Monday, October 18, 2010

Famous Quotations


I have recently compiled what I consider to be an authoritative list of some of history's greatest quotations and welcome you to view this effort and get back to me with your thoughts and impressions and yes your feedback - constructive that is - is highly valued and appreciated.

Sir Winston Churchill naturally figures very prominently as do several American presidents including John F. Kennedy and others. I plan on spreading this effort into more niched sub-categories with time and hope that you will enjoy what I have to show you!


Man Lives To 101 Smoking Three Packs of Malboro Red A Day


Cincinnati, Ohio resident, Theodore "Teddy" Littarski past away over the weekend at the age of 101. What makes his death - at such an advanced age - that much more remarkable is the fact that he was a life-long heavy smoker; habitually puffing his way through three boxes or 60 Malboro Red cigarettes per day from the age of 16. Amazingly his death has been provisionally declared as the result of "natural causes" and the years of smoking according to his family and many local friends did not stop him from enjoying an otherwise very active and seemingly healthy lifestyle. He was known to attend the local gym 3 times per week and walked his dog, Jeremiah every day without fail. What makes this story so remarkable and this man's constitution worthy of further investigation is the genetic make up that rendered him able to not only survive for so long, but to thrive whilst an estimated 435,000 Americans die annually from tobacco related illness and disease.


Thursday, October 14, 2010

Getting the Body You Always Dreamed Of: Part III, Removing Obstacles




I have decided to make the third instalment of my Dream Body Guide a how to guide - how to avoid those things and chronic behaviours that prevent you from reaching your personal fitness, health and appearance goals. I will run you through the seven deadly sins of the slob:

1. Smoking
Everyone but everyone in the English speaking world knows the dangers, toxicity and ultimately the suicidal nature of smoking cigarettes. One can no longer point to an official PR cover up or tobacco industry funded propaganda - the facts, the ugly truth has long since been exposed. Why then does it remain so difficult for millions of otherwise intelligent people to stop - for their own good? Well the addictive component of cigarette smoking - namely, the stimulant, nicotine is amongst the most addictive substances known to mankind. Withdrawal can be highly uncomfortable and cravings can verge on being debilitating.

My advice? Go cold turkey? Grin and bare on? No thanks! I say CHEAT. That's right. Nicotine in and of itself is about as harmful as say caffeine (a double edged plastic knife). The solution - the middle ground if you will - is simply consuming as much if not more nicotine view a less harmful consumption mechanism. I personally find the chewing gum version to my liking - although going the way of a patch or mouth spray may be to yours. Remember, the nicotine may be what baits you but its the 4,000 other toxic chemicals you are chronically exposed to from the act of smoking that are doing the very real damage to your cardio-vascular system; lungs and general health. If you have to - chew two at the same time - just avoid smoking at all costs.

2. Drinking

Ethyl alcohol is a state of the art drug. For the 1700's. Never has one commercial punted substance which enjoys official sanction and support reeked more unnecessary societal harm and long term disruption of personal development. Need further proof - witness the consequences of fetal alcohol syndrome. That is what exposure does to a dynamically evolving human being; the process in adults may be more progressive, but the similarities - the thrust towards idiocy for one - is unmistakable. My advice? Join AA, take up ten pin bowling, learn self confidence through constructive means - just leave alcohol where it belongs - as a relic of Tsarist Russia.

3. Poor Dietary Habits

What you put in is what you get out. Might be a cliché - though you'll agree most overused phraseology has a tendency to contain more than a strand of unrelenting truth. I will delve far deeper into the matter of optimal nutritional habits in due course but from the outset I would like to to highlight the necessity to avoid like the plague they are: fried foods, overly processed foods, nutritionally empty food stuffs and any form of food that does not contribute one or more of the following:

*complex carbohydrate for sustained energy needs.
*protein for maintenance and building of muscle.
*good fats.


4. The Television

The television is too often used as a means of escape from reality - the reality of the your mental and physical experience of life.

I veer away from rules of thumb; but for an employed adult I would opine that anything beyond an hour of television during the work week constitutes an over-indu
lgence that will have negative consequences upon your long term health. Remember that any time spent glued to the television is an inferior usage of your mind and body. Of course there are exceptions - world class cinema; documentaries on serious topics that inform your ideology and so forth. These remain isolated cases - and television viewing is surely something that should fit around your commitments to employers and to your own physical well being (of which exercise should be a major component) and not vice versa. Words of wisdom, "Don't be a spectator" - millions watch football, golf, tennis each week - whilst very many fewer actually walk the walk.

