Autor: HasenChat Music Austria

You can’t count the benefits of exercising. They are just too numerous. They help control weight, help weight loss, improve your attitude and generally make you feel better. The experts are now telling us that just thirty minutes a day of moving will improve your health.

While I must accept the opinions of so many experts, I still find setting aside the time is a problem in my busy life. If you experience the same problem, you might try some of these ideas to get you going:

1. When you go to the mall or grocery store, don’t park next to the front door of the store. Leave your car as far from the store as you can. This will give you more of a walk in an effortless way.

2. When the weather suits you, go outside and clean the yard. Just bending and stretching to pick up leaves and trash will burn calories.

3. Try taking the dog for a walk. Your dog will enjoy this very much and keep you moving.

4. At work, perhaps you can walk at lunch time. I’ve found that some of my office staff are willing to walk some days with me. This makes the time go faster and yet, I’ve exercised during the daylight hours.

I’m sure you can find many more reasons and ideas to help motivate you in the right direction. I find that walking in the sunshine helps improve my mood and that I will just make the time when the sun is out. Find your reason to help yourself.

If you make the wise decision of trying to get more exercise, you’ll need to figure out what you are able to do and how long you are able to do it. I’m not talking about what you could do in your glory days. I’m talking about what you can do right now. I’ll give you an example.

When I was in college, I wasn’t very fat or heavy at all. I used to jog three miles a day religiously, until the day I got a job, and then I just didn’t seem to have the time for it anymore. With a little patience and a lot of junk food, I grew to be over 60 pounds heavier than my former self. Then, out of the blue sky, I decided to take up jogging again. I bought a pair of cheap running shoes and headed for the local high school track. There was quite a variety of people walking, running, and playing soccer. I saw a few high school-aged people and even some women and men over 60 or 70 years old. I thought, “This is great, I can look forward to 40 more years of jogging.”

I remembered that I had liked to stretch before the three-mile-joy-ride, so I stretched out my thighs, calves, and any other leg muscles I could think of. I was set to go, and I couldn’t wait to get the “runner’s high” that I used to experience daily.

The first ten steps were a little bit uncomfortable, and of course they would be. I hadn’t attempted to jog in seven years (and 60 pounds). “But I only need to run twelve laps,” I thought to myself. That would be three miles.

I started out strong, but within the first half lap, I had slowed considerably and I was having trouble breathing. This isn’t how I remembered it. What was going on? I feared I might collapse right here on the track, and then the grandma runners would pass me up one by one and laugh. I couldn’t let that happen.

Since I could barely run, or breathe, I decided to start limping. It didn’t matter which leg I chose as long as it remained consistent. I slowly limped onto the grass in the center of the track and pretended to be assessing the damage to my leg. I was actually sucking wind quite violently.

A few people stopped to ask if I was all right. All I could think to say was, “Damn, it’s the same muscle I pulled six months ago.” I’m glad they didn’t ask me which muscle. I then massaged my leg all over but concentrated most of my efforts on my left ankle. Within five minutes I was up and limping again, this time straight towards my car.

Even though I seemed to pull off the fake limping act, I still felt miserable. I hadn’t even run one lousy lap. I got in my car and raced away. I couldn’t go straight home until I had collected all of my painful thoughts and sorted them out. Instead, I headed to the one place that I felt most welcome…7-Eleven. I don’t remember what I feasted on that day, but I didn’t imagine that the clerk was laughing at me as I had imagined the other runners back at the track had been. In fact, no one really laughed at me that day, but they might have if I hadn’t been such a great actor. And knowing that they could have laughed at me, I ate like a king and queen combined, and I cleansed myself of the imagined laughter. I wanted a hug that day, but maybe what I really needed was therapy.

The story illustrates that you need to exercise at your current level of ability. If it has been five years since you’ve exercised, you cannot expect yourself to pick right up where you left off. Experiment a little and see what your body can actually do right now.

Another gem I will peddle to you is the idea of starting small and building up to bigger routines as you become ready. If you decide that walking will be your favorite means of exercising, don’t try for ten miles on your first day. You can easily start by just walking around the block each day for a week. Next you can try expanding your walk to involve a few more blocks. The following week you’ll add even more blocks, and in six months or so, you just might be walking three or four miles. Make sure that you build up gradually, rather than biting off more than you can chew. It’s much better to have a continuous string of successes than a setback every four weeks.

After you lose ten to fifteen pounds, you will feel able to exercise longer. The more you lose, the more you can do. That seems a bit backwards to me. The people who most need to exercise are the same people who can do the least amount of it. It’s a cruel world. Don’t think—just get started right now.

When you are ready to begin exercising, remember that you will be doing this each day. It is important not to get bored. If you keep your exercise bicycle in the garage, make sure you also have a television or radio in the garage. Watching television or listening to the radio passes the time a little faster; before you know it, your 30 minutes are up.

One friend of mine is a big advocate of varying your routine often. If you’ve been walking on flat land as your exercise, perhaps the next thing to do is to try adding some hills to your walk. Then perhaps you could bike on certain days and swim on others. I agree that this would be a better overall workout than exercising the same way each day. However, I’m lazier than he, and we both know it. He has weighed 100 pounds less than me for a stretch of nearly ten years, so he must be doing at least a few things right.
Whatever your exercise plan will be, make sure you keep at it. Make a schedule and stick to it. Let it be a regular part of your day, like brushing your teeth or feeding your dog or cat. It’s easy to say you will just take one day off, but sometimes that day can turn into days or weeks.

Plan ahead for the winter or off-season. You may not be able to jog for long stretches at a time during the winter, depending upon your local climate. Buy that exercise bike, or take up an indoor exercise such as aerobics.

It is also wise to be mindful of the time of day you prefer to exercise. I knew a lot of people at my office that liked to get up early in the morning and exercise. I always had a hard time getting up early, since I had been used to staying up so late (when I was twenty-something). But many things would keep me from exercising after work. I was often too tired or mentally drained after work. I also belonged to some clubs that met in the evenings, and I still needed some time to see my friends. Yes, life was busy, but I’m sure it’s been busy for you as well. Given my situation, I eventually realized that I could exercise more consistently if I woke up one hour earlier and exercised in the morning. Was that easy for me? No. It took me three or four months to adjust to my new schedule. But once I found myself bouncing out of bed very early in the morning, I knew I would continue to do so.

The best news about exercise is that it gives your metabolism a jolt to help you burn more calories even after you’ve finished exercising. That’s truly a deal you can’t pass up. So stop whatever it is that you are doing and go exercise right now. Yes, I mean it! Hurry! Right now!

For thousands of years, physical activity has been associated with health. Today, science has confirmed the link, with overwhelming evidence that people who lead active lifestyles are less likely to die early, or to experience major illnesses such as heart disease, diabetes and colon cancer.

