Dealing with Dionysus

There's a misconception, a distortion. I don't live off dust and other people's aesthetical despair; I don't sleep with a kettlebell under my pillow, on a bed of old Pilates mats and dream of a distorted world, based on the utopian vision of a Davidoff advert. I also hate Topman, it makes you look like you've sauntered out of a student union, having eaten a turgid microwave meal made of fustian Indy music - also, who has a size 26 waist, asides Jagger and Leto? I do, however, like the edge - where one can best dangle tired legs and ponder abstruse oceans.

Last weekend saw an ascendency into a Bacchian familiarity and all it's seraphic trappings. As the most brilliant, Hunter S. Thompson said, “Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!”

So, what do you do when you fall out of bed, into a pool of someone else's dignity, your head now hosting a tiny squirrel inside it, hammering away at your cerebellum with a small but very real hammer, playing scrabble with your synapses and God with your thoughts? You stop crying; try this instead...

Step 1.

Drink a large glass of water with a Dioralyte sachet in it - rehydrate and replenish.

Step 2.

Take an over-the-counter painkiller without acetaminophen - alcohol meddles with how the liver processes acetaminophen - taking it could lead to liver damage.

Step 3. 

Eat Burnt Toast - Carbon helps filter impurities, which is why people hospitalised for alcohol poisoning are forced to take a carbon - often it's pumped into their stomachs - lovely - remember kids, alcohol is bad! NB. You can buy charcoal pills from Holland & Barrett.

Step 4. 

After four hours or so, drink some coffee. "But coffee will dehydrate me even more," He whined deplorably. Wrong, you have to consume, at the very least, around 300mg of caffeine for it to act as a diuretic. So unless you're drinking three cups in a row, relax Frankie.

Step 5. 

With the caffeine now pulsating through your jaded body, go exercise. This is what I would do:

a.) Jog/walk/cycle for 15 mins.

b.) Carry out dynamic stretches but leave out core activation as I'd feel dizzy.

c.) Do 3 sets of 10 half press ups, frog crunches and reverse crunches.

d.) Jog/walk/cycle for 15 mins.

e.) Do 3 sets, with an exercise band, of single arm rows and standing Russian Twists - 15 reps per arm/side.

f.) Walk for 5 mins and stretch.

g.) Look as smug as Sean Penn winning an Oscar.

Summer's Coming...

I like long walks in the park, the colour blue, knitting baby clothes for abstract children, reading books with more pictures than words, swimming using breast-stroke legs and front-crawl arms. Wait. Stop. This is all transitory, man. Why? Because...you can just smell it - not the freshly cut grass that's been churned up with dog faeces, forming a finite supply of grass-poo humous for the children to run around on - no, not that, but the fear. Alarm bells are going off. People are running around, a combination of endorphins and anxiety congealing into one unique expression that's etched temporarily across their faces. SUMMER IS COMING. It promises tank tops and bikinis, short-shorts and string vests (maybe not for everyone), even floaty summer dresses. Do you know what a floaty summer dress looks like when it just doesn't float? A dress, a normal dress. Exactly, a fucking disaster, darling. 

There are options. You can blossom with a refreshing indifference to the suffocating, venomous, totalitarian demands of the vogue infused media, one glorious 'fuck you' to society. OR...you can wake up and get to grips with reality. Reality and it's understanding will slide you into that Mikoh bikini like a Kardashian on ephedrine.

What reality holds for the next two months:

1. Move - make sure that each day you are moving for at least 2 hours. Walk to station and back (30mins), gym/running/spinning/swimming/power-walking/badger baiting (1hour) and an additional meander (30mins) - done. If David Cameron can see a personal trainer, or run, you can too. That is a fact.

2. AA Meetings - are not something you need worry about, just try and skip the booze for at least 5 days a week. I know, I'm really, really sorry. Fine, if you must: vodka, lots of fresh lime, soda water and a cocktail umbrella.

3. Gluten - I'm not even going to entertain this with an explanation, just don't eat it. "But what about cakes? I really love cakes." Brilliant, I really love opium and colonialism but the times have changed and now I too with it. Or...Brilliant, I really love whipped cream and silk scarves but if you're trying to get a PGC in teaching, you can't blog about it anymore. Or...Brilliant, I really love drawing unicorns and mermaids in compromising positions, but if you want to be a CEO of a major insurance company, you've got to stop sketching them in board meetings. There. I hope you get it now.

4. Plank - each morning, wake up, roll effortlessly out of bed and hold the plank for as long as you can. Once you can reach 60 seconds, start showing off - lifting a leg or arm or both. Do 2 sets of this per day.

