I have been very, very impressed with my Paramo Velez Adventure Light for outdoor activities over the past few years.

I have wondered this myself.

Some people even claiming that she is just like this fella:

and some people like this fella too:

The mind boggles….

“There’s nowt as queer as folk” as my grandma used to say.

US Elections are often between some fairly uninspiring candidates, but what sort of person puts themself up for it?

Barack Obama was unusual in that he appeared to be a high quality candidate for US President. It seems a shame that he was unable to enact more of his ideas. I hope he goes on to future positive influence.

lunge – Member
I genuinely believe Britain is better now than it has been at any other point of history. We have a high life expectancy than we ever have, infant mortality is lower, standard of living are higher, generally, we’re in a good place.

Yes there are thinks that could change and be improved, but to look at the 50’s (or 60’s/70’s/80’s) and say it was “better” then is just plain naive.

Exactly, although I will concede that there are many people who feel ‘left behind’ and there are many depressing places around the country.

Having said that, those that have been ‘left behind’ are still living in far better conditions than the poor of recent decades.

My grandparents rented a house with an outside toilet, single-glazed windows and no central heating, up until they died at around the age of 80 in the mid-1980s. My grandad’s only foreign trips were courtesy of the British Army in the 1940s

(a venture that was successful thanks to the contributions of the USA and the Soviet Union, don’t forget)

-They were working class and had a very modest income, but would not liked to have considered themselves POOR as they could afford to eat.

They would be amazed at how things have advanced in the past 30 years.

jimjam – Member
Thinking about it, no doubt they are well up there as a measure of overall fitness but you’d have to put elite mma fighters above them. Most if not all of those crossfit movements, drills and routines are standard fare as strength and conditioning routines for fighters.

Those people at the Crossfit games are very impressive, but I suspect that the original idea of Crossfit is to get ‘ordinary’ people up to a reasonable level of many aspects of fitness for other/all activities.

For the people in the film, Crossfit has become an end in itself.

It is interesting that the 2015 winner Ben Smith is a man who is fit & lean, but not heavily muscular, unlike many of the other competitors (some of them looked surprisingly heavy for the tasks they needed to do).

A couple of people have mentioned (independently) that people they know who are keen Crossfitters have become absorbed into it to an almost ‘cult’ degree.

Biathlon requires being good at rifle shooting, whilst gasping, which is quite specific.

I spent just £60 or so putting down the rubber inter-locking floor mats from CostCo/Halfords, I can’t remember which.

Quicker than painting, easier to replace a damaged tile than carpet, easier to clean than carpet and definitely controlled the dust instantly…

I did this a few years ago (Costco, and more like 30quid for a single garage at the time) and they have worked very well. I used cardboard boxes as underlay and added some carpet at the workshop end.

Painting the walls white makes a difference to lighting.

Inspired by Garage Journal[/url], I then painted the lower 1/3 of the wall grey and added a red stripe above the grey, below the white -It’s the best room in the house.

Vermont and Maine are worth a visit.

That Rio course looks good.

Back to the original question, it depends how powerful the e-bike is, surely?

You might as well ask,
“would I win a world Cup XC on a classic twin-shock motocross bike?”

thanks

Most importantly, for conditioning: Lots of sets/reps of variations on pull-ups, press-ups, bodyweight, squats and running.

Plus: Farmer’s walk, zercher carries, bearhug carries, Deadlifts, weighted squats, presses.

Stretching/yoga.

Or just ignorant and desperate.

I’ve done a few of the sports.

Wrestling is hard work.

I have not done Xc skiing, but have trudged/raced up snowy, rocky Alpine glaciers and mountains with poles and kit. It is quite arduous at 4000+m.

I have started watching the Fittest in the World on Netflix. There are certainly some dedicated -and very, very fit- people on there.

I think the point is that people with a high level of different aspects of fitness are able to do quite well across a range of activities.

A cyclist or distance runner isn’t necessarily good at other activities.