5. Inferiority Complex

You feel like nothing because you are out of shape and you're out of shape because you feel like nothing. It's a vicious cycle - so break it. Swallow your pride and make like Nike - Just Do It. Don't live with regrets - Rome was not built in a day; and anything worthwhile in this life will take time, love and tenderness. Before others can believe in you you have to visualize what your body is capable of achieving and then simply connect the dots.

6. "I just wasn't born the genes"

So that's it, huh? Biology is destiny....? I could roll off a Hall of Fame's worth of names who could have said the same thing and just sat back and been omitted by assumption. Want an example? Ok, Michael Jordan. If he'd have stuck to that kind of thinking the first time he didn't make the cut for his High School's varsity basketball team perhaps he'd have been flipping burgers and not grown into the worldwide phenomenon he became. That's right, "The greatest" could have pulled that trick - but he didn't; and neither should you.

7. "I can't afford a gym membership"

My immediate retort would be, "you can't afford not to". Either way, the gym is not the Holy Grail of personal health and fitness - you are. Unless you find yourself in a POW camp (and even then) no one is preventing you from doing push ups, sit ups, jogging, swimming in the ocean - it is your's to be missed. So.... Make It Happen! Life isn't a dress rehearsal.



Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Get The Body You Want in 2010 Part II




As discussed in my previous post on the fundamental elements of starting an exercise programme the right mentality is key. I can not emphasize this enough. Not only will the right mental state make starting your programme easier and better but it will also increase the chances of you maintaining and sticking with that regime. Remember these words, "Before there was the Oak there was the acorn" - we all start somewhere; yeah even Ronnie Coleman (more on him later).

Today I want to run you through some details on those compound movement exercises I mentioned previously. Firstly, the reason compound resistance training is ideal for new trainees is simply that by doing these movements you are engaging a wider spread of core muscles - and therefore not making gains in, initially, entirely superficial areas. Think of your body as a house that needs building - with this analogy we see that you require a good site (mental state); firm and immovable foundations (your sleep, nutritional supplementation and diet) before you can even think about building. Once "building" commences you want to start with the structural integrity (or core strength and basal cardiovascular endurance levels) before you even think of doing that 7 star gourmet kitchen (shredded triceps) or that insane games room (python biceps) you always dreamed of giving your kids.

With that in mind, here then, is a simple check-list of core and cardiovascular proficiency that one should have attained before attempting to doing any of the interior design on your sick mansion to be!

  • You should be able to run a mile and a half (or 2.4 km) in under 12 minutes. Start off gradually - this is a goal most new trainees will take at least 6 to 8 weeks to achieve.
  • You should be able to bench-press 10 repetitions of 68% your bodyweight. Remember to start as low as you have to - there is no nobility in faux-pride! Bare in mind the Olympic bar counts as 20kg.
  • You should get to the level where you can leg press 160% of your bodyweight. Form here is key and we will get into that later in more detail - but remember to not push all the way into locking your joints ever, and with slow, controlled movements maintain the tension in the muscle throughout.
Don't think of that shirtless trip to a Cape Town beach; that is entirely the wrong magnitude of motivation for something this important - this is about your life, your longevity, your health, the avoidance of needless medical bills for preventable illness and yes looking and feeling fantastic!

Monday, October 11, 2010

Get The Body You Want in 2010





Firstly, the number one aspect of any form of training is the mental one. So get clear about WHY you want to achieve the body of your dreams. Establish in your mind that this is a priority and then reconcile yourself to the fact that your goal is a worthy one and one that will require you to move beyond your comfort zone (on the couch).