Obesity and poor physical fitness constitute a health problem affecting an increasing number of children. Childhood obesity and poor physical fitness are associated with insulin resistance, type 2 diabetes mellitus, blood lipid abnormalities, and high blood pressure in later life, according to background information in the article. The causes of childhood obesity include a pervasive „toxic“ environment that facilitates increased caloric intake and reduced physical activity. In order to alter the children’s environment, it is suggested, an effective strategy for prevention and treatment of childhood obesity must be pervasive and collaborative. The school setting is an attractive starting point for a collaborative effort.

Eye Exercise
This eye exercise is as simple as it sounds. Whenever it occurs to you that you’ve been spending too much time staring at the monitor, purposely shift your vision to look at the weave of the fabric on your sleeve or the poster on the wall or the tree across the street.

Exercise tip for an exercise benefit:
Whenever you and your spouse or friends have free time, use it to go for a hike, a day of fun with the kids in the park, etc. When kids are at a park you’ll get a lot of exercise because all children love to go up and down on the slide, swing etc. and they always want their parents to do it with them, so do it

Regular activity can also improve the way you look and feel. In combination with a balanced diet, regular activity can help to maintain a healthy weight. It can even boost self-confidence and reduce the risk of depression.

How much is enough?
For an adult, regular, moderate intensity physical activity means using up about an extra 200 calories per day, most days of the week. This equates to about 30 minutes of activity, such as a two-mile brisk walk, that should make you feel warm and mildly out of breath. During moderate intensity activity, you should still be able to talk without panting in between your words.

Fitness-oriented gym classes were designed to make fitness and good nutrition fun and achievable and to maximize the amount of movement during the class period. Class size was limited to 14 students to allow for increased instructor attention, increased opportunity for motivation, and less time standing in line.

The key to keeping up with a resolution to get fit is finding an activity, or range of activities, that you enjoy. Not everyone sees exercise as fun, and doing something you find boring just because it’s good for you is very difficult to sustain. But you can take steps to make it more enjoyable.

Eye Exercise

Close your eyes as tightly as you possibly can. Squeeze the eyes, so that the eye muscles contract. Hold this contraction for three seconds and then let go quickly. This exercise causes deep relaxation of the eye muscles and is especially beneficial after the slight strain caused by the eye exercises. Blink the eyes a few times.

Exercise tip for an exercise benefit:

Get yourself a stationary bike. They’re easy and handy and quiet. So you can hop on it and exercise when your little one is taking a nap. Play your children’s games with them: hopscotch, kick ball, jump-rope or what ever they come up with.

Exercise facts

Evidence shows that regular exercise can:

1. increase levels of HDL or „good“ cholesterol,
2. lower high blood pressure,
3. help improve body composition by burning fat,
4. promote healthy blood sugar levels,
5. promote bone density,
6. boost the immune system,
7. improve mood and reduce the chance of depression.

Generally speaking, the greater your stamina, the greater are the health benefits. If you want to improve your stamina, it’s important to start gently, increasing the frequency of your activity before increasing how hard you exercise.

Try out new sports or activities until you find something you like. When you find an activity you like, try exercising with a friend, at a pace that still allows you to talk. Activities that you can do as a family or with friends may help with motivation.

If you are one of the millions of people that suffer from lower back pain, then you need to know that exercise can do wonders for you. When it comes to relieving lower back pain, exercise provides more relief than any back pills that your doctor can give you. The fact is, pills only serve to mask the problem by providing temporary relief of the pain, but the problem that is causing much of the pain is still there. Exercise will strengthen the muscles that support your back and improve flexibility thus greatly reducing the chances of future attacks.

You should be doing a three fold program of exercise which includes aerobics, resistance and stretching exercises. Aerobic exercise like walking and bike riding will begin to get your body conditioned properly because it strengthens your heart and lightly works your muscles. Resistance exercise like weight lifting will strengthen the muscles that support your back. Stretching exercises will increase flexibility giving your back a greater range of motion. Your doctor can guide you as to when and how much of each type of exercise you should be getting.

For people with lower back pain, the best aerobic exercises to do are low impact ones like swimming, walking and bike riding. Jogging, dance aerobics and step aerobics all produce repeated impact on your back and on your knee and hip joints as well. In order to get in good condition, start out with 15 minutes of light aerobic work per day, 2 to 3 times per week, and then gradually build yourself up to 30 to 40 minutes per day, 4 to 5 times per week.

You should be working enough to raise your heart rate to be in between 65% to 85% of your maximal heart rate. You determine your maximal heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. Regardless of whether you are walking, bike riding or doing any other aerobic exercise, always maintain good posture. This means sit up strait, stand strait and do not slouch or lean forward. Good posture is essential to any good exercise program.

When it comes to resistance exercising, you always want to concentrate on the abdominal muscles. These muscles play a major part in giving your lower back support and the stronger they are, the more relief for your back. Also important is to do exercises that are designed to specifically strengthen the lower back muscles themselves. You will best benefit from working each muscle group 2 to 3 times per week. You may want to hire a qualified fitness trainer to help get you on your way by designing a resistance program that is right for you.

Remember that while resistance exercise is great for strengthening the targeted muscles being worked, there should never be any pain involved. Some discomfort should be present in the muscles being worked while performing the exercises for them, but should subside very shortly after completion of the exercise. If there is any pain during the exercises or if discomfort persists for some time after, it is a sign that something is wrong and exercising should be discontinued and your doctor should be consulted immediately.

As far as stretching is concerned, 10 to 15 minutes of moderate stretching per day is usually enough to get the job done just fine. Here you really want to concentrate on stretching your hamstrings which are the muscles in the back of your upper legs. The looser your hamstring muscles are, the better range of motion your back will have as flexible hamstring muscles do not put the strain on your lower back that tight ones do.

Stretching the lower back muscles is also a must and sitting on the floor with your legs flat on the floor in front of you while you slowly reach for your toes until you can’t go any further, hold for 10 seconds, and sit back up is a great exercise to stretch both your hamstrings and your lower back. Repeat this stretch 2 to 3 times each day.

While there are no miracle cures for lower back pain, you can make living with a lower back condition much easier to deal with by simply incorporating some exercise into your life each day. It is worth the effort in the long run give up 30 to 40 minutes per day, 4 to 5 days per week to exercise away your lower back pain.

Do you remember the days when exercise bikes were just bikes held up off of the ground? When exercise bikes were no more complicated than your regular everyday outdoor bike? It seems like a million years ago but in fact it was just yesterday. In an amazingly short amount of time exercise bikes have changed the way we exercise and they way that we stay in tip top shape.

Gone are the exercise bikes that are like outdoor bikes, not we have spinning machines and exercise bikes with TVs on them. We have exercise bikes that will take us up hills and down them to add some spice to our workouts and exercise bikes that will monitor your heart rate and your breathing. It is truly amazing just how much these amazing fitness machines have changed over the last few years. And the best part is that all of these changes to the exercise bikes of today mean that you get a better, more personalized workout each and every tie that you get onto on.

What makes exercise bikes so great and so popular is that they offer so much variety but you never have to leave the house. Many people do not like going to a public gym to exercise in front of all kinds of people. It makes you uncomfortable, who wants others to see them sweating? I know I don’t. And when you have home exercise bikes you never have to take this kind of thing into consideration, you can do all of your exercising in the privacy of your own home.

