I’ve never been much of a runner. I’ve tried at various points in my life.

The reason I keep trying is because I know that it’s really good for my lungs. Living with cystic fibrosis, I have to put a lot of time and effort into keeping my lungs clear and healthy, and one of the things that gives me the biggest bang for my buck when it comes to airway clearance is running. Well, jogging, in my case...

When doing core/ab workouts, I often felt like my breathing wasn’t controlled. I felt like I was breathing shallowly and erratically. Sometimes both. I felt like I was tense in places that I shouldn’t be tense. Especially in my shoulders and neck, which probably affected my breathing. I felt like I was rushing to get reps or to fill timed intervals. It was rare that I could actually feel the movement itself. Instead, I could only feel the discomfort of it.

Does any of this sound familiar to you? If so, the good news is that it can get better!

Last year I qualified as a Level 2 Fitness Instructor with Lifetime Training. I did this as part of the FitEx Award, which also includes 2 Les Mills modules.

There seems to be a rise in people looking to take fitness qualifications, either to move into an active role within the fitness industry or to simply improve their own knowledge. (Are you the former or the latter? Let me know in the comments section!) With this, lots of people have questions about what the courses entail, how you can prepare for them and what they qualify you to do upon completion.

Especially since course providers aren’t generally very forthcoming with the intricate details of their courses, it makes it really hard to compare options. So, I’m sharing my experience with Lifetime Training in the hope it might give you a little insight...

Ladies, do you do pelvic floor exercises? 

Honestly?

I’m sure, like me, you’re aware of how important they are. Yet, also like me, when it comes to training these muscles, you’ll probably remember that they exist every fortnight or so, and exercise them by squeezing ‘down there’ how ever many times you deem useful (10, 15, 20 times?) before getting distracted by something else.

Needless to say, there are lots of things wrong with training your pelvic floor muscles in this way:  
* You don’t really know if you are squeezing the muscles correctly  
* You aren’t sure if you are squeezing for long enough, hard enough, or a many times as you should  
* You don’t have any way to measure your progress  
* It’s boring as hell, making it very easy to become distracted

Thankfully, some very clever ladies out there have designed a sleek little gadget and app called Elvie to overcome all of these problems.

But first, here's why doing kegels is important in the first place...

Your heart rate (HR) is a useful measure of your activity level and training intensity when exercising. When your exercise intensity increases, your heart rate also increases to match the increased rate of energy expenditure and oxygen uptake. 

Heart rate can be expressed as the absolute number of beats per minute (bpm) or as a percentage of your maximum heart rate (% HRmax). 

Knowing your heart rate in bpm at any point in time may not be a very useful measure on it’s own. So, to put it in context, it’s a good idea to have some ideas of where you sit across other heart rate measures...

I love the concept of heart rate training (more on that coming soon!) and since I tried Orangetheory last year, I’ve been on the look out for more fitness studios that offer heart rate training.

One such place is Speedflex. However, while I was drawn to this studio by my fascination with heart rate monitoring, I found that Speedflex had some far more unique qualities to be discovered...

When I find heard that DNA fitness and diet testing had emerged on the consumer market, I was 100% fascinated. I loved the concept of a plan based on my unique DNA. 

As you will likely have read, I have taken tests based on blood samples, but unlike DNA, these are fluid and changeable, where your DNA is fixed. I like this idea and it made me think that DNA testing could be more useful in the long-term. 

I was keen to know what my DNA could tell me, and whether it could help me further improve my health through fitness and diet. 

Has this feeling stuck around after speaking to some experts and trying a couple of DNA fitness tests for myself? Read on to find out...