Which is why people are suggesting fighters, soldiers, criss fit enthusiasts etc.

willard – Member
I did Murph last year. Took me an hour and four minutes and leaving for the second mile was a huge struggle. I think it was the slowest mile I have ever done. My arms were also shot to bits from the pull ups and press ups.

Good effort!

My lunchtime Murph-Lite (no pullups) attempt didn’t seem too bad, and I biked home. I felt more and more tired the following day, though, and felt absolutely wrecked on the club MTB ride, although I had done a TT10 the day before the Murph-lite 😉

I will have a go at doing it properly at some point. Apparently you are also supposed to wear a weighted pack!

bothybiker – Member
Crossfitters have the best all round fitness I believe. Look at the top level athletes, yes in individual events they may not be world class, but in simple terms they will be stronger than a runner and faster than a lifter. And the whole point of the sport was to define fitness

Exactly. People get better at what they train for.

A separate question might be,
“What sort of people have the most useful range of fitness/skills/abilities for life activities and hazards”,

but that would also be quite specific as a firefighter possibly has a very different life to an accountant or a high court judge.

Labour voters appear to be (broadly) either

a) “traditional” types who still live where they (or their forefathers) once laboured in mines or factories

b) educated, relatively affluent, urban-dwelling, compassionate, conscientious types who may have descended from the traditional type, but are actually now a very long way from the other type.

The second type are not now really a natural fit with Labour, who’s position and purpose appears to be causing confusion in the present day.

-I did a variation on Murph the other day (without the pullups as I didn’t have a bar to use where I was). It was quite taxing and I was wrecked the next day!

DaRC_L – Member
Lib-Dems have stated they are committed to overturning & fighting Brexit and if Brexit happens then re-joining the EU.

They deserve to do far better anyway. Let Labour turn into the Socialist Workers Party and take the loonies with them and then the more considered, middle-England Labour voters can look to the Lib Dems.

Proportional Representation -and an understanding of what coalition means- is what is required in the UK.

Sadly, first-past-the-post strongly favours the Conservatives, especially given a strong SNP.

It is good that there is going to be a debate, albeit in Westminster Hall, but it will rely on influential big-hitters speaking at it rather than just a handful of back-benchers having a punch-up.

I don’t expect that it will result in a 2nd referendum, but it may contribute encouraging large numbers of MPs not to just blindly vote through the “Article 50” at the first opportunity if/when it comes to the Commons.

My local MP, who is Labour, supported Remain, and who’s electorate voted clearly to Remain, is currently planning to vote it straight through.

The current uncertainty may not be helping the economy, but much of the damage was done when the result came out and (slightly over half of) the troubled, argumentative relative at the periphery of the European family finally decide to tell everybody else to F*** off and that they were going to withdraw all of their savings (well, overdraft) and go on a drink, drugs, hookers and brawling bender in Vegas and sod the consequences. They’ve not actually gone yet, and they are having second thoughts, but do they keep saying that they will go.

Sadly, very large numbers of the population would still vote to leave the EU even with the benefit of the hindsight of the past few weeks. It does not appear to have been a rational, forward-looking decision in many cases, although there may now be enough people regretting their vote to swing it in the Remain favour.

Of course, such a divisive, almost 50:50 issue should never have been put to a winner-takes-all, binding(??) single vote referendum anyway. It was reckless in the extreme.

The government might as well have just tossed a coin to determine the outcome…..

hammyuk – Member
Suggest you go and watch the documentary Mogrim.
Sprints fast enough to put them in top flight races, 6 minute mile pace on the distance stuff, 400mt up vertical stairs and back down and then forcing heavy and explosive movements on top.
Then repeating the above for several sets.
Slow is one thing they are not.

I think I’ll look this up on Netflix, sounds interesting.

“Crossfit” as a sport in its own right is an interesting concept. I tend to think of that sort of training as preparation/conditioning for other activities or normal/abnormal life.

philjunior – Member
I quite like those 7 fitness to be helpful challenges Aristotle, but I think they are too land based. There should be some water based challenges.