That is not the only plus to exercise bikes though, there is more. If you had a regular bike, what would you do when it snowed or it was raining really hard? It is not safe to ride a bike outdoors in that kind of weather. Not only could you slip and fall off, but others driving could have a hard time seeing you. This can lead to all kinds of dangerous situations but when you have your own exercise bikes indoors, you can exercise at any time of the day r night, in any weather with perfect safety. Safety should always come first and with these kinds of exercise bikes it always does.

When it comes to choosing the exercise bikes that are right for you, it will take some serious shopping around. You need to take into consideration why you are looking for indoor exercise bikes. Is it to burn fat? To promote good heart health? Better circulation? These types of considerations will affect the kind of exercise bikes that you should be looking at. Since there are so many add ons and extras that you can get these days you need to make sure that you are looking at the exercise bikes that have what you need.

For example, if you want to work on your heart health then you need to look at the exercise bikes that will have heart monitors and perhaps some more of those kinds of add ons.

When you decide to purchase an exercise bike, you should first find a place in your home where you can place it. Then, you’ll need to think about whether or not you want an upright exercise bike, a semi recumbent bike, or a recumbent exercise bike.

Once you have made the decision of which type of bike you want, check out the reviews that are available in bike magazines and also on the internet. You can also take the advice of family and friends who are currently using the same as well as personal trainers who have experience. The reviews on exercise bikes are normally rates in accordance to their performance, functions that they have, as well as the type of material that is used for constructing the exercise bikes.

The exercise bike that you select should be very comfortable to sit on and the seat should be easy to adjust, as it otherwise it would be really hard to cycle on. If the height of the seat is wrong, it can put a lot of pressure in your lower area, specifically the groin. To find out more about these types of features, it is very important that you read a review as the reviews can give you valuable information about the features of exercise bikes.

Reviews have other advantages as well. A lot of times, websites on the internet will offer special discounts on the exercise bikes as well, which is just another benefit to reading the reviews. After you have read the reviews, you’ll be able to negotiate for a better price once you talk to the sales person.

No matter how you look at it, you really can’t go wrong with reading a review on exercise bikes. You can find out anything you want to know, as well as get opinions from those who already own the equipment. A majority of the time, you can find out flaws as well, which can save you a lot of time and effort.

Going to local gyms is also a great way to find out about exercise bikes. If you don’t want to buy one or if you don’t have the space to keep one at home, you can always join a local gym and use one there. There are several different types available at your local gym, with everything from standard exercise bikes to the newer electronic versions.

Whether you choose to buy on for home use or use one at the gym, an exercise bike can help you stay in shape. All you need to do is ride it a few minutes a day, and you’ll be amazed at just how much it helps you. Considered to be a part of cardio, an exercise bike can help you lose weight and tone your body down like never before.

Exercise balls are one of the most innovative ways to exercise. These little balls will catch every one’s fancy due to their shape and very attractive colors. The real benefit of these balls, which were introduced by a group of Swiss medical therapists, is a substitute of support during exercise.

Working out with the exercise balls will strengthen and tone all of the major muscles of the body. The soft texture of the balls make it an ideal choice for Yoga positions, using dumbbells for muscle toning, or working on heavy duty weight training equipment.

The advantage of exercise balls is that they are durable and maintain shape well under pressure. The documentation with the balls will provide test load figures for how much weight the exercise balls will hold. The advantage here is the fact that the balls provide soft yet firm support that doesn’t harm your body.

You can find exercise balls in several different colors and finishes. You can even get a ball that matches the texture of your room. They are simple to store and you can even roll them under your bed or a table if you prefer. When you aren’t using them, you can let kids play with them. These balls are very fun for kids, as they are very soft and won’t cause them any harm.

Medical equipment Originally developed for use in medical therapy, the exercise ball is used to support the body during exercise. These balls will provide support to the body when you do a specific exercise in a specific position and still need to maintain the balance. Most exercise balls are made of burst proof latex or other material that is very safe to use.

There are many postures with yoga and muscle toning exercise that can only be done with the help of support. For these postures, exercise balls are quite useful. The exercise balls will introduce an element of stability to the exercise that you wouldn’t normally get with the floor exercise.

Your body responds automatically to the instability to keep balanced on the exercise ball. This will help in strengthening the muscles that aren’t actively participating in exercise.

An exercise is also very useful for physiotherapy treatment. Exercise balls will help to get rid of backache and spinal disorders. The small range of movement and adjustment of balance of the spine that is induced by exercising with the exercise ball will help reduce back pain.

The Swiss ball exercise is for people with back pain to provide them with a simple way to restore movements after an episode of back pain. It also results in improved muscle strength, greater flexibility, and a wide range of motion of the spine during treatment.

According to past research and studies, nearly 80% of all Americans will experience some type of back pain in their lives. The American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons believes this as well, as they say 80% of us out there will encounter some type of problem with our back before we die.

Traditionally, the treatment for lower back pain is increasing core strength to increase flexibility on muscles that are tight, which will provide better stabilization of the spine and exercises to correct the imbalances of the muscles. The muscles that surround the spine will provide stability and support of the spinal column.

Every muscle between the hips and shoulders are included as well, as these muscles are referred to as the core muscles. Back pain can be a result of muscle imbalances caused by any of these core muscles. If the back of your thighs are weaker than the front of your thighs, there will be an uneven pull on the front of your spinal column.

There are some effective ways that you can integrate core strength training exercises into all of the exercises you perform, rather than doing just the traditional crunches and sit-ups. One such way is by breathing effectively. Deep breathing will utilize your diaphragm muscles which will help support the spinal column and lengthen the spine, which is great for your lower back and supporting you when you walk or run.

The tummy tuck and bridge lift can also help you to reduce back pain and strengthen the core muscles as well. The tummy tuck exercise is a simple pelvic tilt that draws the abdominal muscles away from the floor. Do perform a tummy tuck, simply lie face down on the floor and squeeze your glutes to strengthen your spine.

Instead of pressing into your thighs, you should instead reach your tailbone down towards your heels. Perform 15 reps of each exercise and alternate them until you have completed a couple of sets.

For the bridge, place your feet on a bench or on the floor and scoop your pelvis upward, as your rib cage should stay low to reduce any irritation to your spinal muscles. The bridge will help to relieve stress on your back and focus the muscle contractions into the glutes and the hamstrings.

Other exercises for lower back pain are the lumbar side stretch, hip flexor stretch, and calf stretches, as all three can help to alleviate pull on your spinal column.

Hip flexor stretch When doing a hip flexor stretch, bring one foot forward in a bent knee, 90 degree angle, while your other leg is on the floor behind you with your foot pointed upwards toward the ceiling. The hip flexor stretch will help to open up the muscles of your back on the side of the spine near your hips. You can also squeeze your glutes as well to deepen the stretch with each breath you exhale. You should begin to feel a stretch in your back leg, in the thigh front and the hamstrings on your front leg.

Lumbar side stretch This stretch will bring your legs wide with your knees bent while you sit or stand. Simply bring one hand down towards your foot on the inside of the thighs and your other hand behind your head.

