We all say it. This year we’re going to get fit, and stay fit.

And it always starts off well.  You get your sports gear on and head out onto the pavements for a run. Then you actually start exercising. And it’s hard. Very hard. In fact you don’t remember it ever being this hard. The task of getting fit feels near impossible, and with each session feeling as hard as the one before you just feel like giving up.

What you need is the new Nike Sportsband.

Designed to be used with their Nike+ software, this nifty little gadget (which comes with the Nike+ sensor)  is going to be able to prove to you that what you are doing is making a difference. And the best thing is unlike some coach that would shout horrible things at you this will just sit quietly on your arm only telling you what you want to know about calories, distance, pace and time when you look at it.

However whilst your Sportsband may be quiet whilst you’re out and about don’t think it’s not doing anything, because it’s actually busy collating all the data of your runs for you to look over on the band, or alternatively on the Nike+  website where you can analyse your distance, pace, time and calories burned, as well as set goals and challenges for yourself.

Available in a range of different colours that include blues, yellows, pinks and greys, the fabric is a 5% thermoplastic polyurethane/ 16% steel/ 39% plastic that is designed to be soft and comfortable against your skin and can be ordered for £39.10 direct from the online Nike store.

CrunchFu

If you want those abs of steel then you’re going to have to do those stomach crunches to get them, but staying committed to doing it can be bad.

That is unless you have CrunchFu. Designed to make crunches as near to fun as they can be, this app uses the iPhone motion detector to count your crunches, and on top of giving you a strict training plan to follow, it will also offer tips and allow you to take part in crunch battles against friends or strangers on the other side of the globe.

Available for £0.59 on iTunes.

iFitness

Probably one of the most useful iPhone apps we’ve ever seen, iFitness is like a personal trainer in your pocket.

Featuring over 115 exercises, this little app offers an indepth written and photographical explanation of how to do them properly to make sure you get the most out of them, and will also allow you to create training programmes and track your progress over time.

Available for £1.19 at iTunes.

Hundred Push Ups

We’ve been big fans of the Hundred Push Ups and Sit Ups training programmes long before they arrived on the iPhone but we’re loving them even more now they’re here.

Taking all the organisation and remembering how many you’ve done out of your hands, the Hundred Push Ups app not only lets you know how many you need to do on a certain day, but also makes sure you’re getting in the right amount of recovery time in between them too.

Available for £1.19 at iTunes.

Get Running

Decided you want to take up running this year but not quite sure where to start? Get Running is definitely an app that needs to find it’s way onto your iPhone.

Giving you three workouts to follow a week, Get Running promises that you’ll be running continuously for at least half an hour in just nine weeks, even if now just the thought of getting up tires you out!

Available for £1.19 at iTunes.

Fitness Pro

Similar to iFitness, Fitness Pro has a wide range of exercises for you to chose from and put together into a training program. It does lack the tracking features of iFitness, but does have one thing in it’s favour for all of you who spent a little too much over Christmas – it’s free!

Available free from iTunes.

Quickly becoming the modern alternative to the dumbbell, the kettlebell was first used back in the 1700s, and is essentially nothing more than a cast iron weight in the shape of a circular cannonball with a curved handle that loops all the way across the top of the ball.

Used as a secret fitness weapon for the Red Army, the kettlebell did not really come to the attention of the West till after the end of the Cold War but we’ve definitely made up for it since with the kettlebell quickly becoming one of the most popular pieces of exercise equipment on the fitness market.

Working to not only increase your strength, agility, balance and endurance, the range of exercises designed for the kettle also act to challenge your cardiovascular and muscular systems making it much more of a full body workout than using other weights, and has seen it become particularly popular with athletes and martial artists, as well as with celebrities like Jennifer Lopez, Penelope Cruz, Matthew McConaughey.

Much of the popularity of the kettlebell has to do with how effective it is. Offering a super fast workout, using a kettlebell to exercise not only saves time, something of great important to special forces who use them to keep fit, but also takes away that boredom of repetitive training that many alternative fitness regimes make you suffer. Add to this how exercising with a kettlebell will give you that toned look without all the bulky muscle and you’ve got something that sounds like the perfect piece of exercise equipment.

However all this tends to point to the workout being one thing – hard work. And you’d be right.

Made up of a number of quick, consecutive movements, a kettlebell workout tends to be made up of three different lifts:

Kettlebell swing

Standing with your legs shoulder width apart, the kettlebell swing sees you go into a semi squat type position with your upper half slightly bent forward and your knees. From here you pick up the kettlebell off the floor, lift it up to head level then swing it back all the way through your legs and back again.

Kettlebell snatch

Standing in the similar position to a traditional weight snatch, the kettlebell snatch sees you lift the weight from the floor up to around shoulder level where you need to pull your bicep in and punch the kettlebell up into the air.

Kettlebell jerk

First seeing you lift the kettlebell to chest height, this exercise then requires to squat down and then thrust the kettlebell above your head.

None of these sounds like an easy workout, and that’s because of one reason – it’s not, but it is one that will get you results.

