pratty

Yeah sure, lack of soreness isn't a problem, though it could be that the bike isn't pushing your legs beyond their capabilities. But it all depends on what your goal is, are you just burining calories/losing weight, improving your cardio, or do you specifically want to build/strengthen your legs?

It probably goes without saying at this point, but just incase people haven't played Ocarina yet - SPOILERS AHEAD! I just rewatched the scene where Sheik reveals herself as Zelda and is captured, and the escape from the tower on youtube, and it just goes to show how much perception plays in this kind of debate. The strong implication made in the reveal scene is that the only reason Ganondorf hasn't captured Zelda for the last 7 years is because she has been hiding as Sheik. Pretty much as soon as she reveals herself to be Zelda, Ganondorf takes her by surprise and doesn't give her a chance. Is it sexist that the writers didn't give her a chance against Ganondorf? I don't think so. I don't beleive they're obligated to show Zelda taken in a struggle, it was only her disguise as Sheik, not her "Sheikah skills", that prevented Ganondorf from capturing her earlier, the writers never depicted her as a match for Ganondorf, nor were they ever obligated to. Absolutely they could have depicted her has being able to give Ganondorf a run for his money but I think the idea is to make Ganondorf look strong, to show the player they're up against someone really powerful and fearsome. It's a bit of an ego rub to tell they player you're the only person that can stop him. Equally even if Zelda is suppposed to be this feisty character at heart, being taken by surprise creates a good excuse to still have her captured so the damsel in distress device can be put into effect. I would also say that, in my opinion, Zelda does play an active role, in her princess guise, at the end of the game. It is Zelda that instructs Link to follow her, she leads the way down and opens the doors for Link, which presumebly he can't. She doesn't fight the Stalfos or whatever they're called. Could she have? Assuming that Zelda/Sheik knew how to fight perhaps she could have, however she didn't have a weapon unlike Link, and it would have made no sense for the writers to have conveniently given her one when she has been captured. Could Link have given her a weapon, maybe but could the game engine have shown them fighting side by side? Even if it could maybe maybe it would have taken a lot of programming effort, far simpler to have Zelda protect herself with her shield and let Link handle it, the game is about the player saving the day after all. I think we have to remember we're talking about a game and that comes with some limitations and other things to consider, unlike a simple piece of fiction. Perhaps that's why Zelda doesn't use her magic or what ever she has to fight the stalfos, if she just destroys them with her magic then what does that leave for the player to do? Then during the second fight Ganon she plays an active role, locating the sword for Link and trapping Ganon with her magic, allowing Link to stike him with the sword, before she and the other ages trap Ganon in some portal or whatever. I really didn't see the frailty that some of you guys were talking about. As for the gasping, again it's perception, where they gasps of surprise, or gasps of fear? Ganon returning at the end was surprising, and so what if they were gasps of fear? She should fear Ganondorf, she's been hiding from him for 7 years. Honestly guys I don't think the depiction of Princess Zelda was that bad at all, far from disgusting. Even if we say she didn't use her magic earlier to fight, or didn't do her ninja acrobatics on the way down the tower, wouldn't we just be talking about plot holes rather than sexism? I do take on board what Cube said about when you can identfiy Zelda as female (although there are useful obviously female Nintendo characters), but that only holds water when the characteristics and capabilities of Zelda are different when she is Sheik and when she is Princess Zelda, and I'm not conviced they are. Obviously her mannerisms are different as Sheik but they're probably part of her disguise. As for her being less active in other games. Well they're mostly different Zeldas, and just because a game does not have an active female character, it isn't necessarily making a declaritive statement that females can't be active characters.

