Honey can be deadly for babies

Honey is one of nature’s medicines and human have been harvesting it for thousands of years. However a reminder was issued today after reports of botulism being on the rise.

Babies are unable to fight off the botulism bacteria during their first year and botulism can lead to paralysis if it is not treated quickly. Although it is very rare the risk is still present, and parents are being advised not to give honey to babies. Babies really do not need a sweetener. In one recent case a 15 week old baby caught botulism after being fed honey.

What is Botulism?

Botulism is a germ that is usually found living harmlessly in soil. Sometimes honey can become polluted with botulism carrying soil. Once it enters the human body the germ starts to multiply inside a baby’s intestine and becomes toxic. This results in infant botulism. Because a baby’s intestine is still developing in its first year it has not built the defence mechanisms to fight off the germ.

The symptoms of botulism appear from 3 to 30 days after a baby has consumed the contaminated honey. Constipation is often the first sign of botulism. Call your doctor if your baby hasn’t had a bowel movement in 3 days.

Other symptoms of botulism are:

• Loss of any facial expressions
• Not feeding properly, a weakened sucking action
• Crying with a whimper, not a loud cry
• Baby becomes less active than usual
• Lots of dribbling caused by inability to swallow properly
• Generally weaker, floppier
• Sometimes problems with breathing

If any of these symptoms are seen in a baby it is advisable to see a doctor immediately. The only treatment  is with specific antitoxins that are given in hospital. Due to the breathing problems that occur babies are usually kept on a ventilator while being treated.

The easiest way to avoid it is by not feeding honey to a baby, and don’t let babies play in the dirt/mud/sand either.

It was only in the late twentieth century, during the post-war period, that athletes and sports persons really became celebrities in their own right.

There were many famous athletes, that would be reported in the news, but the average person would marvel at their athletic performance in sport, but generally would not idolize them or become fanatical followers of theirs.

However, in the last 50 years, some people have become athletic icons, fitness role models and sporting heroes.

So, who are the greatest athletes, sport personalities and fitness icons of all time? Which people are still admired today, who still give people the motivation to train, to fight, to win, and strive to follow in their heroes footsteps to become the greatest themselves? Here is Motley Health’s Greatest Sporting Heroes:

1. Bruce Lee

Bruce Lee will always be the greatest martial artist that ever lived. No-one can replace him, because he was the first to popularise martial arts in film. He wrote books, gave interviews, and set up schools to teach his methods.

But most importantly, even 37 years after the release of his first great films, The Bigg Boss, Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon, he is still admired by youngsters today. People still wish to know how he trained, what he ate, how he fought, what he believed in, and how he conducted his life.

Bruce Lee, is the true Legend of Martial Arts, the epitome of fitness and strength. His skill was exceptional, his speed unbelievable, and his training routines were legendary in their intensiveness. Bruce Lee is our number one.

2. Roger Banister

Roger Banister is a bit different from Bruce Lee. Roger Banister was a middle distance runner, born in 1929 between the wars, and lived in a time when athletics was only a pastime for gentlemen and scholars. He attended Oxford University, and later became a distinguished neurologist and Master of Pembroke College, Oxford, where he continued to work until 2001.

However, Roger Banister is famous for being the first man to break the four minute mile. There was a time that break world records really was something to be marveled. Nowadays people break world records and it hardly makes it into the mainstream news (unless there are drug tests to invalidate the record).

Bannister started running career Oxford in the autumn of 1946 when 17. He had never worn running spikes previously or run on a track. His training was light, even compared to the standards of the day, but he showed promise in running a mile in 1947 in 4:24.6 on only three weekly half-hour training sessions.

He went on to compete in the 1952 Olympic games, but failed to win. After his poor performance. he decided on a new goal – to be the first man to run a mile in under four minutes. Accordingly, he intensified his training. On May 6, 1954, at a competition in Oxford, he did the impossible and broke the four minute mile, in 3 min 59.4 s.

