For Time
- Run 400m
- 30 Box Jumps
- 30 Wall Balls 20lbs
I only had an 11lb ball, but that didn’t stop it taking 37:59 minutes. Not a great time, but I’m not displeased considering how few proper Crossfit metcon workouts I’ve done in the last 3 months.
As ever, whilst I’m actually doing the workout, I’m thinking “Why the hell am I doing this to myself?” About 30 minutes later, I think “That wasn’t so bad.” and an hour later I think “That was great, can’t wait to do it again!” It’s a total Statler and Waldorf moment! Lol.
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02.02.10
Posted in Crossfit Workout & Exercises, General Colin McNulty Stuff, Olympic Weightlifting at 8:07 pm by Colin McNulty
Today I did Saturday’s workout from the main Crossfit site, it looked fun:
Seven rounds for time of:
- 95 pound Power snatch, 7 reps
- 95 pound Snatch balance, 7 reps
- 95 pound Overhead squat, 7 reps
95lb doesn’t compute too well to kg, and at the last minute I had an inkling that it could be harder than it looked (the rafts of DNFs on the main site was the hint!) so I plumbed for 40kg, which is exactly 1/2 my body weight at the moment.
I’m glad I did, man that sucked! Lifting half body weight over head 147 times was never going to be easy, and do to resting after each exercise, I actually ended up doing 7 more Snatches (to get the bar up for the OHSs). It was a pretty poor time of 32:55 and I was whacked at the end. That’s the longest Crossfit workout I’ve done in a while.
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