If you’ve ever winded yourself struggling to get your burpees in – we may have some good news. According to personal trainer, Patrick Murphy, the trainer behind Zac Efron’s enviable body, burpees are one of the exercises “everyone’s doing in the gym” that are actually awful for you. The move, which incorporates jumping, tightening, speed, and fat burning, is often touted as the one move that incorporates all your muscles – and can be done by almost anyone. But according to Murphy, they make more sense in the military – where the exercise originated, and where the risk of a…
Author: James Anderson
If Instagram #transformationtuesday pictures are anything to go by, changing your body is easy if you just dedicate your life to it. But the fact of the matter is, most of us aren’t able to dedicated our lives to fitness. We have jobs, social lives and commitments which mean we can’t workout everyday and eat chicken and broccoli for dinner every night even if we wanted to. However surely it is possible to transform your fitness and physique and still live your life if you set your mind to it? To put this to the test, two of The Independent’s staff…
While some gym-goers love the plank, others avoid it at all costs. The plank, an isometric core exercise, is performed by athletes of all abilities, from amateur to elite. David Mercer, a personal trainer at Nuffield Health, believes the exercise is particularly popular because it’s viewed as the “best way to sculpt your abdominals”. However, if you’re not entirely sure how to do a plank correctly, then holding your body in position for a lengthy period of time may seem like a daunting prospect. We chatted with Mercer to find out his top tips for performing a perfect plank. From angling…
Military families who are deployed far from their homes will see their process for voting become more complex, risking their possible disenfranchisement, with President Donald Trump’s efforts to make certain election policies more stringent. Trump’s new executive order — which aims to boost proof-of-citizenship requirements and to pressure states to make other changes to their election practices — comes as military voters are already caught in the middle of legal battles over Republican efforts to toss overseas ballots. A Friday court ruling, for example, has jeopardized thousands of overseas ballots cast in a North Carolina Supreme Court race last year. Trump is now seeking to…
Americans have grown accustomed to dramatic shifts in policy each time control of the White House changes between parties. But across a wide range of domestic and foreign policy issues, President Donald Trump is now pursuing structural changes to the federal government that could prove very difficult for the next Democratic president to undo. On many fronts, Trump is seeking not just to reduce spending or to roll back regulation, but to hollow out the federal government’s institutional capacity to influence events both domestically and internationally. Far more aggressively than in his first term, Trump is unraveling many of the…
President Donald Trump’s promised tariffs are a day away – and they’ll go into effect sooner than some had expected. As in, immediately, the White House said Tuesday. Although many details remain unknown, perhaps even to Trump himself, the administration’s “Liberation Day” trade policy announcement is expected to be the most aggressive tariff move yet by the most tariff-obsessed president in modern history. Trump is meeting with his trade team Tuesday and the tariffs he announces at a Rose Garden ceremony at 4 pm ET Wednesday will go into effect “immediately,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday a…
Several top Trump administration officials are facing scrutiny for sending detailed operational plans and other likely highly classified information about US military strikes on Yemen to a group chat on a messaging app that inadvertently included the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg. The mistake amounts to an unprecedented breach of security by some of President Donald Trump’s most senior national security officials and raises questions about whether they violated the Espionage Act, which makes it illegal to mishandle national defense information. Normally, discussions of this nature occur in a sensitive compartmented information facility (SCIF), a highly secure area to discuss classified information. A…
President Donald Trump says he has had an “extremely productive call” with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney amid a spike in tensions and an escalating trade war between the United States and its northern neighbour. In a social media post describing the call on Friday, the US president sounded conciliatory towards Canada. Notably, Trump referred to the Canadian leader by his correct title as prime minister after months of calling Carney’s predecessor Justin Trudeau “governor”. “I just finished speaking with Prime Minister Mark Carney, of Canada,” Trump wrote. “It was an extremely productive call, we agree on many things, and will be meeting immediately…
President Donald Trump says he pardoned Trevor Milton, the CEO of now-defunct hydrogen and electric truck firm Nikola, in part because he believed Milton was persecuted for supporting Trump’s political ambitions. In October 2022, a New York jury convicted Milton on federal charges of securities fraud and wire fraud. Prosecutors in the US Attorney’s Office in the Southern District of New York had accused Milton of making false and misleading statements about “nearly all aspects of the business” as it pertained to developing electric and hydrogen-powered trucks, as well as defrauding the public through social media and podcast interviews. He…
Close to 70,000 South Africans have expressed interest in moving to the US following Washington’s offer to resettle people from the country’s Afrikaner community, a business group has said. The South African Chamber of Commerce in the USA (Saccusa) said its website received tens of thousands of registrations from those seeking more information. In a February executive order, President Donald Trump said Afrikaners – descendants of mainly Dutch settlers who arrived in the 17th Century – could be admitted as refugees as they were “victims of unjust racial discrimination”. Relations between the US and South Africa have become increasingly strained…