A Sample Kettlebell Workout

Fancy trying kettlebells out for yourself? You can find them in both mens and womens sizes from specialist kettlebell suppliers like London Kettlebells, most good sports shops as well as online at Amazon

Photo by kl.fitness.

So there are now 19 weeks before I will be running the LA Marathon, and seeing as just about any running plan out there say you need 16 weeks I’m still in the in the “oh it’ll going to be fine” stage.

By the time there are only 16 weeks left, however, I will obviously change and become super stressed and snappy whenever anyone asks how my training is going (you have been warned…)

But anyway for the moment it’s all good. My runs are getting faster and longer, and apart from still suffering very bravely from my knee injury, I’m managing to stay injury free, something that I’m hoping is going to long continue with my new running Vibram Five Fingers Classic running shoes.

Now I know these look a bit funny (okay very funny), but there’s logic behind my madness in getting a pair, and it’s nothing to do with looks, and all to do with injuries. I have in my running lifetime managed to pull, tear and twist just about every muscle, ligament and tendon in my right leg, and I have to admit I’ve never been too good at practising what I preach in terms of rehabilitation, something I’ve definitely paid for it with these first few weeks of training.

My former strategy, when the longest I ran was 800m, was to spend couple of minutes racing on the track, then hop off and curse a lot at the pain I was in. I’ve come to the conclusion if I want to finish the same day I can’t hop 26.2 miles, and I’m not willing to give up however much anything hurts, so I’m trying my hardest to make sure nothing does, and these Vibrams are going to help me do it

How? Well it’s all down to the benefits of barefoot running (wearing Vibram Five Fingers is as close as you can get to going barefoot without, well going barefoot) which willl not only strengthen my feet, but also my lower legs, as well as making me more responsive and agile when running, and not get caught out by all the lumps and bumps you miss in a good old cushioned pair of trainers.

And this isn’t just marketing spiel from the guys at Vibram. Never one to believe anything that anyone tells me without having 96 independent sources to back it up, I’ve been getting all academic about it and reading some sport science papers on barefoot running with their findings confirming this, proving running barefoot not only decreases the changes of lower limb injuries, but also, as an added bonus, reduces oxygen consumption … and with 26.2 miles to run I think I could probably do with having a bit of oxygen to spare.

So that’s why ladies and gentlemen if you see me out running you’re likely to see me doing it in what looks like a pair of frogs feet…

Which brings me, not very tidily I grant you, onto the subject of animals, and how I seem to have become something of a Doctor Doolite of the running world.

And it all started with cats.

When I first started training for the marathon, I seemed to acquire a cat from every third or fourth house that I ran past which would then run alongside me for about 10 metres.

Then it moved onto dogs which seemed to appear from nowhere in the middle of parks, and would proceed to either trip me over by keep running round my legs or jump up and want to play.

It was then to be the turn of foxes to sprint out across woodland paths first thing in the morning, causing us both to jump out of our skins.

And then from the skies the kites started joining in.

Flying in groups of 3 or 4, these kites have now started to follow me round the park at the bottom of my road. Quite why I’m not sure as I’d presume I’m a little bit too big for them, but one thing I do know is that they’re very distracting – I very nearly ran into a tree last week whilst watching them practising their swooping.

But we’re not finished with kites. We still have squirrels to come. Very polite squirrels in fact, one of which I met last week on my long Sunday run.

Now I’d been getting a bit bored with the route I’d been running for the last few Sundays, so I decided I wanted to take a different route into a bit of woodland which had a fence running off down alongside the pathway. As I came in line with the fence I noticed there was a squirrel sitting on the toplooking like he wanted to go to the tree on the opposite side of the pathway, so being the polite English person I am I slowed down so I didn’t scare him, so he could. He didn’t go anywhere so I thought I’ll just carry on.

So I did.

And he did.

So now we’re both running along, me on the path and him on the top of the fence. However he’s still looking like he wanted to cross, so I slow down again. He turns his head, looks at me in a “Oh so you can’t keep up with the pace” kind of way (and yes squirrels can do that kind of look) and slows down.

So then we speed up again.

Then we slow down again.

And speed up again.

Now we’ve gone a good 250 metres together, and actually reached the end of the pathway, so I give him one last chance and actually tell him he should go first, but being the polite squirrel he was he wouldn’t, so I gave up and went ahead only to discover when I turned around that he watched me for another 5 metres or so before gently climbing down his fence and popping up on the tree on the other side.

If only men in white vans driving near big puddles would be so polite.

Photo by Penningtron

Ranking alongside my agreement to attend a three week conference in Germany to speak on the environment policies on my local borough that I knew nothing about (alongside speaking none of the languages of the other countries attending), as one of the most stupid decisions of my life, was my offer to run a charity marathon if singer / songwriter Billie Myers got 1000 fans on her Facebook Fan Page.

Quite why I said it I still have no idea, I had no doubt she would get her 1000  fans so it wasn’t that.  Maybe I presumed she’d suddenly decide she wanted to become a farmer and would close her Facebook page down.  Or maybe I had taken too many of those red and blue pills the day before.

Whatever the reason, one thing is now certain – I have a marathon to train for. The LA Marathon on March 21st 2010, in fact.

