I WROTE about new health and fitness experience Feel Electric last year after trying out several sessions.
Thanks to the generosity of fitness entrepreneur Jon Wright and his team, I’ve continued the 20 minute weekly sessions over the last few months.
As my fitness has improved, it has been interesting to watch the development of the business too.
From an initial site in Harrogate, Feel Electric has opened four more studios across Yorkshire – in Roundhay, Horsforth, York and Sheffield and crossed the Pennines with sites in Wilmslow and Hale in Cheshire opening soon.
The concept, which started out as purely a fitness proposition, has been developed too, with Feel Electric now positioned as a health and wellness centre, providing a combination of electro muscle stimulation (EMS) training, full body health assessments and nutrition advice and support.
I’ve learned a lot more about unique benefits of EMS since I started doing it.
Its electro muscle stimulation means that it boosts workout results with one 20-minute season per week the equivalent of two hours of high intensity interval training (HIIT).
As the Feel Electric team have worked with more clients they have seen a wide range of benefits for those who are both already fit, totally unfit, suffering with injuries or back and other body pain.
If I stopped drinking wine for a few days each week I know I’d see the weight loss benefits too!
I know that because before every session I do a medical graded full body health scan on a machine which as well as giving my weight also measures my body composition including body fat and skeletal muscle mass as well as a plethora of other measurements and data.
If nothing else it is hugely reassuring to know that the Feel Electric team keep an eye on these figures and can make sure you are doing what you should to send the numbers in the right direction.
And the new Feel Lighter nutrition planner means that you can monitor your own diet and make the changes needed to reach the targets you’ve set for yourself.
I’d consider myself pretty fit but loved the boost that I got from EMS which included increased strength and muscle definition.
Earlier this year I injured the ligaments in my ankle doing outdoor military fitness sessions and had a flare up of an old knee injury and in the past that would have put paid to doing any exercise for several weeks until things healed.
However I was able to continue Feel Electric because it doesn’t involve high impact jumping or running but more basic movements including squats, lunges and a variety of moves aimed at exercising your core while you are standing.
EMS was actually developed in Germany specifically as a way to enable elite athletes to recover from injury.
Multiple scientific studies have demonstrated how effective EMS training is for rehabilitation after surgery and how it aids recovery after nerve injury.
Low impact EMS wellness sessions are able to target specific muscle groups to strengthen and accelerate recovery without aggravating an injury further.
They also improve blood circulation and increase nutrient transfer through the muscles to speed up injury rehabilitation even more.
Other benefits the team at Feel Electric have seen in their clients include relief from back pain, joint pain and menopause symptoms.
They also told me about the help they are giving to people who suffer with fibromyalgia, which causes widespread body pain and extreme tiredness.
One member who started EMS sessions has now being able to run for the first time in five years and reduced her pain treatment from 12 different medications to just three.
What I’ve found is that EMS has now become a part of my fitness routine, not just a short-term fix.
And the health benefits and monitoring are a reassuring benefit too.
For more information: www.feel-electric.com
Instagram: @feelelectricems
Facebook: @feelelectricems
Youtube: FeelElectricEMS
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LAST Friday marked my annual pilgrimage to the Far East, sometimes described as a Cultural Tour of Hull – or more often the Jolly Boys Day Out.
The brainchild of Hull entrepreneur Shaun Watts, who runs office and commercial building fit out experts Chameleon Business Interiors, it was started in 2016 just before Hull spent a year as City of Culture.
Shaun and his business peers including Dominic Gibbons of property group Wykeland and Ken Sturdy of IT business Spectrum, saw it as their way to showcase their home city to clients and contacts from other parts of the country.
I’m an honorary member of this exclusive group and every year return to wholeheartedly and enthusiastically immerse myself in a smorgasbord of cultural experiences in the East Riding.
I took as my guest this year entrepreneur Andy Needham, the managing director of Surplus Group, which includes Approved Food, the UK’s largest online-only retailer of short-dated food and drink; Morris & Son, a residual and clearance stock specialist that serves businesses in the value wholesale and retail sector; and a social enterprise, Surplus For Good, which takes food at risk of being wasted and redistributes it to the most vulnerable members of society.
When I bumped into Andy at York Races last month I introduced him to Shaun and Andy reeled off details of the last few Cultural Tours of Hull having read about them in this blog.
Given that when I’ve explained the annual event in Hull to some potential guests in the past they have appeared to think it is simply a glorified pub crawl, I knew I couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth.
A guest keen to attend and fully immerse himself in the traditions of the day.