The “Natural Movement” or MovNat[/url] does include swimming and is a more recent revival of the original ”Method Naturelle”[/url], envisaged by a French Navy officer, Georges Hébert[/url], who was inspired by seeing people who could not swim very well whilst trying to escape a volcano eruption.

Interesting thread.

As others have said, any top athlete has optimised their training for their particular sport, often at the detriment of other abilities.

As somebody who is not gifted or wanting to specialise too much, I’ve always liked the idea of being fit and capable enough to be able to turn my hand to ‘most’ things.

To me, a good boxer/wrestler/MMA fighter, biathletes, some armed forces (eg. Paras, Marines, some Special Forces), some rugby players, have a good blend of useful ‘fitness’ aspects, physical and mental.

One idea that has been floating around is “Natural Movement” that, amongst other things, suggests natural physical abilities that all humans should aim for as the basis of health, fitness and “usefulness” or “helpfulness” in all kinds of situations.

7 Fitness Challenges: Be strong to be helpful[/url]

Looking on from Western Europe (still in the EU), and the UK in particular, once again the carrying and use of potent weapons by the public to murder and the Police response -robot delivered explosives to kill a suspect- both appear absolutely ludicrous.

The killing of members of the public by US Police (and the numbers killed every year), quite apart from race, are shocking.

There is something very wrong.

Fewer guns really is the way forward, surely?

Their 2nd Amendment is anachronistic nonsense.

jet26 – Member
Interesting that Boris is now suggesting retention of large amounts of our integration with Europe and that being in for a lot of stuff is a good thing.

Firstly seems like dreamland, secondly did those who voted leave really vote for that?
Many of those who voted to leave really didn’t think that deeply about it.

Broadly:

They didn’t like the austerity cuts.
and/or
They don’t like foreigners -immigrants or EU leaders.

“there’s no great rush to leave the EU” according to Boris.

No sh*t.

Maybe there shouldn’t have been a single question on it thrown out to the masses then.

It wasn’t only the angry poor who wanted to leave.

I happen to know that a lot of comfortably-off old people (mostly men) in a fairly posh, almost entirely white British, Cheshire village voted to Leave the EU. They were quite triumphant and light-hearted about the result.

The reasons seemed very wrong, superficial and simplistic to me. There was no thought given to the economy or the future, just getting one over on “Europe”, “immigration”/racism and “350 million pounds a week”

As somebody who mostly associates with university-educated 30-40 somethings and lives in a pleasant enough (Remain majority!) borough, almost *all* of the people I know (including my older and elderly relatives) appeared to be in favour of Remain.

The bookies seemed to be expecting a Remain win.

I was hopeful that Remain would win.

On Thursday lunch time, however, I headed to a large supermarket in the northern town where I work. I looked around at my mostly white fellow customers who appeared to be a mix of “classes” and had a sudden thought that leave might well win after all.

My circles of friends and colleagues are certainly not privileged and mostly not wealthy/well-off, but they are mostly educated, well-travelled, have some disposable income and know / work with people of different ethnicities and nationalities without any issues.

If I felt detached from the general public close to where I was brought up, then a bunch of high-flying politicians (especially the likes of Boris, but even Corbyn to some extent) must be like a different species to the working class folk of Northern England.

Persuading the down-trodden to vote to their own detriment to leave The EU -although the masses really should have looked into it more deeply, the info was out there- and then not be in a desperate rush to leave the “awful” EU (because it isn’t actually that awful?) and not appear to have a plan in place for leaving is just clever manipulation with an amatuerish Follow-up that has resulted in a mess and a potentially terrible outcome

It was never about facts. It was about emotion and freedom from slavery, oppression and being sent to the gulag or something.

And foreigners. Mostly foreigners. And some people seemed to blame Muslim refugees from the Middle East

Intellectuals and experts were, of course,”wrong” -by definition…..

Throughout history angry poor people have tried to get rid of the “guilty” minority and heretics and Intellectuals, aided by dodgy people who offered solutions, but weren’t necessarily their friends.