So how it’s all going so far? Well the first proper session was amazing. I seemed to run forever.

Then I got home.

Taking off those once much loved New Balance running shoes I was kinda aware all was not right. I’d started to have some pain in my feet whilst running, but with each pull of my shoe it got worse. In fact I have never in my entire life (and we’re talking about someone who’s not only an ex-competitive runner but also ripped herself to shreds on rock faces) felt so much pain from my feet. Ever.

And so began a week of very strange walking, no running, and me throwing those very uncushioned  New Balanxe running shoes in the bin, and replacing them with a nice new spongy pair of Mizunos.

So landmark one was passed – the first injury.

A week later, my poor damaged peroneal tendons were feeling much happier, and I began staking up the miles as though I’d be running the marathon tomorrow….

… which was to be rookie marathon runner mistake number two – too many miles too fast.

Now if you know me personally, this running mistake will come as no surprise to you, because I’m competitive, very competitive.

In fact, an example of how competitive can be seen from a recent running session when I had to leave an athletic track after a sprinter started training.  Watching him speed up and down the track, whilst I was going at my steady pace, soon had my competitive switch firmly knocked on, and suddenly I was speeding up to beat him, even though I was more than aware I was training to run over 26 miles more than him…

Anyway back to rookie mistake number two.

So what do you get for running too many miles too fast? In my case two things, a knee ligament injury that caused my knee to swell up on the right every time I went running so I could only turn left - cue comical one way laps) and an Achilles injury.

On opposite legs of course.

So we were back at  hobbling again (except in heels when all surprisingly felt cured – there’s something said for being girly).

With three injuries down in less than a month, it’s going to come as no surprise that I quickly came to the decision that this probably wasn’t that way ahead. Well, that and thinking how much trouble I’d be in if I told any ex coaches my running strategy.

I decided to stop messing about and get serious. I need to find a marathon training plan to get me where I needed to. And I have in the rather challenging running plan as set out by Runner’s World Run Less, Run Faster program.

Reducing my runs from 6 times a week to 3 times a week, this is made up of three different runs:

- A fast workout of about 5k which works on improving my speed and max VO2

- A medium tempo workout of up to 10 miles that works on my endurance and lactate threshold

- A long workout focused on upping my aerobic metabolism that peaks at 20 miles.

Working brilliantly to get my body prepared for the different elements required for the marathon, this running plan also sees me do cross training on two of the other days to help further improve my aerobic capacity.

Add to that the muscle strengthening sessions I’m doing each day (each day focusing on a different part of my body) and it’s all feeling a whole lot less amateur, and a whole lot more professional (though I’m pretty sure Paula Radcliffe still has very little to worry about).

And I have to say it seems to be working. My lungs are more than standing up the challenge the new plan is putting them under, and I’ve fallen in love with mile 8 – it’s when my lungs stop burning and I start feeling like I could go on forever (something my legs sadly haven’t quite reached the point of…)

So fingers crossed, by the time I hit LA I’ll be fitting fit and ready to actually achieve the rather over-optimistic time I told the LA Marathon time I would run when I entered. And no I’m telling you it until I’m sure I can do it.

Coming up next week: Tales of overly polite squirrels and funny looking shoes…

Photo by Seamus Murray.

Feeling distinctly untoned? Want to increase your strength, but always end up getting de-motivated and giving up after week or so? The One Hundred Push Up Training program, by Steve Spiers,  is a brilliant online plan that can help you get there, and requires only 6 weeks of your life, and only 30 minutes a week.

Why Are Push Ups the Key Exercise?

The main reason is it doesn’t require any expensive equipment or gym membership, meaning we don’t get to use the exercise that we couldn’t afford to do it. If you’ve got a couple of metres of space in your house to get flat on the floor, you can do this program.

On top of this, push ups gives a great upper body workout, acting to not only strengthen your chest, but also your abs, triceps, shoulders and torso. And it’s not going to take up a lot of your precise time. Give this training regime 30 minutes a week, and it will give you a strong, toned upper body in return.

How Easy Is It To Get Started With The One Hundred Push Ups Challenge?

Very. The first thing you need to do is the initial test, which involves doing as many good form push ups as you can before your arms start wobbling and you fall into a heap. Once you’ve done that you need to consult the test chart to see what level this puts you at for your age.

Then it’s time to get started with the program.  Requiring you to do three workouts per week, each made up of 5 sets of pushups with a rest period in between. Tailored to the number you completed in the initial test, you can be assured that whilst it will push you, it is also achievable.  At the end of week twomany pushups you did in the initial test, with a fresh test done at the end of week two and four you will complete any exhaustion test to help further tailor your workout.

Is It Actually Achievable?

Yes! So far hundreds have taken part and completed the plan, and whilst you can do it without anything more than a print out of the schedule, there are a whole lot additional products to help keep you motivated, including a Hundred Push Ups iPhone Application to help with tracking, a free online Push Up Logger, and a 100 Push Ups book that offers more indepth explanations.

Have you taken up the One Hundred Push Ups challenge already? Are you tempted to give it a go?