To be honest I really can't remember Ocarina all that well, I can't really remember how she acted after capture, however could it be that you're overestimating the capabilities of Zelda? She was a Sheikah, or at least pretended to be, and the gossip stones do refer to her as a tomboy, but prior to her capture does the game actually depict her has handling actual danger the way you expect her to? After all she is fearful of Ganondorf, if she was so supposedly bad ass why not just take him on? The game does say that she is more than her "elegant image" but I'm not convinced her character does a complete 180 degree shift when she is captured. She's no delicate flower but equally no fearless warrior, and being captured by Ganondorf and made to feel helpless will certainly knock the confidence out of someone. Even if Zelda is made to fit the damsel role against an established un-damsel character, is it really sexist? It's easy to hypothetically say the games wouldn't depict a male character the same way as Zelda, but why would they, if the game has a male protagonist, typically played by a male player? I think we have to remember the trope is about motivating the typically male player. I can see why people view it as the somewhat capable female having to take a step back for a more capable male, but if the progonist is male, then an active female (Zelda) must be somewhat disposed of for him to have a purpose, otherwise just let her deal with Ganondorf. It might be bad writing, but the more helpless and needy the damsel becomes the more motivated the player is. Is that sexist? I'm not sure it is. Just because a game has an active male hero and a passive female damsel, it isn't making the sexist statement that woman cannot be heroes. It's simply saying on this occasion the hero is male, and the absence of an active female companion/damsel isn't sexist either. And it would actually be far more simple for the Nintendo to just depict Zelda as weak and frail from start to finish, so I think it's actually to Nintendo's credit that they don't. As you said it's not sexist that women can't win the race, it's that sexist that they're not given the opportunity to run. Now I would say that not showing a woman running isn't the same as saying women cannot run, however, to me Nintendo do show Zelda (and Krystal) as a fairly active and capable character ("running the race" so to speak) prior to the events of the game where they are captured, it is at this point where the male protagonist takes over from her. Zelda may well unintentionally appear to reinforce a general pre-existing notion that women are ultimately incapable of looking after themselves without the help of men, but what are we do? Never have woman rescued by man ever again, for fear of reinforcing a stereotype? Better to counter that notion in other games, which Nintendo do with Metroid. It's true no damsel was needed, but as I explained it's a device used for motivation, so adding a damsel increases motivation, it's lazy and overdone but it seems to work. I do think there's a greater case with Starfox Adventures to be made about the objectification of the damsel and the female as prize, because they make it clear that Fox fancies her. It's a very simple and un-subtle motivation, but I do wonder how harmful and sexist it really is. Would they hypothetically depict a male character like Krystal against a female protagonist? Perhaps not, but then again maybe men and woman are motivated by different things. I don't believe that the decision to replace Krystal with Fox itself was a sexist one. I think they just saw an opportunity to use an established IP, and then subsequently built the game around the male protagonist of Fox instead. They might well have also concluded that a male protagonist would be better suited for the market, but I think if Fox was woman they might well have still replaced Krystal. But hey I could be wrong, I've enjoyed the debate, it's cool if we differ and can agree to disagree.

No I am aware of that, I think I did say in earlier posts that Nintendo could have written the games differently.

Interesting points, and I agree with some of them to an extent, but also disagree some too. I agree that the damsels in distress limit the character and influence of the damsel. Though you say it's sexist because they wouldn't place men in a passive and disempowered position against their character, but is that really happening with Zelda? The trouble is someone's abilities are only relative. You correctly point out in Ocarina that Zelda was some kind of ninja-like character, but does that establish that she could kick Ganondorf's ass? Clearly she was never beyond capture or she wouldn't have been captured. So is there such a thing as an unfitting damsel in distress? The very fact they are in distress suggests that no matter how capable they might have been, they still weren't up to the job of of preventing their capture. You could even argue that if you are going to use the trope perhaps it's better to depict a typically capable and active woman, as being caught off guard and captured "on a bad day", than to reinforce the usual stereotype of the damsel always being feeble and useless. I agree that a female character need not be as physically able as the male, and that having a character like Zelda be more integral to the action can be of benefit to the story. But equally in my opinion there is no need for her to be. Contrary to what Anita seems to think, I wouldn't say The Legend of Zelda is really about Zelda's character. She's sort of a maguffin type character, we learn enough about her to understand why she's important to Link, but (while it might be a better story if she did) it isn't necessarry that she play an active and integral role. For example you could still have the Saving Private Ryan story if Private Ryan was injured and unable to move, maybe unable even to speak, and was a totally passive character. It might not be as good a film but the story would still be about the soldiers and their sacrifice to save him. Similarly the story in Zelda is mainly about the protagonist saving the day, any help from Zelda herself is welcome icing on the cake. I think would be sexist if Nintendo simply said women cannot be heroes, but they're not saying that, and if anyone doubts them they have a strong female hero in Metroid. And despite the fact that the Zelda series is actually about a male hero, the Zelda character does still play an active role some of the time, and is occasionally depicted as a fairly capable, strong willed and active character. To be fair the the publishers themselves probably didn't phrase it quite like that, and they probably just meant male characters stand a better chance of financial success, and that by contrast female protagonists aren't worth the risk to them, which is different from saying females are incapable of being protagonists. If it's true that having a female protagonist does pose more of a substantial risk, then surely that says more about gamers than the publishers themselves?