What makes Roger Bannister so great is that well-educated people strongly believe that it was not possible to run a mile in less than four minutes. However, his determination and spirit resulted in him proving the doubters wrong and achieving what was believe impossible. Since his success, thousands of others have followed in his footsteps.

3. Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold Schwarzenegger grew up in humble surroundings in Austria in the 1950′s. Born in 1947, and had a strict Catholic upbringing. He was a sporting child, and started weight training in 1960 as part of his football training.

He soon took up bodybuilding, and was so dedicated that he went AWOL during while serving in the army to attend the Junior Mr. Europe contest in 1965, which he won. As a result he spent a week in an army jail: “Participating in the competition meant so much to me that I didn’t carefully think through the consequences.

When I got to Stuttgart, I was all confused. I forgot my posing routine, I had to borrow posing trunks, but still I won!”

By 1967 he was a strongman, winning the Munich stone-lifting contest. Schwarzenegger’s goal was to become the greatest bodybuilder in the world. In 1970 he won his first My Olympia contest, and at 23 years old was the youngest ever winner, a record he still holds.

He then followed this up by winning again for the next five years, until 1975, where he announced his retirement after beating Franco Columbo (who later won, and also trained Sylvester Stallone).

In 1980 he competed again, simply because he was in such great shape as a result of because of the running, horseback riding, and sword training he had been doing during the filming of Conan the Barbarian. He won.

Arnold Schwarzenegger later developed a successful acting career, where he reinvented the action hero. He has been an inspiration for thousands who have started bodybuilding after seeing his films. Many say that his success is due to his will to succeed, and his fighting spirit.

4. Sylvester “Sly” Stallone

Sly Stallone is possibly America’s favourite action hero. He brought emotion and feeling to the characters he played, Rocky Balboa and John Rambo, as well as great athleticism, and became an international icon of machismo.

Stallone is an actor first, and bodybuilder second. He started to improve his fitness and started building more muscle for his role in Rocky 2. He employed former Mr. Olympia Franco Columbo to aid him in this task, and the result was a body of a professional heavyweight boxer.

People the world over love Stallone’s portrayal of Rocky Balboa. A story of how a nobody can work hard and become a somebody, is something that gives inspiration to millions of people today. The Rocky training montage music is still heard in gyms and fight clubs to help motivate and inspire people.

Whereas Arnold Schwarzenegger and Bruce Lee were athletes before becoming movie legends, Stallone build his physique to become a movie legend. For this he has earned our respect.

They persevered and they were determined, a lot like the ’98 team” Yankees Manager Brian Cashman

The team played excellently together and proved that their fitness regime and baseball training skills are certainly top notch and more than capable to keep them on top of their game.

The Yankees have a large team of coaches that specialize in each key skill in the game: Kevin Long for Batting, Dave Eiland for Pitching, Mick Kelleher for First Base, Rob Thomson for Third Base, Tony Pena for Bench and Mike Harkey is the Bullpen Coach.

Yankees Strength and Conditioning

Dana Cavalea is the Yankee’s Strength and Conditioning Coach. He ensures that the team follow a strict regime of functional strength training to improve pitch performance to its maximum potential while avoiding overtraining.

Cavalea’s says that the key element to ensuring that the Yankee’s fitness levels are kept to their maximum is create the most efficient training program possible without wasting time or overtraining. His slogan for training is simply:

If we train SLOW, we will be SLOW! If we train FAST, we will be FAST!

Baseball is not an aerobic sport so getting the team doing 2 mile runs to test their cardiovascular ability is not the way to ensure they are fit for a ball game. Baseball is an anaerobic sport and requires sprint training and strength training. In fact, Usain Bolt’s training is far more relevant to baseball than jogging / running workouts. Short, powerful workouts which build functional athletic muscle that is geared to short bursts of intensity.