The last stretch will open up your Achilles tendon, which is the most distant pull on the spine. For this, place an object under your foot and lean the weight of your body forwards. Maintain a fluid breath while you hold stretches for 30 seconds or so. After a while, you should begin to feel a stretch behind your knee and shin.

With the prevalence of arthritis projected to increase by more than 50 percent in the next 25 years, experts are urging Americans to get moving. Doing so could prevent or control joint pain and arthritis.

Arthritis is the nation’s leading cause of disability, affecting 66 million Americans. It strikes people of all ages, including 300,000 children. For the one in three Americans with arthritis, the pain and inflammation associated with this chronic condition can limit everyday activities such as walking, dressing and even bathing. It also comes with a stiff price tag, costing the U.S. $86.2 billion annually in direct medical costs and indirect medical costs, such as losses in productivity.

Controlling Pain

According to the Arthritis Foundation, practicing healthy behaviors now, such as increasing physical activity and maintaining an ideal weight, can help prevent or reduce joint pain and arthritis later in life.

„Walking is a great example of a simple activity we can do to promote health,“ said Dr. Patience White, chief public health officer of the Arthritis Foundation. „A 30-minute walk most days of the week, or even three 10-minute walks, reduces joint pain and stiffness, builds muscles around the joints, increases flexibility and endurance and improves overall health.“

Dr. White adds that physical activity also promotes weight loss. For people above their ideal weight, losing as little as 11 pounds can decrease the risk of osteoarthritis or slow its progression.

Step In the Right Direction

To encourage individuals and families to get moving, the Arthritis Foundation will host Arthritis Walk events at more than 400 communities nationwide. The Arthritis Foundation event, presented by the Aleve® brand, entails teams walking one- and three-mile courses on behalf of friends or family members with arthritis. Thousands of walkers participate each year, raising funds to directly support critical arthritis research, public health efforts and public policy initiatives.

Making the decision of where you will go to exercise is a very important step in reaching your goals of fitness. A lot of factors will go into this decision, and each one should be evaluated well before you start exercising. Once you have made a decision on where you will go to exercise, you can move on to deciding how you plan to work out.

As you probably know, exercising at home has many advantages. The finance department is one of the best advantages. With the gas prices being what they are today, it is quite obvious that you’ll save money on fuel as well as wear and tear on your vehicle by choosing to exercise at home.

Memberships to a gym can often be quite expensive and may include other things that you don’t need such as child care or swimming pools. You also won’t need to be concerned about the latest trends of exercise gear as you most likely will be exercising by yourself at home.

Keep in mind that working out at home does require a bit of financial obligation. Even though you may plan to run, it is very important that you have high quality running shoes. This statment applies to any type of equipment that you may purchase to use at home. If you go out and buy cheap equipment, you’ll probably end up getting hurt or getting frustrated because you aren’t making any progress.

Along with the financial gains, exercising at home may also help those who don’t like to work out in public. If you are worried about how you look in gym clothes, it is very comforting to know that the only person who has to be with you when you exercise at home is you. Also, when you exercise at home, you don’t need to worry about time at all.

Those of you who are motivated by being with people you know or come to know while working out away from home, a gym may be a better idea than working out at home. At the gym, you’ll also more of a selection of equipment as well, far more than you’ll have at home.

If you need other services than just weights and equipment, the gym may have just what you need. If you plan to swim a triathlon, you’ll find the swimming pool at the gym to be just what you need to prepare yourself. Swimming is also a great exercise for your body and cardio, as it will work muscles in your body that you probably didn’t even know you had.

Gyms will also offer you classes that you may find very motivating. If you attend class on a regular basis, you may be motivated enough to continue so you don’t have to defend yourself when asked where you’ve been or what you have been doing. You can also meet new people in class, or just help others along if you choose.

All in all, making the choice of exercising at home or at the gym is a choice you should make based on your goals and personal preference. The most important decision you’ll need to make is to determine what type of environment you want to be in and how you want to accomplish the fitness goals in your life.

Once you have given it some thought and weighed out the pros and cons, you’ll have no problem making the choice. Always keep in mind that once you’ve made your choice, you can always switch if you aren’t happy with the choice you made.

This day and age it can be very difficult indeed to go to the gym. Life is very hectic and busy, which will create a serious challenge for remaining consistent with exercise each day. Exercise is however, just what we all need to reduce stress, and give the body the extra energy it needs to carry out normal living.

The best results of exercise are achieved through the use of refined techniques, functional exercises, cardio, the right nutrition, variety, awareness, consistency, and motivation over a period of time.

The refined techniques mean correct form to isolate muscles or to target areas of the body. Efficiency is need to ensure stimulation of the muscles. With weight lift training, which is also known as resistance training, you’ll need to eliminate any type of momentum.

It is also important to move the weight about using a full range of motion. Full range of motion causes the muscle to contract for the right amount of time and help to ensure the right length of the tendons. The goal here is to strengthen the joints of your body by stimulating the muscles.

Cadence is also helpful, as it is a term that refers to the rate in which the resistance or the weight moves. The best results with cadence are gained by slow movements which will cause the muscle to contract for a longer period of time. You can mix in a series of fast and slow cadence, which is very beneficial with sports type training.

Using the correct angles will achieve muscle isolation in target areas and help to decrease the risk of injuries, which is great for those using heavy weights.

Functional type exercise is a popular technique that will stimulate the core and torso of your body while you work on another muscle group at the same time. As an example, when you perform a dumbell press while lying on an exercise ball.

Your abdominal muscles and the core muscles will contract to hold your body into this position, while your chest and tricep muscles will push the dumbells up. This type of exercise and challenge will cause maximum stimulation to your body and keep the workout interesting and refreshing.

Cardio is another exercise that is great for the heart and lungs. The total number of calories you burn is very important along with maintaining the right heart rate. The formula for your heart rate is 220 minus your age times 60 for the lower number, then 220 minus you age and times 80 for the upper number.

This is also known as fat burning zone. Cardio will also de-toxify the body and help to strengthen the immune system along with other benefits. The muscles will contract and pass the lymph along, which will allow the immune system to clear away dead cells and bring new ones in.

Anytime you exercise, warming up is very important, as it will prepare your body for the more demanding workout of cardio. You should always allow 15 – 30 minutes prior to weight lifting and 10 – 15 minutes prior to cardio exercises. You should also stretch as well, as this will help get the blood flowing through your musles and get them limber as well.

An ideal schedule for working out is to warm up then follow with cardio. You can lift weights on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday then cardio only on Tuesday and Thursday.

Even though you may think your schedule is simply too busy to maintain a schedule for working out, you’ll find that adding exercise will actually add more time, as you’ll have a lot more energy in your normal everyday life. You can think of exercise as the batteries that will help to give your life power.

You always hear people say, “You need to exercise regularly to maintain your health”, but just how much does exercise really do for your health overall? Are the health benefits of exercise really worth the effort it takes to exercise regularly? Can’t you just eat better and still maintain your health just the same? Can anyone tell me what the real health benefits of exercise are or is it all just speculation based on heresy?