But isn't that more because she's a princess than a female. If anything the Windwaker example suggests it's portraying princesses as frail, rather than the female gender as a whole. And even then her weakness is only relative. I agree there's nothing wrong with having a few more female protagonists, but I wonder if it's purely a numbers game to redress the balance. How many female protagonists do we need to get to a point where video games aren't going to be considered a sexist meduim? I think it's fair to say that with everything else (training, opportunity etc) being equal, men are more physcially capable then women. So if we say we want the same number of ass kicking female protagonists in the name of fairness, then does that really reflect the real world where women generally aren't as physically capable as men? If video games portrayed a world where women are exactly equally able to fight as well as men then doesn't that depict an equally false representation of real life? As it seems that the likes of Jade, Samus, Lara Croft etc are the exceptions in video games, aren't the women that can compete with their male peers in combat in real life the relative exceptions as well? If not why aren't the women fighting men in UFC etc? As I said earlier in the thread, couple that with the fact that more men play these kinds of games and prefer to indenity with male protagonists, and it's hardly surprising that so many developers go with male protagonists. As such I think Nintendo deserve more credit for making Samus female, rather than people regard it as some pathetic token gesture.

Absolutely a woman can be a strong and active character, but I think there's a difference etween could and should. Whatever capabilities Zelda might have, she's simply not as capable as Link (at least physically), their characters are different. Yes Nintendo made the characters that way, but is it really sexist? Aren't there frail women in real life, aren't women kidknapped in real life? Why can't Zelda be one of them? Or in order to not be sexist must the media always portray women as strong. I watched a movie the other day where a woman got beat up by a man, should I have said "there's sexist Hollywood reinforcing the stereotype that woman are weak again"? I think "equality" is a problematic term, I think it's too simplistic to simply say women must be equal invideo games. I agree women should be given equal opportunities in real life etc but if I race a woman over 100 meters it isn't sexist if I win, and if the race was fictional, it wouldn't necessarily be sexist for the author to portray a man beating a woman either, it's entirely plausible, and with all other things being equal probably likely. Men and woman should have equal basic rights and opportunities, but sometimes (and probably more often than not) men and woman are not the same, just as not every man is the same, or every woman is the same. People are different so why should Link and Zelda be the same? The Legend of Zelda is about a relatively physically capable man and a less physically capable woman, just as both exist in real life. Yes they could have done it the other way round, or made them exactly equal, but I don't think it's sexist that they didn't. Typcially in these adventure games we're dealing with protagonists that do physical and violent stuff and I don't think Nintedno are defying realism to portray the characters that way. Obviously though not every woman is weak, frail and unskilled in combat, and Nintendo have expressed the more physically capable female aswell. It just so happens that instead of portraying that female character type in The Legend Of Zelda, they did so in Metroid instead. And it makes sense, who's more likely to kick ass, a monach or a bounty hunter? And then other games have inverted the damsel in distress, such as Beyond Good and Evil. But if we're saying that games such as Metroid and BGAE are non-sexist video games and that we need more female protagonists, are we then saying all male protagonist games are inherantly sexist because the developer choose to depict a male protagonist rather than a female? Or that a characters of opposing sexes should not rescue each other? By the way that's not all just aimed at you Jonnas mate. It's just you brought up Zelda and I'm not convinced it's sexist, so I quoted you.

