The Everyman Olympics: Original Deadline Day Arrives

Over two and a half years ago I made a bet with my mate Carl to race against each other to lose a stone. He'd opt to go down the regular route: eating less rubbish food and joining a gym which he'd plan to visit religiously, while I did a brief self-assessment and chose to pursue an altogether different path...

Carl 2009 BG (Before Gym)

Recognising my nature was to bore of attending the same place every 48 hours to do battle with my belly, and my inability to commit to such an approach; my job sends me motoring some 30,000+ miles per year around the UK, sometimes abroad also, while my wonderful missus lives 100 miles away from where I personally reside. I searched for a different approach, and one night while supping a beer, I realised that the Olympic Games offers a sporting menu which provides more exercise options than I could shake a chubby finger at.

The Everyman Olympian: At the start of 2010, weight: 14 stone 4 pounds

I elected to start with Rowing, bought a home machine, it didn't work. The next day I would start my adventure in a hotel gym, in fact I joined 2 gyms in that first week and by the time 8 days had passed I'd rowed 70,000 metres to complete The Rowing Challenge.

I developed my one-sport-per-month approach to replicate each event as it took place in the actual Games, so for my next sport I would need to play out the same amount of games as a male singles player would from day one up until and including the final. I called on family and friends to offer themselves as my opponents, even bought an extra racquet so there were no excuses and then spent 6 days playing 6 matches to achieve The Badminton Challenge.

Athletics seemed too large a topic to deal with in one chunk so I singled out the Marathon as the main endurance event but I didn't even run a mile at this point, so I consulted my brother and broke the task down into a challenge of 21 days over which to run the famous 26.2 miles. I smashed this target and on day fifteen I ran 5.1 miles alongside my brother to complete The Running Challenge.

I was going strong with my plan, which I'd decided to call The Everyman Olympics, but then my world changed. Pete Puma, a Bodybuilder from the US put me in touch with a British Weightlifter via Twitter and over the next month I Clean & Jerked on more weight than I'd lost. Carl won the bet and a slap up meal.




Nothing but the finest for our Carl, Tayyabs on Fieldgate Street in London has the best pork chops you'll ever eat!

I needed a change of tactics, I'd lost the bet but I had other plans in mind. The Everyman Olympics was effectively re-galvanised and I decided to try and tackle EVERY Olympic Sport before London 2012.

Well I'm sorry to say folks that this quest continues, though I'll need you to bare with me for a while longer, I'm not abandoning this adventure - I won't let you down.

Here are the sports I've achieved challenges in, with the help of many:

Archery, Aquatics (Swimming), Athletics (Running & Decathlon), Badminton, Beach Volleyball, Canoeing (Sprint & Slalom), Cycling (BMX & Road), Fencing, Handball, Judo, Rowing, Shooting (Pistol & Shotgun), Table Tennis, Tennis, Triathlon and Weightlifting.

In all I've complete 16 different sports, across 20 disciplines (somehow managed to bag bonus sports along the way), with these 5 sports currently on the go:

Basketball, Football, Sailing, Wrestling and Boxing.

But friends, I need your help! I'm looking for contacts in these 6 sports so I can complete my challenge:

• Gymnastics
• Trampolining
• Water Polo
• Taekwondo
• Modern Pentathlon
• Diving

If you can help please email me at: theeverymanolympian@googlemail.com

Thanks, you're a legend

The Everyman Olympian

PS I've kept the stone off, jumped on the scales today:

The Everyman Olympian: Weighing in at 13 stone 3 pounds.

The 100km Challenge

At some point one Sunday, a few weeks back, I had a rather silly idea pop into my head, not for the first time would I suggest a challenge to myself which would see me testing my body to the max for seemingly no point whatsoever...

I was preparing for a few days away for work and I knew I'd be spending the majority of my time with my face illuminated by laptop light, my only realistic escape being the rather machine-cluttlered hotel gym.

From seemingly nowhere the thought of 'travelling' 100km in four days entered my head and me being me I decided to accept my own silly challenge just to give me an excuse to venture outside my own room - I'd be unable to partake directly in any of the sports I had left to tackle at this point and figured the added task would do me good.

Day 1

I started like a lightning bolt out of the blocks on the first day:

EveryOlympian Butt's sore from naff saddle on the bike in this hotel gym but bagged 40km on Day 1 of my 4 day 100km Challenge, 20km Run & 40km Cycle to go

This tweet tells you all you need; I was fired up and being cocky on the adrenalin...my apologies, it gets me that way sometimes.

Day 2

Unsurprisingly, since I had barely ridden a real bike this past few months, let alone an exercise machine version with an uncomfortably wide saddle, I was unable to be as agressive on the morning of the second day:

EveryOlympian Legs let me down on the treadmill at 5km this morning, but made up for it with 10km cycle so pushed over the half way line #100kmChallenge

This plagued me mentally all day - as I'd stated earlier my intention was to cycle 80km and run the other 20, but rather than whallow in my morning's 'defeat' I headed back to the house of pain for a second stint that evening...

EveryOlympian Headed back to the gym after work and battled through a further 30km cycle, now 85km into the #100kmChallenge Just 15km run & 2 days to go

Now I was showing them!
 
Day 3
 
My legs were in tatters; aching whether I sat, walked or stood - stairs laughed at me as I advanced on them like a drunken cowboy who'd lost his horse.
 
Thankfully this was to be a crazy busy work day which called for me to start before 6am and keep going till gone ten pm - I'd worked right through the opening hours of the gym. Shame.
 
Day 4
 
Again I was short on time due to work that morning but I did manage to go through with a short run to clock up another 5km, I was just 10km and one gym session away from achieving my goal.
 
The telly nearly got me...
 