Alright then, here are some really good reasons to consider for making exercise part of your healthy lifestyle:

Americans spend more than $600 billion dollars per year for health care. That equals almost $3,000 for every single person in the whole population of the country. Sadly, this financial commitment has shown no signs of any decrease, nor has it produced fully acceptable results with regard to treating a wide variety of chronic health problems.
Attempts have been made to identify the factors which have been major contributions to the epidemic of medical problems in our society today and a number of probable reasons for why so many people are so seemingly unhealthy have been named as; poor eating habits, a sedentary lifestyle, stress, poor health habits (i.e. smoking).

At the same time, studies have been done to see what, if anything can be done to lower either the number or the severity of the medical problems affecting the public. These studies have shown some convincing evidence that exercise has substantial medical benefits for people of all ages. Two of the most publicized efforts to investigate the possible link between exercise and disease were longitudinal studies, each of which used more than 10,000 subjects.

Some years ago, in a study of 17,000 Harvard graduates, Ralph Paffenbarger, M.D., found that men who expended 300 calories per day, the equivalent of walking briskly for 45 minutes, reduced their death rates from all causes by 28% and lived an average of two years longer than their sedentary former classmates.

A more recent study conducted by Steven Blair, P.E.D., of the Institute of Aerobics Research in Dallas documented the fact that a relatively moderate amount of exercise has a significant effect on the mortality rate of both men and women. The data was adjusted for age differences between subjects in an eight year study of 13,344 individuals and the conclusion was that the higher the fitness level, the lower the death rate. An analysis of the data yielded by both studies suggests one conclusion…exercise is medicine!

Accepting the idea that regular exercise can play an important role in reducing your risk of incurring a medical problem and reducing your overall health care costs is a critical step. While listing all of the medical problems and conditions that can be at least partially treated and controlled by exercise would be very extensive, here are a few of the most significant health concerns and the manner in which exercise is thought to help in each case.

Allergies: exercise is one of the body’s most efficient ways to control nasal congestion.
Angina: regular aerobic exercise dilates vessels, increasing blood flow, thereby improving your body’s ability to extract oxygen from the bloodstream.

Anxiety: exercise triggers the release of mood-altering chemicals in the brain.
Arthritis: by making the skeletal joints move, exercise induces the manufacture of synovial fluid and helps to distribute it over the cartilage and to force it to circulate throughout the joint space.

Back pain: exercise helps to strengthen the abdominal muscles and the lower back muscles.

Cholesterol: exercise will raise your HDL (the good cholesterol) in the blood and lower your LDL levels, the bad cholesterol.

Diabetes: exercise helps lower excess blood sugar levels and improves your circulation
.
Heart disease: exercise, by lowering your body fat, lowering your LDL levels, decreasing your blood pressure, lowering your heart rate and increasing heart and lung efficiency, lowers your risk of heart problems.

Knee problems: exercise helps strengthen the muscles, tendons and ligaments of the knee making it more able to withstand stress.

Menstrual problems and PMS: exercise helps to control the hormonal imbalances often associated with PMS by increasing the release of beta-endorphins.

Osteoporosis: exercise promotes bone density, lowering the risk of suffering a bone fracture.

Overweight problems: exercise suppresses your appetite, increases your metabolic rate, burns fat and increases lean muscle mass.

So, are the benefits of regular exercise really worth the effort? Should you make exercise a part of your lifestyle? Absolutely! As you can see, in many ways, your life may depend on it.

If you’re like most people you’re looking to get the most out of a workout that you possibly can. However exercising to build endurance requires a different approach than exercising to lose weight. To get the most out of your workout you need to know what your Anaerobic Threshold or AT is.

Your AT rate is an individual number that varies from person to person, and can even change as your body becomes stronger over time. To better understand AT we need to take a look at your heart rate. Your heart is expressed in beats per minute, the maximum rate at which your heart can safely operate is known as your Maximum Heart Rate or MHR and is an average value taken over a few minutes. Originally your AT number was believed to be between 80 to 90 percent of your MHR. However since you were taking a percentage of an average the value was often inaccurate, and a more precise measurement was needed.

Professional athletes who need to know their AT undergo a series of tests. They ride a stationary bike or run on a treadmill. A mask was placed over their mouth to measure oxygen and carbon dioxide at different levels of exertion. The results are processed using computer programs and yield very precise results. These tests are costly and time consuming and not necessary for most people.

A less sophisticated method that is reasonably accurate is the talk test. You will need to take your pulse or use a digital pulse meter or watch. When you are jogging or using a stationary bike and you can talk normally without speaking in short burst you are in your aerobic metabolic zone. As you increase the intensity and you still talk but not as easily this is the lower edge of your AT zone, make a note of your heart rate. Pick up the pace again as your breathing becomes more rapid and talking becomes more difficult and you start to speak in short bursts this is the upper range of your AT. For best results perform this test a few times on different days and average the results.

Once you know your AT range here are tips to help you get the most out of your exercise routine. Exercising below your AT range will burn some fat, and will help you improve things like blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels. Exercising in your AT zone will give you the maximum fat burning benefit. You will use the most calories if you can spend most of the time that you exercise in this range. Exercising above your AT zone will boost your strength and endurance. The amount of fat you will be burning will be lower than if you were exercising at a lower AT level. People who exercise vigorously and have minimal fat loss are exercising above their AT level.

Once you know what your AT level is getting the most out of your workout is easy. You monitor your heart rate and adjust your intensity to raise or lower your heart rate keeping you in your desired range. People who exercise regularly should check their AT level every 6 to 9 months and make adjustments as needed.

Please don’t be like me!

Several years ago I was warned to stay away from behind-the-neck exercises and movements, and do you think I listened? Of course not.

And as a result, I acquired a rotator cuff injury that slowly gets worse and worse over time.

It is often said that it is much smarter to learn from the mistakes of others than to have to suffer the consequences yourself. I’d say that I agree with that.

Just in case you are not quite sure what a „rotator cuff“ is, its a handy little muscle on the back of your shoulder that literally helps your arm to „rotate“ around the shoulder socket.

For most people, this muscle is not supposed to rotate far enough to take the arms too far behind the head.

Behind the neck exercises not only pull this muscle to the edge of its natural range, but often have additional weight resistance involved that cause even more stress to the area.

If this is done repetitively over time, the muscle will often get injured. Another thing that may happen is that it will become inflammed and swell to the point where the bone around it pinches the muscle. Both conditions are chronic, painful, and should be avoided at all costs.

So, if there are any behind-the-neck movements in your current workout, you will want to find more shoulder-friendly alternatives. And if such an exercise is ever recommended to you by a friend or exercise program, ask or look for a better alternative immediately.

You only get one body! Take care of it.

To YourBestBody,

Lawrence Cole
Your Lifestyle and Fitness Coach

One of the most undemanding and the most workable ways to knock over blood sugar amount, eliminate the dangers of „cardiovascular disease,“ and perk up health and welfare in general is exercise.