Apparently coconut oil in your shakes does the trick.

I think the damsel in distress is an overused device, but I would say it's probably not intentionally aiming to disempower women, it's more about motivating the male protagonist, and by extension the typically male player. And there's not much more motivating than a loved one in danger, and if the loved one wasn't "disempowered" then they wouldn't be in as much danger. There are of course other things to be motivated by such as money or saving the world in general, and these things do exist in games too, especially saving the world which seems to be pretty much the plot for every other game adventure game. In the case of Mario, saving a loved one is pretty much all he has to fight for. Infact the saving the princess idea is pretty much parody in Mario games these days, I'm pretty sure they make fun of it in Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, where Peach is playable and actually helps Mario and shows some character, despite being kidnapped. I think the notion of women purely as trohpies is a bit of an oversimplified view. If the game portrays a healthy relationship between the man and the woman, rather than a mindless, slavish sexual devotion of the woman, then I don't see it as anything sexist. If a woman is kidknapped, it's not sexist for her husband to want her back. His wife isn't a trophy to win, getting her back is simply restroring a status quo that the antagonist has disrupted. Additionally the damsels may appear objectivised because they are either trapped/frozen, or lacking in personality. But ultimately these games are about the race, not what's at the finish line. In the shallow narative of a typical Mario game, Peach doesn't need to be anything more than a pretty face waiting at the end of the last level, because the game is not about her. Mario just needs a maguffin to chase after and it just so happens to be a woman rather than an object. I didn't mind the video taking video games to task over the subject. What I wasn't keen on though was that she used some poor examples to overstate her point. For example she said "Zelda has never been a playable character in her own adventure", as though Nintendo actually went against logic to be sexist. At this point I wondered if she even played games, because I thought it was fairly clear that Zelda games are really Link's adventures. Similarly she also moaned about Peach only being playable in one of the Mario platform series. Maybe that's because they're MARIO BROS. games, rather than Peach games. If Peach wasn't being kidkanpped she probably wouldn't even exist. She said Peach was included in SMB2 only by accident, so what? Since when was Peach supposed to be playable in any Mario Bros. games? She only became playable in SMB2 to make up the numbers. But play as Peach you can, and yet she still complains. She then complained that Peach wasn't playable in NSMB Wii just so she would remain the damsel in distress, but actually according to Miyamoto: "I thought it'd be nice to have her as a playable character, but the toad characters had a similar physique to a Mario character than Peach does. And if one of the four had a dress, we'd have to come up with a special programming to handle how the skirt is handled in the gameplay, and that's really the only reason why Peach isn't playable." So it appears there was actually a practical reason, rather than a sexist one. So Nintendo didn't go out of their way to make Peach playable, why should they? Why is there a need for a female character at all? The toads are only there to make up the numbers again. And if Peach or even Toadette was playable she could just as easily argue it was sexist and patronising of Nintendo to infer that women needed pink dress wearing female sprites in order to enjoy video games, as though women are incapable of playing from a male protagonist point of view. I'm not sure if her intentions were to simply point out instances of damsels in distress, or actually say the video games industry is completely sexist from top to bottom. Either way she paints a narrow view of the industry for the casual viewer. Take Rresident Evil for instance, you can play as the bloke (stronger) or the woman (more resourceful), both have their strengths and weaknesses, neither's necessarily better. (And it isn't sexist to portray Chris as stronger than Rebecca because in the real wolrd the average man is stronger than the average woman.) Plus in RE4, as well as the damsel in distress in Ashley, there is also Ada Wong, so they portay both empowered and disempowered females, just as both exist in real life. For all their fantasy elements, sometimes games do need to reflect real life a little, and in games where violence is portrayed it's probably fair to say men generally excel in that department, and that typically men want to fight more than women. So when you combine that with the fact that most gamers are men prefering to identify with male characters, it's hardly surprising that there are fewer female protagonists in violent video games.