EveryOlympian 10 more mins of Crocadile Dundee 2 and I've gotta go battle the final 10km of this 100km challenge #The100kmChallenge

But I prevailed, only to be cocky on my bodies own chemical kick once again:
 

EveryOlympian 100km Challenge achieved...report by Sat eve to you tweeps

OK so this is three weeks late but hey I did still nail the 100km Challenge!
 
Why not set your own version up? Just calculate a tough training schedule that gets you to 100km - now make it a tad harder - and use any form of movement you feel confortable with. Good luck and let me know how your get on: theeverymanolympian@googlemail.com

Numbers Game

The Mathematics of Exercise

You may put your physical prowess down to hard work, you may put your sporting success down to natural ability, but really...its a Numbers Game.

The Power of One

It just takes One motion to get you started...

One step One lift One push One pull One throw One press One leap One stretch One...Nike's marketing team weren't paid gaziliions for the slogan 'Just Do It' for nothing - the sooner you stop lingering on Zero and upgrade to One, the sooner you'll achieve your goals.

As I've mentioned before...personally, training in a gym towards no specific end target is dull and boring - but it's here that the mathematics of exercise are at their purist!

Divide and Conquer

Struggling to get through that hour of pain you've set yourself? Simply divide up your workout into manageable chunks and you'll nail it in no time - work out when you're 10% through, when you've hit half way and then reduce the percentages from 50 down to 5 and you'll fly through it (distract yourself with the maths).

Go Forth and Multiply

When you've done One, do another One, then another One, repeat and repeat until the old tubby you has turned into the new fit-as-a-fiddle you.

It's obvious really but just to make it sink in, here's a simple equation to follow:

(Reps x Sets) x Frequency Per Week = Success

You do the maths.

The Weightlifting Challenge: Pumpin'

The Weightlifting Challenge for the The Everyman Olympics fell onto my lap thanks to a response to a tweeted cry for help from an Amercian I'd never met and the enthusiasm of a young woman whom during the month of May I would come to warmly regard as Coach Josie.

Note how knackered I look compared with Coach Josie!

Stepping into the gym I was nervous, not because I was about to meet a complete stranger who I'd only come to know through the internet or because I was about to be judged on how strong I was by a girl, but because I'd had a dicky belly that morning and was fearful that lifting heavy objects might have a diverse affect on my stomach muscles...infront of a complete stranger...who just happened to be a girl...who I'd never met before.

Gym Clobbered

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I've a confession to make. I'd say I fair pretty well in normal daily attire - I've worked in the fashion trade for years and I know my onions so to speak. I'm not a victim of labels but I know when you need to wear your denim dark and raw (unwashed) or when to drop the big shirt collars and leave them to the city folk. But when it comes to getting sweaty in the name of sport I've always struggled to pick cool togs. Maybe this is down to my problem with buying product which is made by small hands...

Listen, I'm not laying claim to being a fashion guru or some sort of sportswear stylist but clearly there are clothes that are fit for purpose and those garments that look plain daft when worn to exercise in. If you wanted to get buff you wouldn't use cans of beans to do bicep curls would you? No, you'd buy a set of dumbbells and train properly. The right tools for the job. Well I think that when it comes to clothes the same principle applies!

The Rules Of Induction

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Already I've joined 2 gyms in my quest - The Everyman Olympics (see Post 1 new comers), thus bringing me to a current lifetime tally of 6 gyms that I've held membership with at some stage or other. Thanks to the madness of health and safety rules this means I've also had to endure 6 different gym inductions.
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Yes, in the 15 years that there have been between signing up to the first gym to the most recent there has been some considerable progress in the development of sports equipment and yes, I understand that such establishments need to cover themselves in the event that you suffer injury due to poor use of the facilities but in all honesty only once has a gym inductor thought to use common sense and ask me whether I'd ever joined a such a place before. Thus sparing us both the time it would take to ascertain whether I know how to run on a treadmill or follow instructions which are clearly labelled on a weights machine.
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Clearly with the 'vast' experience I have of signing up to gyms (ok the follow-up on my part of regularly using them hasn't been so hot I'll grant you) I'm in a good position to advise you on how to handle such situations. So for what it's worth, here's my guide to The Rules Of Induction.
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The Rowing Challenge: Rowing Without Oars

Let the challenges begin!

Having set the stage for The Everyman Olympics 10/11 back in February one evening I sat down with a beer and my laptop to search the potential challenges on the official Olympics website http://www.olympic.org/ and found that there was a plethora of opportunities before me. Unfortunately they all shared one thing in common...they would involve effort.

I thought of buying a ticket to Vancouver, learning how to ski and mimicking the Cross Country Pursuit, then realised that the Winter Olympics is the wrong way to go – any event which features Curling as a ‘sport’ should be dragged in front of a large mirror and told to take a good long look at itself!

That left the Summer Olympics events page as my catalogue of choice. I had a swig of beer and looked on some more...

Then I found it. The perfect sport on which to base my first challenge of the year of challenges that lay ahead. This was perfect. Featuring the very thing that I do a lot of in both my working day and my spare time...sitting.

The sport of choice for this first challenge? Rowing.

The Very Exciting Subplot

You’ll recall that last time around I explained how The Everyman Olympics came into being and why I was undertaking this year long set of sports challenges based on Olympic events.
(Late comers please see Post 1: The Everyman Olympics).

You’ll also recollect that as well as the aim to get fit, lose the flab and in-part act as a guinea pig for a whole new approach to exercise, that running parallel to this adventure I am competing against a rival to be the first to lose a stone in weight = The Very Exciting Subplot.

Now some of you who frequent gyms or do exercise by other means will appreciate that there is losing a stone and losing a stone.