Struggling to write

As I said in the last post, I am just back from a week hillwalking in the Highlands.  I've been spending some time writing up the week's walks on my other blog - Cairn in the Mist - where I record my walks and more.

Looking to Skye

The other thing going on is the articles that I am writing for TGO magazine - a UK backpacking and hillwalking magazine.  The series is called Hillfit and I am trying to apply the sort of paleo / evolutionary fitness stuff that we talk about here to a more mainstream audience.  It is quite a struggle to translate these ideas into something that actually reads well as a stand alone introductory article.  I know that there is something overarching, a meta narrative (effectively the primal blueprint), but I am not sure that this is coming across in the articles.

The first one was an introduction to the philosophy.  The second - yet to be published  - was on interval training, mentioning Gibala's research and explaning how to keep going uphill without getting out of breath you need to build a body that burns fat more efficiently.

The next one it about the benefits of strength - when you are stonger you can do the same things with less effort and so your Cardiovascular system doesn't need to work as hard to supply the oxygen to the muscles.

What is a real struggle is writing to a strict word count.  I have 500 words for a theme and then 150 to descibe the movement of the month - an exercise, mobility piece or stretch.  It is a real skill to get ideas across in a limited amout of words yet still to retain a "voice", a personal style.  At the moment I feel like I have lost the voice and I am coming across as journalistic and factual.  As I edit down to the word limit I find myself stripping off all the adjectives that add life and personality.

Och well.  Shouldn't complain  - it is actually a real privelege to be getting paid to write about fascinating things.

New published article

The new TGO magazine is out today with another article from me.

I am told they have edited it a little so it will be interesting to see what survived and how it looks.  It is on hill walking fitness and if you have hung around this blog much it will all be familiar.  This first one is only introductory but the future ones will look at sprints, posture, basic strength exercises, reversing the damage done by sitting all day, being barefoot, sleep etc   Each month there will be a Movement of the Month - a stretch, mobility piece or a workout.  

I've had some input from  my pal Colin Gordon of Edinburgh Deep Tissue Massage.

I'm quite excited about this.

Get Hillfit

 It is really only relevant to UK readers, but I've had an article published in a hillwalking / backpacking magazine  - TGO - this month.  The article is called "Hillfit" and I have tried to synthesise some of the things I have been learning over the years and featuring in this blog - if you were to read the article you would spot the influences!  Frank Forencich, Doug McGuff, Erwan Le Corre and others.

An idea I was trying ot get across was of walking being a skill that we can develop and get better at.  We need to practice the skills of being a biped, key to which is balance on one leg.....because most walking is tie on one leg.  So I recommend simple balance work.

Then there is the HIT influence - you need to develop strength too.  So I recommend what are essentially superslow air squats (with more space in th article  I'd have had a pushup and a back bridge or body row in there too).   Then I also - for metabolic conditioning - propose a sprint session.

It is all very journalistic in style and doesn't dig too deep but it was fun to write and got me thinking!
 It was also a real discipline trying to write to an 800 word limit and necessarily I feel like I ended up skimming over things, so the whole piece is  a bit of a compromise. Still, I am really happy and excited to have got published like this and hope that I'll be able to write more for them in future. 

TGO has had a long term interest in lightweight backpacking and more unconventional gear so I tried to tap into that with a similarly minimalist / lightweight approach to training.....how to get the maximum return for minimum investment.   It boils down to some sprints, some  strength training and some basic  balance work.


It was funny how this opportunity came about.  I followed TGO via Twitter.  The editor must have checked me out and looked at my blogs and aksed me to write something.

The wonders of the interwebs!

Here is a photo that didn't make it into the mag - me putting a sock on while standing on one leg -  a basic balance training technique!   Or an opportunity to fall on your arse each morning.