Spooks. It's kind of a British 24, less frantic and more realistic, but very good. I reckon you can probably jump in almost at any season. I only watced the last 3 or 4 seasons and really enjoyed it. Also it isn't finished, but with 3 seasons behind it Boardwalk Empire is well worth a watch. There is a 4th season coming but Season 3 doesn't end on a cliff hanger or anything like that, so you should be good to watch the first 3 seasons, and even leave it at that if you wanted to.

The main event on Raw was awesome, easily match of the year so far and will take some topping.

Starting Strength is a good basic beginner's routine, Rippetoe knows his stuff. However not everybody is able to learn sufficient power clean form on their own so those are often substituted with bent over rows or pull ups. http://startingstrength.wikia.com/wiki/FAQ:The_Program#Three_Flavors_of_Starting_Strength

That's a good point, the first thing that I thought of was a bedside comination safe, the safe may be visible to the child but if it's a combination lock it would be virtually impossible for them to get it open. You could even keep a pistol and it's magazine in seperate safes. Of course that makes getting the gun a little fiddlier to get hold of in an emergency but I think that's a fair balance between having a gun for your increased protection and owning a gun responsibly. As I said before America is still learning the responsibilities that come with the freedom to own a firearm, but I would suggest it's still not as bad as it was, people aren't exactly drawing their six-shooters on each other in the street everyday just cus somebody knocked someone's beer over in the saloon. It's utterly tragic and a disgrace that children have been allowed to use guns to kill themselves. Yes those accidents wouldn't have happened if those guns weren't there, but they are equally the result of poor parenting and irresponisble gun ownership. Equally shooting your own girlfriend in the bathroom by accident is irresponsible gun ownership. I don't think that alone is a reason to abolish the second ammendment, however I agree that people should be able to demonstrate that they are able to own a gun responsibly. A gun could be kept in a safe away from children. If nobody breaks into your home, and no government tries to oppress you, then that gun never need see the light of day. Heck keep your gun in a safe buried in the back garden if you want, the second amendment is simply the right to keep and bear arms, not the right to let your children shoot semselves, or the right to shoot up a classroom of kids. You should still be judged on how you use/abuse your second amendment. An unwarranted gun death is always regretable, but to simply point out the gun death total doesn't tell the full story of each death, for example are we really meant to feel bad about the death of a rapist shot in the prevention of a rape? How many of those other guns deaths were premeditated murders (which would have occured with or without guns)? How many gun deaths were as a result police and security personel going about their lawful duties? How many of those gun deaths were as a result of somebody protecting themselves or others, successuflly or otherwise? How many were reported suicides? As I said we can argue back and forth all day long about whether people kill people or guns kill people, you can make great arguments for both. I tried and failed to just have my say and be done, I really don't want to argue about it. The second amendment is American issue, and I just don't think it's as clear cut as people make out. It ensures that the people are free to use firearms to defend their freedom, from individuals, their government, and foreign invaders, and I think that's lot to ask the Americans to give up just because some Americans abuse that right. In my opinon it's better to learn not to abuse that right. However if Amercia decides that with all things considered they're better off without guns then I think we should let them decide that for themselves, as they're the ones that will have to live with the consequences, the good and the bad.

That's awesome work, espcially on the deads. Not sure what else you could do to tighten your deadlift form though if your PT says it's all good. Although there are some subtle tips out there you could look into, such as leading with the chest. Though I guess it's probably more important that you try to keep the bar close to you than actually being able to do so.

Equally though that's all the more reason then to be able to defend yourself with a gun instead of just a kitchen knife. The point I was making though is that it would be better to tackle the reasons why someone would want to commit a violent crime, not just take away one tool which they might use. It isn't lost on me how much more efficient a gun is than a knife or a club, but if someone is hell bent on murdering someone they'll use their bare hands if they have to. America, just like anywhere, needs to lower it's murder rate full stop, not just it's gun murder rate. But as long as guns are demonised they can be used as an excuse for not tackling the real roots of violent crime. Do that and they might actually create a soceity were people just can keep their arms and never need to bare them. Anyway I said I'm not going to go on arguing about it, the second amendment is Amercia's issue to worry about.