5. Vacuum Packed - start optimising that internal abdominal pressure that I so love to wang on about and do at least 3 stomach vacuums in a day: breathe in, exhale, as you exhale pull your belly button as far into your stomach as possible (imagine trying to touch your vertebrae), keep breathing whilst holding your stomach in, now squeeze your pelvic floor muscles. Hold for at least 20 seconds. If in doubt, look this exercise up.

6. The Gospel - If it doesn't fuck or grow from the ground, please don't eat it. Does bread grow from the ground? No. Does, sliced ham fuck? No. Etcetera etcetera.

More rules to come.

Beauty: The Lesser-Known Components

      It is amazing how complete the delusion is that beauty is goodness. Let's take, for a minute, 'goodness' and rawly translate it not as morally or ethically good - "yuk!" - but physiologically good. Beauty is thin hips, wide shoulders or even a slim waist, killer legs and a smile that could make Christopher Hitchens believe in creationism, it's Mr. Olympia but also Miss World.

 

    Don't get frilly lipped about this; I'm being skin deep and I'm just a voice, nestled in the bosom of the masses - this is what the people think, man. I know, we should really knit some hemp garments, whip out our...ucalales, discuss book read philosophies and reduce everything to rubble, but that sounds shit, so in the meantime let's dive deeper into the rabbit hole of physical perfection, with all it's tasty trappings...

     There are a great number of aesthetically perfect combinations that appeal to different demographics: Jessica Ennis has got that Athenian thing going, which says, 'if we go to the theatre, get attacked by youths, don't fret, babe, I've always seen umbrellas as wet-weather javelins' (phew, what a relief); Tom Selleck has a rugged manliness, that's been forged in North American forests, probably nurtured by bears that implies: 'Come too close, son, and I'll grizzle you to death with my moustache'. I know, fuck, that's brutal Tom, and to think we were happy for you to marry Monica; on the other end of the aesthetical spectrum, however, there's Brad Pitt from 'Fight Club'___[silence]____ - there are no words, none at all - thanks Brad, sentence killer.

    Anyway, what I'm trying to say, is that even perfection comes in different shapes and sizes (except Crossfit). Now, everyone one of these looks can NOT work without a few vital components. We know the main ones; the lesser known parts are just as important. I'm going to go through just TWO and bring them kicking and screaming into the limelight.

1. Your Knees
I know. WTF?!!! Exactly, 'knees'. "Oh..'KNEES!'" "No, you've lost me. What are we talking about?" Just think carefully about the leg - when the knees buckle, so do the hopes and dreams of that person's legs ever looking beautiful. Jessica, Tom and Brad (obvs.), all have legs with knees that haven't buckled. Their legs are straight. When they walk their knees don't move around erratically, threatening to bring the whole god-damn show to an unshapely end - they stay put, like a good knee should. We take our knees for granted. Another Hallmark holiday maybe Mr. President?

Anyway, your Gluteus Medius is one of the main pieces in this knee jigsaw - and the only one we'll discuss today - as they play a huge role in stabilising the hips and stopping your knees moving around like a couple squatters (see what I did there?). Weak GM = weak knees = BINTM 2014 hopes out the window - bye, bye Elle, bye, bye Tyson and bye, bye...Danni?

Keeping Your Knees Under Control Without Using Bribery:

One Legged Squats -

 

 

 

- Don't let the knee move inside or beyond your toes.

- Keep your chest up.

- You can do this sitting back down onto a chair - with one leg - and standing back up - with two - therefore working on the eccentric phase = more muscle stimulation.

Side Lying Hip Abduction -

 

 

 

- Flex the foot at the ankle and bring leg up and slightly back.

- Focus energies on hitting your glute not your hip flexors.

2. Your Rhomboids.

Weak rhomboids lead to a rounded back and 'sticky out-y' neck. You can be a size 6 with a six-pack, but if your shoulders are slumped forward you look shit. That is a fact. Drink it in.

Sort it out:

I lifted this from a great physio and rehab site...

 

• Shalabhasana Variation- Fingers Behind The Head

 

 

 

• Lie on your stomach. Interlace your fingers behind your head and lengthen the back of your neck pressing up into your fingers.

• Slowly draw the belly in and lift your trunk up off the floor a few inches, keeping your throat soft. The head, neck and chest want to elevate in one piece.

• It doesn’t matter how high the trunk lifts off of the floor but it is essential that the back muscles lengthen instead of shorten.

• Lift the elbows up and out as you lift up. Try to keep the elbows at the high of the head of higher.

• If the shoulders are tight you can separate the hands allowing the fingertips to touch.

• Try drawing the bottoms tips of the shoulder blades towards each other and hold for 5-10 breaths.

There we go. There's more to come, but the government board for education always promotes some drivel about only being able to concenrate for a limited amount of sdjofpjdfspjdsmk;sd;k


fdfsaf
dfsffgsa