In spite of that, in today’s inactive world where almost every indispensable job can be carried out online, from the ergonomic chair in front of a computer, or with a streaming line of messages from a fax machine, exercising can be a hard argument to win over.

The Weight of Exercise

Everyone should exercise, yet the health experts tells us that only 30% of the United States population gets the recommended thirty minutes of daily physical activity, and 25% are not active at all. In fact, inactivity is thought to be one of the key reasons for the surge of type 2 diabetes in the U.S., because inactivity and obesity promote insulin resistance.

The good news is that it is never too late to get moving, and exercise is one of the easiest ways to start controlling your diabetes. For people with type 2 diabetes in particular, exercise can improve insulin sensitivity, lower the risk of heart disease, and promote weight loss.

Type 2 Diabetes

Diabetes is on the rise. The number of people diagnosed with diabetes every year increased by 48% between 1980 and 1994. Nearly all the new cases are Type 2 Diabetes, or adult-onset, the kind that moves in around middle age. Symptoms of Type 2 Diabetes include increased thirst, appetite, and need to urinate; feeling tired, edgy, or sick to the stomach; blurred vision; tingling or loss of feeling in the hands.

The causes of type 2 diabetes are complex and not completely understood, although research is uncovering new clues at a rapid pace.

However, it has already been proven that one of the reasons for the boom in type 2 diabetes is the widening of waistbands and the trend toward a more deskbound and inactive lifestyle in the United States and other developed countries. In America, the shift has been striking; in the 1990s alone, obesity increased by 61% and diagnosed diabetes by 49%.

For this reason, health experts encourage those who already have type 2 diabetes to start employing the wonders that exercise can do for them. Without exercise, people have the tendency to become obese. Once they are obese, they have bigger chances of accumulating type 2 diabetes.

Today, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that over 80% of people with type 2 diabetes are clinically overweight. Therefore, it is high time that people, whether inflicted with type 2 diabetes or not, should start doing those jumping and stretching activities.

Getting Started

The first order of business with any exercise plan, especially if you are a „dyed-in-the-wool“ sluggish, is to consult with your health care provider. If you have cardiac risk factors, the health care provider may want to perform a stress test to establish a safe level of exercise for you.

Certain diabetic complications will also dictate what type of exercise program you can take on. Activities like weightlifting, jogging, or high-impact aerobics can possibly pose a risk for people with diabetic retinopathy due to the risk for further blood vessel damage and possible retinal detachment.

If you are already active in sports or work out regularly, it will still benefit you to discuss your regular routine with your doctor. If you are taking insulin, you may need to take special precautions to prevent hypoglycemia during your workout.

Start Slow

For those who have type 2 diabetes, your exercise routine can be as simple as a brisk nightly neighborhood walk. If you have not been very active before now, start slowly and work your way up. Walk the dog or get out in the yard and rake. Take the stairs instead of the elevator. Park in the back of the lot and walk. Every little bit does work, in fact, it really helps a lot.

As little as 15 to 30 minutes of daily, heart-pumping exercise can make a big difference in your blood glucose control and your risk of developing diabetic complications. One of the easiest and least expensive ways of getting moving is to start a walking program. All you need is a good pair of well-fitting, supportive shoes and a direction to head in.

Indeed, you do not have to waste too many expenses on costly „health club memberships,“ or the most up-to-date health device to start pumping those fats out. What you need is the willingness and the determination to start exercising to a healthier, type 2 diabetes-free life.

The results would be the sweetest rewards from the effort that you have exerted.

The amount of physical exercise that you exert during the day is one of the key ingredients to helping you get a good sleep at night. The more active your body is during the day, the more likely you are to relax at night and fall asleep faster.

With regular exercise you’ll notice that your quality of sleep is improved and the transition between the cycles and phases of sleep will become smoother and more regular. By keeping up your physical activity during the day, you may find it easier to deal with the stress and worries of your life.

Research and studies indicate that there is a direct correlation between how much we exercise and how we feel afterwards.

You should try and increase your physical activity during the day. The goal here is to give your body enough stimulation during the day so that you aren’t full of energy at night.

Your body requires a certain amount of physical activity in order to keep functioning in a healthy manner. It is also important to note that you should not be exercising three or four hours before you go to bed.

The ideal exercise time is in the late afternoon or early evening. You want to make sure you expend your physical energy long before it is time for your body to rest and ready itself for sleep.

You should attempt to exercise at least three or four times a week for a period of 30 minutes or so. You can include walking or something simple. If you prefer, you can include strenuous activities such as running as well.

The goal here is to increase your heart rate and strengthen the capacity of your lungs. By adding a regular exercise activity to your daily schedule will help you to improve your overall health and help you emotionally as well.

Along with running and walking there are several other physical activities that you can add to your daily life to increase your level of physical activity. If you are battling not sleeping, you’ll find aerobic exercise to be the best.

Your goal with exercise is to increase the amount of oxygen that reaches your blood stream. Overall, there are many types of aerobic exercise for you to choose from. The activities include running, biking, using a treadmill, dancing, and jumping rope.

There are some non aerobic exercises that you may find beneficial to help you solve your amnesia problem.

Yoga Yoga is an exercise that has a stimulatory effect on your nervous system, especially the brain. Yoga utilizes breathing techniques and yoga postures to increase the blood circulation to the brain, promoting regular and restful sleeping patterns. The regular practice of yoga will help you to relax as well as relieve tension and stress.

Tai Chi Tai Chi is an ancient art of breathing and movement that was developed by the Chinese monks. The movements involved are slow and precise, which is ideal if you have joint pains or you are unable to participate in high aerobic exercises. Research has shown that Tai Chi can help with insomnia by promoting relaxation.

If you discover that you don’t have any time to exercise on a regular basis, you should try to sneak moments of activity into your schedule. Whenever possible, you should take the stairs instead of the elevator, as little things like that will do wonders for your body.

You should also park your car around the corner and walk that extra block or two to get to your destination. As you may know, there are many small things you can add to increase the activity in your life. Your overall goal here is to have a healthy and well balanced life – with plenty of sleep.

For the past several years, there is hullabaloo on the need to be slim and sexy. Grocery shelves are filled with several food supplements and other products that promise certain health and wellness benefits. Home TV shopping channels also offer everything from slimming tea to herbal soap to ‚instant abs‘ exercise gadgets. Gyms across the country are fast gaining members who are willing to sweat it out just to burn excess calories from mindless munching and eating. There is also an increasing number of vegetarianism and raw food diet converts who vow to trade juicy hamburgers for fresh vegetables and fruits. People who are stressed out dream of luxurious spa treatments, Thai and Swedish massages, and detoxification diets. All of a sudden, there’s the need to attain fitness and healthy living. This desire can be attributed to man’s realization that the world he is living in is too polluted and toxic. Fitness and healthy living seems to be man’s only hope in staying sane and sound in this otherwise hostile world.