I don't want to get into a back and forth argument about this, I've said my piece. However I do want to touch on the points raised as I do understand where people are coming from. You can make arguments for either side, you're either safer because you have more protection, or you're safer because there's potentially less threat. It's almost a "chicken or the egg?" style argument, so I understand both points of view. However America was founded on the idea of a high degree of personal freedom and so it's no surprise that America choose the less restrictive option. Nobody said freedom would be easy and America is still learning about the responsibilities that come with freedoms such as the second amendment. Couple that with the fact that the second amendment is also as much to do with being a safeguard against both foreign and domestic opression, as it is about defence against armed criminals. I understand that the pressence of guns potentially ups the ante, but even in Amercia not every violent crime is commited with a gun, and I don't think it's unreasonable for a person to use a gun to defend themselves against an unarmed attacker. Guns are a great equaliser for a smaller, weaker person, and as I said before if somebody is attacking you they don't deserve a fair fight. I appreciate America has high gun deaths, but the issue should be America's violent deaths full stop, who cares if a gun was used or not? America wouldn't be any better off if it simply converted it's gun deaths to knife deaths instead. I think it's better for America to tackle the causes of crime (eg povety as alluded to by The Great Dane), rather than take away arguably people's best defence against it. Even if we single out gun crime, I don't think the root causes of gun crime are the guns themselves. I do see the logic that making guns less available would potentially make it more difficult for criminals to aquire guns, but criminals by definition don't obey the law. So outlawing guns puts the law abiding citizen at more of a disadvantage than the criminal, as you're totally taking away the victim's guns, while only inconveniencing the criminal who may still aquire one illegally, or just commit their crimes with anything else safe in the knowlege that their victim can't shoot back. So what might be more inconvenient to a criminal than the banning of legally owned guns, is a bullet coming the other way. Ultimately though it's up to America to decide what to do. The founding farthers created the second amendment for a very good reason, so they need to carefully make their own minds up, and not worry about what the rest of the world thinks about them.

I think the reason guns are used for self defence is that they are at least on par with with whatever the criminal is bringing to the fight. When people say guns aren't necessary to defend yourself they always use a hypothetical scenario as an example where a gun perhaps isn't necessary. Using a gun for self defence better equips you for the worse case scenario. If the criminal has a gun good luck using a cricket bat to defend yourself. Even if the criminal is unarmed, I's still have to tackle them upclose with whatever I have to hand and could still be overpowered, especially if there's more than one of them, where as a gun would give me a much better chance. The way I see it is if somebody attacks me I don't owe them a fair fight and my survival trumps theirs. That doesn't mean I want to kill everybody that attacks me, just that it's more important that I survive than they do should it come to that. Also a gun in the home acts as a much better deterrent than household objects If you think commiting that crime could easily cost you your life you're going to think harder about whether it's worth the risk. Nobody ever mentions the number of potential crimes guns prevent and the innocent lives they save. That said I'm not sure I would introduce ownership of guns in the Uk because I think we would pobably have at least a couple of years of total wild west chaos, where some people would think owning a gun was a licence to just do what you want and use it to settle every dispute. After a while it would settle down once people learned that you can't just bully people with a gun because you're just as likely to get shot yourself. But it would take a while for that to happen and it would cost a lot of innocent lives in the process, at which point we'd probably just ban guns again and the whole thing would have been pointless. However the US has had their wild west period and for the most part the majority of gun owners are responsible and only use their guns for hunting or self defence. Plus they realise the simple fact that the police/government cannot protect you, you have to protect yourself so why take your chances with a baseball bat when a gun gives you a considerably better edge? I think there should be checks on people wanting to buy guns and I understand there are checks in place, so what was a right has already become a privilege to an extent, and as a general rule you should be very careful about the government turning rights to privileges, as it sets the precedent the government can do it with other rights. On top of that what people forget is that the right to bear arms is also a deterrent to the government should it become tyranical. People could argue that scenario would be unlikely in this day and age but the right to bear arms is there as a safeguard incase it ever does happen, regardless of how unlikely it might be. I would think when the Nazis were rounding up disarmed Jews in Germany every American thanked God for their founding father's foresight to include the second amendment.