History repeats itself.

Deviant

I voted to leave and I’m more than happy with the decision.
I got fed up with British legal decisions being overturned by a European court, I got fed up with how a common trading area (a good idea by the way) had become a European state with a parliament of all things!, I got jittery about the talk of a European army, I got fed up with poor countries like Greece fudging their books to join simply to go on the take….their economy failing (surprise surprise) and then watched in disbelief as a spiteful EU dictated terms to them and effectively blackmailed them into staying…..the corruption on all sides has become staggering.

I suspect that you are going to
Be very disappponted.

At what point will I stop feeling that half of the people of my country self-harmed and tried to hurt everybody else in the country and the EU in the process due to arse-about-face non-logic?
Many of the intelligent and considered people of the country are traumatised by it.

The idiots will be jubilant and the people who just “took a punt on” leaving may now possibly starting to think about what they did.

This referendum has highlighted the difference between 2 or 3 groups of people:

The educated, working middle income/class

The elderly

Everybody else

Joolsburger, Greece is not the UK.

I have almost 4 decades of practice, that is a reasonable apprenticeship

I am pleased to say that my parents and other older generation relatives voted to remain.

They are also not ignorant, socially conservative bigots.

There may not be a connection.

They are all angry about the leave result.

It might be described as snobbery or “sore losers”, but the uninformed, disenfranchised, prejudiced and bigoted have between them managed to kneecap themselves and their country this week.

In my mind, ignorance is not a virtue, nor is the term necessarily offensive.

Ignorance of the facts is, however, what has led to this disastrous outcome for Britain.

This is not party politics.

This is the difference between rational decision making and emotional mob rule. Two factions within the nation have clashed and the mob have outnumbered the rational.

I and my friends, relatives and the vast majority of my colleagues are horrified and some were physically nauseated by what has happened this week.

Terrible.

Ps. The working classes are probably going to suffer most from the fall-out from the referendum. The educated, intelligent middle and upper classes have the skills, certificates, contacts and savings to cope.

Welcome to the modern UK.

Expertise is to be ignored.

Facts and truth are negotiable.

Debating is just a matter of shouting, “Rubbish!”

Ignorance is a virtue.

Serious matters are treated with as much consideration as Britain’s Got Talent.

The ultimate in dumbing down.

Terrible

In the past few weeks more I have, more than ever, come to realise that I am very fortunate.

I grew up in a non-affluent working/lower middle class ( 2 generations from poverty and 1 from poor working class) respectable, loving family of tolerant, but hard-working and charitable people. We had books in the house and was encouraged to be inquisitive.

I had a state education that was quite good. I went to an old university, met interesting people and even encountered a certain pre-politics Boris Johnson at a debate.

I have a circle of friends of similar background and Suburban Middle-england income/lifestyle.

My colleagues are similarly educated.

I am used to reasoned discussion and debate at work and outside.

I find it really hard to reconcile the sort of emotional, lightweight, flakey argument and “justification” given by the (few) people that I have encountered voting to leave the EU.

The apparently self-spiting and self-destructive madness of many people in deprived areas of the UK baffles me as it is so far removed from my own normal state of rationality.

The result of the referendum angers and saddens me.

I’m still in angry mode.

Today I have heard people laughing about the referendum result as if it was taking a 50p flutter on the Grand National and then giving the most vacuous and stupid reasons for voting out.

To have a single binary yes/no question on such a serious and wide-ranging matter (and that was always likely to result in such a statistically insignificant “majority”) thrown to the general populace seems quite ridiculous.

It would appear that the educated/informed voted to remain. Others didn’t.

Please don’t have any more about other things.

The EU will still be the bogeyman. “victimising” us for shafting them and expecting everything to be fine.

From my experience of recent times, for every sensible person who thought through their leave vote, there are a good number who just ‘took a punt’ or went on gut(ie. Long held prejudices) like when they decide what to eat in a restaurant, but with probably less consideration.