If one wishes to achieve fitness and healthy living, he should go for ‚holistic‘ approach. A person who wants to have super-fit body goes to the gym a lot and sticks to rigorous exercise routines. There’s nothing seemingly wrong with this but he should also see to it he is eating the right kinds of food. It is not enough to be physically fit outside; one has to strive to be internally and externally healthy. Body builders have to follow specific diets appropriate for his physical needs. It is a must to consult personal trainers who can prescribe a proper workout routine and the corresponding diet needed for such routine. Furthermore, people with weight problems should not only focus on improving their diet. Overweight and obese people also need to regularly exercise. One sure way to improve one’s health condition is through exercising and eating wisely. A person should consider these two key aspects as a two-in-one package.

Fitness and healthy living cannot be attained without the exercise of one’s will. An overweight person cannot be fit and healthy just be watching TV all day and expecting to wake up slim the next morning. Fitness and healthy living requires a lot of effort and involves many decision-making opportunities. One must be really determined to improve his diet and religiously follow exercise routines to be able to resist temptations that may go along the way. Sometimes, it is too tempting to pig out a little more often and to just watch movies at home instead of exercising and eating good food. But if a person firmly decided to be slim and sexy, he should be willing to let go of life’s needless pleasures.

Prescribing a medication for pregnant women is a complex process.

Before obstetricians and gynecologists decide which dose of which drug can best treat a condition without putting any harmful side effects on the mother and the baby, they consider the patient’s age, general health, the number of months before delivery, tolerance for medications, and any other drugs the pregnant patient may be taking.

Prescribing exercise on pregnant women has to be just as scientific and precise. The type, intensity, frequency, and duration of a „dose“ of exercise are all critical. One person’s healthy, vigorous workout could be hazardous to another. These dangers may be greater in pregnant women because they are more likely to have strains and other serious side effects for the would-be mother.

However, if exercise will be implemented and carried out in a normal, average range, exercise will not have an effect on the overall condition of the pregnancy and especially on labor or delivery. Pregnancy

Quality prenatal care should be given to a mother during her pregnancy. She should be prepared for the normal delivery of a healthy baby. Complications should be prevented at all costs.

All of these things are boiled down to the fact that a pregnant woman should be cared in such a way that she will not be compelled to do vigorous work but should not also stay in bed and be inactive until she gives birth to her baby.

Consequently, a pregnant woman’s condition varies in relation to the growth and development of the baby in side her womb. Therefore, it is necessary that proper health guidance be provided by her physician during her visit.

Moreover, it is important to keep the pregnant woman’s life active in order to promote good health, not only for her but also for the baby most importantly.

Physical conditions like blood pressure, weight and health status is usually monitored during the pregnant woman’s visit to her doctor. For this reason, it is significant to note that exercise can be the number one factor in order to keep these aspects in good condition.

As the health experts contend, adequate physical and emotional information is needed by a pregnant woman to prepare herself for delivery. She needs practical health messages in keeping herself and the baby healthy.

Hence, for mothers or would-be mothers who are not yet aware why they should exert some effort in engaging into moderate, normal exercise, here is a list of some of its benefits so that you will be able to understand the reason why pregnant women have to exercise regularly:

1. Defiance against fatigue

As muscle becomes fatigued, it produces less force. To accomplish a task like climbing the stairs, for example, or shoveling snow, more units of muscle must be called into play to back up the wearied muscles.

The tired muscles are both less efficient and less effective. Hence, this will just put more strain on the pregnant woman because of the weight that is continuously adding up each day. That is why tired muscles will usually result to leg cramps or sore muscles.

What every pregnant woman must know is that exercise improves the condition of the muscles and their ability to work longer without fatigue.

2. Reduce backaches

Even when you sit or stand, some muscles are working, and such relatively easy postures can tax some muscles and cause fatigue. The muscles of the lower back, for example, can be exhausted and worn out by the effort of keeping erect when a pregnant woman stand still for several hours.

With exercise, a pregnant woman can correct this error by developing her posture.

3. Increase the amount of oxygen

Work and exercise rely on glycogen, a substance produced by the body from complex carbohydrates and stored muscles and liver. The supply of glycogen in the muscles determines and limits the duration of activity. Exercise depletes the glycogen in the muscles and leads to tiredness.

However, when glycogen is depleted by strenuous activity, it is replaced in quantities greater than before, as if the body recognized the need to lay in a larger supply of fuel.

Hence, oxidation is essential for converting glycogen to the energy that pregnant women need to wiggle a finger, flex a muscle, or practice the lungs and heart for some blowing action during normal delivery.

These are just some of the many benefits exercise can bring to pregnant women. Besides, nothing is completely wrong for a pregnant woman doing some moderate exercises. The only important thing to remember is that before starting an exercise program, whether pregnant or not, it is best to consult your doctor. As they say, doctors know best!

Often times, when children return from playing, they look quite exhausted and ready for a nap. This is the most accurate description, and also quite the truth, as playing is hard work. It’s exhausting to the mind and body of the child, and it plays an important role in helping them to become productive and healthy.

The role of play and exercise in the life of a young child will provide them with several benefits. Exercise of the body is a very important part of keeping the young body fit as it grows into an adult body. Once we reach adulthood, if we’ve had the benefit of exercise and play, we all tend to continue that habit well into our adult years.

Play is also good in the form of participating in organized sports, coordinated play times, and being a member of a large group during all of these types of activities. Playing on this level will teach us how to interact with peers and perform as a team with our fellow players. In today’s business world, these skills are essential.

What we learn in body language, coping skills, and the interaction of the mind and body during our interaction with others is invaluable. When we learn this skills to the fullest, not only will we learn how to get along with others, but we will also learn how to interact better with ourselves.

Although interacting with ourselves seems like a rather pointless exercise, it is actually an important part of maintaining the best sense of health and wellness. There will always be times when our bodies are trying to tell us things about our physical or mental condition, which we will simply refuse to listen to.

Through exercise and play, we will also learn what our limitations are – both physical and mental. At times of play, you’ll see children and young adults push themselves to their limit and beyond. As children, we are all more able to distinguish between a real limit versus what society itself calls our limits.

For children and young adults, the pressures of the world don’t affect them near as much as it does adults. Children have a much better state of mind and peace, unlike adults that have let the outside influence the body and mind, which will do little more than becoming a dominant factor of time.

As you can tell, the benefits that are gained from exercise and play time as children, will benefit us for the rest of our lives. As adults, we all too often forget how important both exercise and play are.

Normally, we want to rush children into their daily responsibilities, forgetting that at their age they need play and interaction for their young minds.

It seems as though many Americans are living a life that leads to high blood pressure or hypertension. As people age, the situation gets worse. Nearly half of all older Americans have hypertension. This disease makes people five times more prone to strokes, three times more likely to have a heart attack, and two to three times more likely to experience a heart failure.

The problem with this disease is that nearly one third of the folks who have hypertension do not know it because they never feel any direct pain. But overtime the force of that pressure damages the inside surface of your blood vessels.

However, according to experts, hypertension is not predestined. Reducing salt intake, adopting a desirable dietary pattern losing weight and exercising can all help prevent hypertension.

Obviously, quitting bad habits and eating a low fat diet will help, but the most significant part that you can do is to exercise. And just as exercise strengthens and improves limb muscles, it also enhances the health of the heart muscles.