Secondly, take this as a holistic set of problems that has resulted from poor lifestyle choices and thus one that requires a multi-faceted solution. This includes:

Diet
Exercise
Sleep
Lowering Day-to-Day Stress
Hygiene
Grooming
Study the body, and all of the above




Initially you will want to join or rejoin or re-acquaint yourself with the gym. Start with 3 sessions a week. Do not try to run before you can walk here either. Settle on a timetable of: Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Each session, to start with, will include the following elements:

  • light cardio to warm up. E.g. 10 minutes on the treadmill @ 6.5km/h on a 0.5% incline.
  • large muscle group and compound muscle group exercises - think pull-ups, squats, leg press, bench press, abdominal raises, lat pulldowns.
  • Limited yourself to two exercises per body part; three sets per exercises with reps going from (1st set) of 15 on a light weight to (2nd set) 12 reps on a moderate weight then finally 8-10 reps on a more challenging weight. Not too challenging now you here!
  • Make use of the wonderful Power Plate should your gym possess them. Just avoid positioning your head directly above the vibrating place - this brain jarring is the one and only real danger of this form of exercise (whole body vibration).
  • Make abdominal exercises a staple of all three workouts for your first month to six weeks in the gym.
  • Always cool down with light cardio so as to gentle bring your heart rate down to normal.
And remember, like this post, Rome and your body were not built in a day! Next time we'll chat about nutrition and supplementation.

The 10 Best Chrome Extensions for SEO



Google Chrome is simply a wonderful, clear and crisp browser that I am very fond of - and as a search engine optimizer I have found a host of Chrome Extensions to be virtually essential to my ability to be highly efficient and productive in my work. Below I list the 10 most vital - from my experience; much of it of the trial and error variety - extensions for the purposes of maximal output SEO performance as well as how I utilize these tools in my day to day work.

10. SEO SERP

Easy way to check where a certain site is ranking for a certain term.


SEOMoz finally got round to rolling out a Chrome version of their Mozbar and let's just say it was well worth the wait!


A resource without peer in terms of timely, near immediate, at-a-glance information specs on a given site.

7. Rescue Time Chrome Productivity Meter

A very good way to make sure that the majority of your online time is spent productively.


The gold standard in at-a-glance PR - no frills, no fuss, just the information I need when I need it.


If you are like most SEO's and do not have time to log in and out of your gmail all day then I suggest simply installing this application which allows you to monitor any movements coming into your inbox.


Another productivity aid.


Simply indispensable to anyone consuming large quantities of online data - faster access to automatically loaded "next" pages is but one of many benefits offered.


The only way to guarantee all of your extensions are bang up to date - large and in charge.


A tool I am getting a lot of good information out of is Woorank - and this extension would probably rank as my favourite at present; simply because it at any moment allows me to be within 60 seconds of a highly detailed forensic report on a client or competitor website.

If you enjoyed this post may I suggest you check out my detailed overview and educational resource on Search Engine Optimization, too.



Online Education


The internet has given rise to a multitude of time saving innovations and the realm of education has benefited more than most from the near universal access to information and knowledge that this brave new world has facilitated.

Much like the world of online dating, the initial uptake of the online education offerings was marginal and frankly of questionable quality. This all changed with the widespread adoption of Web 2.0 mechanisms - the world that facebook spawned has inadvertently led to developments elsewhere and the rapid uptake of technologies that can, do and will benefit millions of people. The University of Phoenix is perhaps the most famous example of an established off-line institution taking the lead in geographically neutral online education and training.

The advantages for all concerned of being able to engage with the bastions of formal cognitive improvements anywhere and at any time are obvious and plentiful. Below I have listed some of the better online universities, colleges, technical colleges and training centres I have encountered on the internet over the past 18 months:


Thank you for your interest and wish you everything of the best in your personal online educational pursuits.


Sunday, October 10, 2010

My Favourite Squidoo Lenses


  1. Julius Malema is a hilarious look at the life and times and political crimes of the ANC Youth League Supremo.
  2. Jacob Zuma is a yet funnier take on South Africa's State President.
  3. Brainy Quotes is a listing of some of the best and most profound quotations ever.
  4. Out Of Africa is a collection of wildlife photography that will take your breath away.
  5. Mixed Martial Arts is a must-see for all MMA/UFC junkies out there.
  6. Best F1 Driver Ever continues the Senna vs. Shumacher debate in some style.
  7. JFK Assassination takes a look at the most controversial event in 20th century history.
  8. Greatest Film Quotes of All-Time asks if quite frankly, you give a damn?
  9. Strike Action another jolly look at the mess that is South African society in 2010.
  10. Search Engine Optimization is an investigation of the industry at the forefront of online marketing.

I also write a blog over on My Opera that deals specifically with business travel issues and would highly recommend checking it out if you are a frequent commercial traveller.