“In order to make a conditioning program as sport-specific as possible we need to analyze the sport. In the game of baseball most actions are short, quick, and explosive. Usually the work: rest ratio in baseball is about 1:3. For instance if you are in the batters box and swing, the anticipation of the pitch and then the swing might take a total of 15 seconds and then you would have between 45 seconds and a minute off before the next time you set in the box, creating a work to rest of 1:2-3. So when devising a program, one option might be to mark off a distance of about 30-40 yards and have the athletes sprint out at full speed and hold a timer to see how long that run takes. After you get the time, the rest would be 2-3 times that.” Dana Cavalea.

So the key to training a baseball team is to ensure that they have functional strength training and do sprint interval workouts. These workouts produce the physical attributes that are needed on the ball park. In some ways baseball training is similar to soccer training – sprint intervals and some functional strength training. Never overtrain – Bruce Lee warned about the dangers of overtraining, and his teachings are still as valid today as they were when he was teaching and writing about martial arts training.

As for the specific strength training, then the answer is compound weight training – squats, lunges, bench press, shoulder press, deadlift, curls and rows. Work the whole body so that all the muscles learn to work in unison. This is what created athletic strength and power.

Dana Caveala’s site: www.mlstrength.com

New York Yankees official website: newyork.yankees.mlb.com

Ref: Cavalea, D. (2009, May 4). Conditioning For the Modern Day Ballplayer. Retrieved November 5, 2009.

JKD is Bruce Lee’s martial arts philosophy, Jeet Kune Do. What does this have to do with soccer, and especially the World Cup? The aim of Bruce Lee’s Jeet June Do is to break down the barriers of formal systems that can hinder the growth and development of an individual. A formless system of fighting with no rules, no patterns, no style, but yet still highly skilled and expertly executed.

The FIFA 2010 World Cup has highlighted something very interesting in competitive teams sports. Each country in the World Cup features its best players, the finest footballers that an entire nation has to offer. So, why is it that sometimes they perform so badly? Is it because the competition is just so much better? No, that cannot be the case. England have performed badly against Algeria and the USA and although both of these countries have excellent players, they are not considered to be so good that they would make any other team look bad. So what happens?

One theory is that as the players have relatively little time actually playing with each other, they do not learn to work together. The answer is of course to focus on set plays. To examine how the opposition usually plays and prepare set pieces that will hopefully break through their defence. But there comes a time when there is too much emphasis on the set pieces, on the formation (England are currently suffering with the 4-4-2 formation). The best soccer players in the country are chosen because of their exceptional skills and talent with the ball, but are then forced to work to a form, to follow patterns that go against their preferred method of play. The result is a team that is not working to its full potential.

If we look at teams such as Portugal and Brazil, who also both boast some of the Worlds greatest soccer players at the moment (Ronaldo for Portugal and Kaka for Brazil) they are performing extremely well in this World Cup so far. So what is the main difference? Brazilian soccer players seem to have more flair, more opportunity to use their talent and skill to take control of the situation. There is no form, no planned attack, no set piece or formations. A midfielder or even defender is free to make a shot for goal, something some other team managers would not allow.

So often we watch an excellent play through the midfield and into the penalty area only to then witness the attack suddenly dry up as the players start seeking out each other to allow them to cross, when they should be focused on aiming for goal. When Portugal scored 7 goals against North Korea they did not do so by following patterns. Players moved forward, passing the ball, keep possession, and then letting the game flow. Crosses were made across the front of the goal without first checking and then waiting for a team mate to be in position. They would strike and expect their team mates to have moved into position already, and if not, so be it. The style of play is more fluid, more spontaneous and less formalized.

It seems that the biggest hurdle for players and teams is frustration. There is so much pressure on the players to perform well as they are the chosen few, but then they fear being spontaneous. If they break the rules set out by the manager and that results in an error, they will be blamed. Players of the highest quality are left frustrated at their inability to take full control or to just let the game flow and allow their instinct and skills to take them forward.