So there was Andy with other guests and their hosts enjoying a coffee and bacon sandwich in Thieving Harry’s on Humber Street close to Hull Marina at 8.30am last Friday.
Historian Robb Robinson, whose vast knowledge has seen him grace the airwaves of the BBC and lecture on cruise ships, joined us again and, given the death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II had been announced the previous evening, Robb spent some time recounting the royal connections of Hull.
Of course its official name is Kingston upon Hull which is a shortened version of Kings’ Town upon Hull, the name the settlement of Wyke on the River Hull was given when King Edward I granted it a Royal Charter in 1299.
A few hundred years later in 1642 it blotted its royal copy book a tad when it declared its support for Parliament rather than King Charles I and denied the monarch entry to the town, which sparked the English Civil War.
Legend has it that the plan to bar the King from the town was cooked up in what is now known as The Plotting Room, a panelled chamber in Ye Olde White Harte pub in Hull’s Old Town.
After a toast to the late Queen with a tot of rum – a nod to Hull’s maritime history – we set off to visit Trinity House, pausing to admire the statue known locally as ‘King Billy’, which commemorates Hull becoming the first English city to declare its allegiance to King William III following the Glorious Revolution of 1688.
Trinity House is a seafaring organisation dating from 1369 which includes a charity for seafarers, a school and a guild of mariners.
Similar to the tradesmen’s guilds in the City of London, Trinity House has an incredible collection of artwork and other items showcasing Hull’s maritime history, from harpoons used by its once huge whaling fleet to drawings from Captain Cook’s expedition to discover Australia, as well as his original rifle.
The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh visited Trinity House on a number of occasions and Prince Charles was made an Honorary Brother in 1986.
Despite having visited Trinity House a few years ago, we were shown some of its many treasures we hadn’t seen before including the original charter from 1369 on parchment with wax seals.
That was when a group of local people banded together to save money to create a fund to support members who were sick or had fallen on hard times.
Our final stop on the tour was to view the vast collection of silverware kept in a safe.
Conservatively valued at around £6m, the most expensive piece in the collection is a silver cup dating from the 16th century and worth well over half a million pounds.
Among the silverware there was an impressive galleon on wheels which was filled with wine at banquets.
That is apparently where the phrase “pushing the boat out” came from as well as “three sheets to the wind” when diners had a little too much.
Our guide also pointed to a salt bowl which was put out at banquets with those deemed most important always seated ahead of it, hence the expression “worth their salt”.
It prompted Robb Robinson to describe the days when there were no sewers or drains in the city and human waste was tipped straight into the River Hull.
Those who swam in it didn’t take long to come face to face with faeces which Robb said led to the expression “going through the motions”.
I do like a nice bit of history.
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LAST Thursday afternoon Fresh Thinking Capital held the inaugural event for its new Fresh Prosperity Programme aimed at helping support personal development and networking opportunities for young professionals in Leeds.
It is a great initiative aimed at young, ambitious and talented individuals and given I’m none of these things I think I’m quite fortunate to be hosting the monthly events.
I’ve also given the team at Fresh Thinking Capital some ideas on inspirational speakers for the events which aim to grow the wealth of knowledge and skills of professionals in the deal-making community.
The launch event featured former Leeds Rhino Jamie Jones-Buchanan MBE and Simon Hartley, an elite performance psychologist. 
The theme for the event was how to gain an ‘unrivalled mindset’.
Jamie and Simon told incredible, inspiring stories to illustrate the theme and answered a host of questions from the audience.
In between their two presentations news organisations broke the news of the death of Her Majesty the Queen.
After a short discussion with Fresh Thinking Capital founders Mel Hird and Andrew Walls and head of marketing Rory Dolan, we decided to continue with the event but to hold a one minute silence in memory of and as a mark of respect for the Queen.
It made me reflect that no one present would forget where they were when the news was announced.
I remember where I was when news 9/11 emerged and I remember my parents recalling the announcement of the death of President John F Kennedy in 1963 and my grandparents telling me their memories of the declaration of war in 1939.
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I SPENT a short break catching up with family in Canada over the summer.
I haven’t been for several years and while it is still as beautiful and welcoming a place as ever, what has changed is that cannabis is now legal.
So as I stopped at street corners in Toronto to admire the views of this attractive and hospitable city, there was a whiff of weed in the air.
It was like standing outside the gates of a private school in Harrogate.
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MY Mum told me she bumped into my old Scout master the other day who asked how I was.
“He’s fine, but he still can’t tie knots,” she informed him.
Have a great weekend.