| PLUS: Ignore TfL and climb up escalators |
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 | | | SUMMER IS COMING | | | It's Game Of Thrones season again, and paying the iron price is a surprisingly good way to build a better body. Choose your weapon and have at it | |
| Almost everyone has one – from Joffrey's Hearteater to Stannis's Lightbringer. Fighting styles vary from the Braavosi thrusting and parrying to Westeros-style hack-and-slash, but the main thing is you need to be strong to swing one.
The Gym Version: ClubbellThis is your secret weapon in wrist-strengthening, forearm-strengthening swordfight readiness. The move you want is the "shield cast": hold the clubbell vertically in front of you, then bring one around your head – as if you're parrying an overhead chop – and back into position. Repeat for ten reps. If you haven't won the battle by then, you're in trouble. |
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| | Obviously, some people don't bother with this – Khal Drogo, for instance, was more of a shirts-and-skins combatant. But Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane, played by World's Strongest Man competitor Hafþór Júlíus Björnsson, wears a suit so heavy that "no normal man could wear it". Badass.
The Gym Version: Weighted Vest These will add toughness to virtually any move you care to name – but for real castle-storming brutality, the weighted stair run is the ticket. Find a decent flight of stairs (not in the Underground, the police don't like weighted vests) and run up it. Walk down, then repeat. Aim for five sets, depending on the size of your castle. |
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| | Studies done on the skeletons of medieval bowmen reveal that they were, in a word, jacked – and with good reason. English longbows typically had a "pull" of 40kg, making firing one 12 times a minute the equivalent of a really heavy set of one-armed rows. Important to get right, unless you want to risk embarrassing yourself at a funeral like Robb Stark's uncle Edmure Tully.
The Gym Version: Resistance Band You only need one move here: the archer's draw. Hold one end of a resistance band in one hand, bring your arm out straight, and then draw the other end back across your chest – like a bowman, basically. Lower under control and, unlike a real bowman, make sure you work both sides. |
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| IT'S MARATHON WEEKEND! | | | WATCHING IT ON TV LIKE A CHUMP? START YOUR PREP FOR NEXT YEAR INSTEAD | |
The London marathon is undeniably the Sunday-morning TV event of the year, but there's a problem: watching thousands of men and women carpe-ing the diem when you haven't even bothered to put trousers on yet can feel a trifle… indolent. But there's a solution! Crank up the Beeb, consult the chart below, do the exercises prescribed and you'll be a flood of endorphins before the first dinosaur-besuited maniac breasts the tape. Guaranteed.
Loads of people waving at a camera: 20 lunges
A lovely London landmark: 20 press-ups
Some firemen running in full uniform: 20 jump squats
Someone in a costume running faster than you can in shorts: 30 mountain climbers
A soap actor looking absolutely terrible: 20 squats
A soap actor on course for a six-hour finish: 20 divebomber press-ups
Gordon Ramsay: 20 burpees
Someone clearly regretting their choice to carry a kitchen appliance: 50 jumping lunges
A montage set to U2's Beautiful Day: Plank throughout |
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 | | | STICK IT TO THE MAN | | | …AND FIGHT THE GRIM REAPER AT THE SAME TIME | |
| | So this was the week that Transport for London tried to accelerate our collective progress towards a Wall-E-eqsue existence of hoverchairs and liquid cupcakes by introducing a standing-only rule on two of Holborn's escalators – and, mercifully, also the week that Londoners fought back. Conditioned by years of tutting at tourists, most simply defied the signs – and with good reason. Whatever the time-efficiency savings of having two standing-only lanes, there are far better reasons to walk up the stairs: one large-scale Harvard study found that climbing just eight flights of stairs a day lowers average early mortality risk by 33%, while a study published only last month in the journal Neurobiology Of Aging found a direct correlation between the speed at which our brains decline and the incidence of stair climbing.
The researchers found that brain age improves by 0.58 years in individuals who climb at least one additional flight of stairs a day… or roughly the equivalent of a single daily ascent of those escalators at Holborn. In conclusion: damn the man, take the stairs. Fist-pump salute optional. | |
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 | | | BECOME AN IRONMAN | | | PUSH YOUR ENDURANCE TO ITS LIMITS | | Picture the scene: you're in Exmoor National Park lacing up your running shoes, getting ready to run a half marathon. This is one of the most beautiful areas in England – but chances are you're not thinking about the landscape right now. You've just finished a 1.9km swim and an 83km bike ride and you're exhausted, but giving up never enters your mind. You've committed to finishing – not just for yourself, but for the charity you've raised money for too.
If that's made you want to cancel your weekend plans and go training, then sign up for a charity place in Ironman 70.3 UK Exmoor. Macmillan Cancer Support, back for a second year as official charity, is offering places for only £50 to triathletes raising money for people affected by cancer.
If you want the opportunity to try your hand at an Ironman 70.3 and help change the lives of others, take the first step and sign up for a charity place with Team Macmillan. Oh, and do take a camera. We weren't lying about the landscape.
Accept the challenge. Become an IRONMAN with a click.
To get in touch with Team Macmillan, email triathlon@macmillan.org.uk or call 020 7840 4937. |  |
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| 5 THINGS WE LEARNED THIS WEEK | |
1. In a study, weightlifters who were given placebo pills and told that they were a performance-enhancing steroid put a combined total of 100lb (45kg) on their bench, squat, military press and seated press. Maybe it's all in the mind?
2. Joseph Pilates invented the exercise regime named after him in an internment camp during the First World War, drawing on his experience in gymnastics, boxing and weightlifting. He originally called it Contrology.
3. Standing in the sun with lime juice on your hands can trigger a chemical reaction causing second-degree burns. Doctors call the condition "margarita dermatitis".
4. In Mexico, avocados out-earned the marijuana industry between 2012 and 2013 – which is why Mexicans call them "green gold".
5. Think we've got it bad now with super-gonorrhea? There's evidence that in Tudor times, one treatment for the clap was to inject mercury into the urinary meatus. If that doesn't make you wear a condom… |
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