DDP is the man, really seems like a one of the nicest guys in wrestling.

I totally agree with Ville, the black background spoils the look of the new belt, not a big fan of it but it's still better than the old one. The World Heavyweight and WWE belt were equals for a bit, and the people involved and the angles would decide which was main event. But currently Smackdown is presented as a second tier show so the World Heavyweight title is a second tier title as a result. It's basically what the IC title used to be, making the actual IC title and US title even more worthless. THe WWE and WH titles should be united now in my opinion. It's like WWE are trying to have their cake and eat it by having two champions but they just devalue each other in my eyes.

I watched a bit of it. I appreciate it isn't a massively popular sport, but it would be a shame if Olympic sports are dictated by ratings. The IOC would deluded to think Women's Beach Volleyball was being watched because of the sport volleyball itself. If the value of a sport was based on ratings then bikini baby oil wrestling would be probably an Olympic sport. I heard a lot of people saying they watched a lot of the newer and obscure sports at last years Olympics, but I think that was mostly due to the curiosity factor, not that those sports were necessarily any good. In that regard traditional sports such as wrestling are always at a disadvantage due to being around so long. Personally I wouldn't have any ball sports in the Olympics, especially when the Olympics aren't even the most prestigious prize in that sport. To me an Olympic sport should be either a test/measue of human ability such as weightlifting, or a practical skill such as a martial art. However if we are including popular ball sports I think Rugby deserves to be in there, and I think 7s is a good practical way to include Rugby, without compromising the prestige of the Rugby Union World Cup. And if we must get rid of wrestling then I'd at least like it to be replaced by another contact sport such as rugby rather than golf. I think that's fair point, some people have a an idea of what the olympics means to them, for me I see it more of a showcase of the best athletes, the fastest, the strongest etc, where as some people see it a collection of "games" as entertainment. Ideally I suppose the Olympics should be bit of both, but to me removing wrestling and adding golf leans more towards the Olympics as entertainment. I appreciate golf is a highly skilled game, but something such as wrestling is a mix of skill and a high level physical fitness, which makes it more worthy of inclusion in my opinion.

I find I get more DOMS from high volume, maybe becuase I'm just not used to it. I could deadlift 'heavy' for 3 sets of 5 and not feel a thing later. But 3 sets of 30 bodyweight squats will usually result in substantial leg DOMS the next day.

Stretch everything, not just your back. For example low back pain is as much to do with tight hips and hamstrings, and weak abs, as it is your back. For lower back look into doing: planks cobra stretch bird dog warrior/lunge stretches squat stretch (basically sitting in the bottom of a deep squat) hamstring stretches For upper back rounding/rounded shoulders, you probably need to strengthen and stretch your upper back muscles, and maybe strech your pecs too.

I found this interesting: http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/afdeveloping/refereeing/law_12_fouls_misconduct_en_47379.pdf Apparently it is not a foul to manhandle a player while the ball is not in play. Presumably then the players booked last night before the corners must have been booked for unsporting behaviour instead, but the ref can't give a pen unless the ball is in play.

I also disagree with wrestling being dropped. Not only is wrestling one of the oldest sports in the world, dating back to the ancient Olympic games, but it's also one of the most basic, stripped down forms of human competition. It's less about the luck of the bounce of a ball and more to do with the competitors themselves, infact wearing a singlet you're basically naked, its just you vs the other guy and may the best man win, and less to do with factors like differences in equipment etc. Also wrestling treats the Olympics as the pinnacle of it's sport. World champion is all well and good but it's Olympic Champion that means the most. Top level wrestlers are incredible athletes but they are doing to be denied the prestige of an Olympic gold medal, while some golfer probably wins one, it's just not right to me. Plus wrestling needs the exposure much more than a lot of the more popular Olympics sports such as football and tennis which do quite well without the Olympics.