Ask Carroll

[Nick Carroll]

In that case I'm gonna let that go through to the keeper too.

[The Mighty Sunbird]

where can I see Blood and Thunder I missed it first time. I am very chuffed cos yesterday I found a copy of AC/DCs Dirty Deeds album with the original cartoon cover not that shitty Storm Thurgensenzenzen one on the US edition. Just thought you'd want to know that.
but where can I see Blood and Thunder?

[Nick Carroll]

Ummmm ahhhh maybe iView?

I'm not up on the ABC's schedule with it, it showed yesterday on ABC2

[foamy]

Both 'Blood and Thunder' episodes are still on iView, it says until 6 September.

[Gumby]

Nick,

Will Jarryd Hayne make the San Francisco 49'ers roster when they finally trim it down?

[chrisb]

Ummmm ahhhh maybe iView?

I'm not up on the ABC's schedule with it, it showed yesterday on ABC2

Just like they say in the Endless Summer "you should have been here yesterday".

[Nick Carroll]

Nick,

Will Jarryd Hayne make the San Francisco 49'ers roster when they finally trim it down?

Hell, I don't know. Judging by Facebook, if he doesn't then a lot of people are gonna have huge bulging hernias. It's interesting watching him running these very NRL lines through NFL defences, in a way it shows just how much the NRL is influenced by the NFL.

[chrisb]

He certainly has tons of confidence. I reckon he will get there. Some "experts" reckon that if Hayne makes it the NFL scouts will be looking at other NRL players such as Greg Inglis.

Nick,
This question has probably been asked already but 378 pages are too much for me to troll through so (if it's too prying or personal I will understand if you don't answer):
As a journalist are you on any type of retainer from any organisation and if so is it enough to live on? If so are you required to regularly produce a certain number of articles each year? Alternatively, is your income more like that of an entertainer/artist who gets a big payout every now and then when he produces a masterwork and has to skimp in between payouts?

[Nick Carroll]

As a journalist are you on any type of retainer from any organisation and if so is it enough to live on? If so are you required to regularly produce a certain number of articles each year? Alternatively, is your income more like that of an entertainer/artist who gets a big payout every now and then when he produces a masterwork and has to skimp in between payouts?

Ah I won't go into details but it's a bit of both, I like to have space to take on longer term single projects but if that's all I was doing it'd be pretty scanty pickings. I like some continuity as well but don't want to work for just one organisation or publication or whatever. So some of what I do is done under retainer and some is done as one-off work. Freelance writing is an insane occupation really but I'm in a fortunate position thanks to having such a big backlog of work across a range of media; I don't really operate like a typical freelancer, but then again, no writer I know who makes a living from it operates in a typical freelance manner. In a way I feel like a tradie or whatever, or maybe like a couple of my mates who are specialist carpenter/builders; they seem to work in a similar manner, a big project every now and then and a constant flow of smaller scale work in the background. Oddly enough they seem also to have a fair bit of time to surf.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[chrisb]

Is Layne Beachley a natural blonde?

[Nick Carroll]

Hey Nick, how heavily do you do a stretching program?

Context: I mostly (used to) do two days a week. About 30min of < 60s stretches following a good routine. But over the last few years I noticed a strong correlation between getting debilitating hamstring cramps in the water (2-3 times/year, but debilitating like need to go in on stomach and then take a couple of days to recover) and following that I realised that the increased muscle fatigue I occasionally get is purely due to stretching. Hard to isolate because I do lots of active things every day pretty much but I'm nowadays 100% convinced that that's true. My stretching, like everything I do, isn't half-arsed.

Nowadays I refrain from stretching if there's a good chance I'll surf in the following two days, or reschedule around the surf.

I can still lift heavy shit without cramping. I can still ride fast without cramping. Just a rare combo of cold water, day prior stretching, maybe on a day of runarounds too? Didn't ever correlate that but it won't happen now that I don't combo up surf/stretching so I can't test that theory.

So yeah, do you find similar effects or do you take it easier and not push your muscles quite as hard?

Well how I think of stretching is that it's a quiet recovery thing, not some sort of dynamic exercise program. I don't try to stretch everything at once, just tend to focus on a few slow long stretches n one large area of the body, though somehow they always end up in the lower back and psoas/flexor muscles. Some days I stretch as much of the shoulder/arm combos as I can, other days it's lower body. But it's a rare evening that passes without some quiet stretching time. I use various pressure devices like rollers and tennis balls etc to massage specific muscles but never two days in a row, it feels to me like that sort of thing requires a bit of recovery time in itself. I've never found that stretching brings about cramping in any way, but I would imagine there's a danger that abrupt and aggressive stretching of a large muscle might tear some small fibres in the muscle and leave it open to cramping in the very near future.

The best prevention for any muscle cramping is plenty of saline fluids, if possible the night before you do something.

There's a fair bit of questioning of the value of stretching among "fitness professionals" these days, but then again I think I would question many of their practices other than stretching -- like causing over-competitive behaviour among their clients, swinging people into weird diets, and generally hyping people up just a little too much. Stretching is quiet time, you can breathe and feel your way through the movement and allow the muscle to relax and draw itself out, rather than trying to bully it into submission.

[Nick Carroll]

Is Layne Beachley a natural blonde?

I wouldn't tell you even if I knew.

[PeepeelaPew]

...

[Nick Carroll]

well take it easy. Stretching, like surfing, is often best done with the pressure off.

[marauding mullet]

Try this legion, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BOTvaRaDjI&feature=kp

[rmb]

Nick on the fitness front what sort of training regime would you recommend for a weekend surfer with an aim to maintain and improve their fitness for surfing whilst being restricted to weekend surfs?

[Nick Carroll]

well the first thing I would do is ask questions.

I could just say Swim because the best thing you can do in that situation is work on your aerobic fitness in a way that relates to surfing.

But maybe you don't have access to water. so what do you have access to, what kinds of waves will you be surfing on the weekend, who else is around, what sort of surfer are you, etc etc. A heap of questions really.