So the answer is to follow Bruce Lee’s way, to “don’t think, feel“. The art of fighting without fighting. Do not follow forms, just allow all the skills you have learnt to surface when required and flow through you. You have the skills required to win the match and it is up to the players to create the chances and spot the opportunities as they arise, and to always press forward. Forms, orders, set pieces, position – this all leads to hesitation, and hesitation leads to errors, frustration and losing the fight.

I know that there are a lot of people claiming job seekers allowance benefit who could probably find a job if they really wanted one, but at the same time there are many professionals that have been made redundant during the credit crunch who are looking for a good job to get their career back on track. For many of these people the JSA and other benefits are what is keeping the family afloat during these difficult times.

What the government is proposing, or possibly already implemented, is that anyone that has failed to find a new job within a certain time-frame will have to start working for local government for free (community work, “voluntary” work etc) or their benefits will cease.

How can this be fair? Some people will go from looking for work full time, which involves networking, searching the internet and press for job opportunities, writing applications and creating unique converting letters and CV’s for each position that they apply for, to cleaning streets, or some other random tasks for the council.

And what about the people that would be happy to do this sort of work for the council. A lot of unemployed people would love the chance to work of the council – but now rather than employ more people, the council will force them into unpaid work.

This seems totally bonkers. And not very British. Certainly spells the end of the welfare state. What next? If you want to give birth in a public hospital and you haven’t been paying taxes you have to clean it first? Unemployed parents will no longer be able to send their children to school due to the additional costs in areas where there are not enough high earning tax payers? Sounds crazy, but then there was a time when “job seekers allowance” was just that – an allowance to aid you in finding a job.

Also just seen that you can create Word and Excel documents online now.

Not sure if I have seen the video before. Seems familiar. never had MTV. 1981, I was only 7. No More Heroes, I remember that. No idea why. I remember listening to No More Heroes in a pub in Preston, probably 1993, with a drinking pal, and he had never heard the Stranglers before. But he liked them.

I love hearing music I have not heard in ages. And I am now old enough to safely say that I had not heard that in ages. Maybe a decade, maybe more.

Yesterday England crashed out of the World Cup after Germany beat them 4-1. Germany initially dominated the game, scoring two goals which simply made a mockery of the English defence.

But England fought back with an excellent goal from Matthew Upson in the 37th minute. This was quickly followed by an excellent goal from Lampard that meant England equalized just before half-time. England were suddenly on top and looking strong. The tables had turned and Germany’s young defence was suddenly a walk over.

But that goal was disallowed. Even though it was seen by half the crowd in the stadium, most the players on the pitch and about 500 million people watching on television the referee in his wisdom disallowed it, because he was not looking. Even when it was shown on the giant screens in the stadium the referee still could not see the ball clearly cross the line and land about 1 metre from the goal line before spinning back out into the goal keepers arms.

Some people are saying that England were playing badly so that it does not really matter. Yes, England were playing badly for the first 30 minutes, and yes, they played badly after the ref disallowed their goal – the team lost all hope and faith and just fell apart. But in those last 15 minutes of the first half, England were playing brilliantly and were on top. If that goal was allowed they would have had the strength and determination to carry on and win the game. But a blind ref put a stop on that.

FIFA stand by their decision not to have any “technology” in the game to help the referees. This is a stupid and out dated idea. Many sports have the aid of video to ensure that a correct and fair decision is made. Cricket, tennis, rugby all use cameras. Fencing and taekwondo now use electronic tagging. All athletics has advanced video that can determine differences over microseconds. So why cannot football? Is there not enough money in the game?

Anyone who says that stoppages for a referee to watch a video playback would spoil the game are missing the point. The thing that spoils the game most is unfair decisions and mistakes by the referee. What was a great game has suddenly become a joke.

Does winter officially start on December 1st now? Will Christmas be moved to match the official start of winter now that all the pagans are dead and no longer celebrate midwinter, or will the Christians keep the 25th for old times sake?

And what about spring and autumn? Will the equinoxes (or is that equini) be scrapped in favour of the start of the cricket season and the end of the F1 Grand Prix season? Where will it all end?