Heart and Exercise

The exercise stimulates the development of new connections between the impaired and the nearly normal blood vessels, so people who exercise had a better blood supply to all the muscle tissue of the heart.

The human heart basically, supply blood to an area of the heart damaged in a „myocardial infarction.“ A heart attack is a condition, in which, the myocardium or the heart muscle does not get enough oxygen and other nutrients and so it begins to die.

For this reason and after a series of careful considerations, some researchers have observed that exercise can stimulate the development of these life saving detours in the heart. One study further showed that moderate exercise several times a week is more effective in building up these auxiliary pathways than extremely vigorous exercise done twice as often.

Such information has led some people to think of exercise as a panacea for heart disorders, a fail-safe protection against hypertension or death. That is not so. Even marathon runners that have suffered hypertension, and exercise cannot overcome combination of other risk factor.

What Causes Hypertension?

Sometimes abnormalities of the kidney are responsible. There is also a study wherein the researchers identified more common contributing factors such as heredity, obesity, and lack of physical activity. And so, what can be done to lower blood pressure and avoid the risk of developing hypertension? Again, exercise seems to be just what the doctor might order.

If you think that is what he will do, then, try to contemplate on this list and find some ways how you can incorporate these things into your lifestyle and start to live a life free from the possibilities of developing hypertension. But before you start following the systematic instructions, it would be better to review them first before getting into action.

1. See your doctor Check with your doctor before beginning an exercise program. If you make any significant changes in your level of physical activity – particularly if those changes could make large and sudden demands on your circulatory system – check with your doctors again.

2. Take it slow

Start at a low, comfortable level of exertion and progress gradually. The program is designed in two stages to allow for a progressive increase in activity.

3. Know your limit

Determine your safety limit for exertion. Use some clues such as sleep problems or fatigue the day after a workout to check on whether you are overdoing it. Once identified, stay within it. Over-exercising is both dangerous and unnecessary.

4. Exercise regularly

You need to work out a minimum of three times a week and a maximum of five times a week to get the most benefit. Once you are in peak condition, a single workout a week can maintain the muscular benefits. However, cardiovascular fitness requires more frequent activity.

5. Exercise at a rate within your capacity

The optimum benefits for older exercisers are produced by exercise at 40% to 60% of capacity.

Indeed, weight loss through exercise is an excellent starting point if you wan tot prevent hypertension. Experts say that being overweight is linked to an increased risk of developing hypertension, and losing weight decreases the risk.

Anytime you exercise, your brain releases chemicals known as endorphins that produce a feeling of euphoria, which is known as „runners high“, which is also very easy to become chemically addicted to.

Without this rush, you’ll feel irritable and out of it until you exercise again. Therefore, you’ll go on exercising and not listen to what your body is actually telling you – which is to stop.

The main reason addicts will continue to push themselves lies in what will happen when they don’t work out. Normally when they are unable to exercise, they will display signs of depression, anxiety, confusion, and be less happy with themselves.

Aches and pains Over exercising doesn’t only affect the mind, but the body as well. Exercise will initially do what it is intended to do, give you a fit body but once you cross the line however, it can drastic. Muscle damage, osteoarthritis, and heart problems will all be waiting in the wings if you continue to overdo it. The body has limits and if you push beyond that limit, you’ll do nothing but harm yourself.

Obsessive exercise tends to happen among those who are new to exercise. Therefore, if you are keen to reap the benefits of getting fit, you’ll tend to overstep the limits.

The initial signs of over exercise are exhaustion, which can lead to a build up of fatigue. Keep in mind, it isn’t only the muscles that are at risk, but the bones as well. Many people who exercise push themselves to the point of injuries such as shin splints or even stress fractures, then refuse to rest, which causes greater and sometimes even permanent damage.

Even a brisk walk in the morning doesn’t come without risk, as walking too much can lead to osteoarthritis. When you walk, you are working against gravity. Even though you are exercising your muscles, you are also harming your knee joints as well.

Many people who walk up to an hour or more everyday end up with complaints of aches in the knees. The fact is, jogging also harms the knees, and too many sit ups can hurt as well. As with any type of exercise, moderation is the key.

You should always start off gradually, and combine several different types of workouts, which is one thing that obsessive exercisers forget to do. One of the biggest complication factors of people who get addicted to exercise is that they will tend to perform the same workout each and every day, which further increases the risk of permanent damage.

Think right You should never work out to the point where you feel completely exhausted once you have finished. Your limit with exercise should be 45 minutes to an hour, four or five days a week. When you are finished, your workout should leave you feeling fresh and energetic. Every week should make it a point to take a day’s break – as your body will need to relax and rejuvenate.

The key to achieving this completely lies in your attitude, as exercising is the way to a healthy life. If you do it only to please yourself, you’ll defeat the entire purpose when you stand there on the weighing machine.

If you take things one day at a time and don’t over do it, you’ll be well on your way to a healthy body. Exercising can be a lot of fun and a way to relax, if you don’t rush it. Start off slow and gradually work your way up. Before you know it, you’ll know how to prevent injuries before they happen and you’ll know exactly what you need to do to remain healthy.

Your child of lets say eight years old tells you he or she wants to start exercising and that he or she wants to start lifting weights. Now you might want to know if this is really a good idea, if it is safe and if it will benefit your child or if it is not something that is recommended for children to do.

The long and short of it is, yes, it is beneficial to your child to partake in a weight training program but here are some things to keep in mind when getting your child into a weight training program.

Children are not miniature adults and so you cannot use the same methods on growing children as you can with adults as children are different from adults anatomically, physiologically and emotionally. Children have immature skeletons. Their bones do not mature until age 14 to 22 years old. In girls, exercise during childhood can have critical effects on bone health that can last for their whole lives.

Children are often vulnerable to growth related overuse injuries such as Osgood schlatter’s disease. Children have immature temperature regulation systems due to having a large surface area compared to their muscle mass which makes them more susceptible to injury when not properly warmed up.

Children do not sweat as much as adults so they are also more susceptible to heat exhaustion as well as heat stroke. Their low muscle mass and immature hormone system makes it harder for them to develop strength and speed and their breathing and heart responses during exercise are different from an adult’s which affects their capacity for exercise.

Now, boys and girls can greatly improve their strength with weight training but as opposed to adults, neurological factors instead of muscle growth factors are mostly responsible for these gains. When considering a program for a child, medical clearance should be obtained first and foremost. The best first approach for designing a program is to establish a repetition range of 8 to 12 and keep the work load appropriate for that range.

Workouts should be spread out to have at least 1 to 2 full days of rest between each workout and the main focus on every exercise performed should be on form and technique, not on weight lifted. Some guidelines to consider are: warm-up and stretching should be done before weight training. Start with light loads and make appropriate adjustments from there. No more than 3 non-consecutive exercise sessions should be done in a week and see that they drink plenty of water before, during and after exercise.

Always remember that if at anytime your child is sick, has an injury of any kind or seems tired or non-energetic, do not have them exercise until you are sure they are better or until they have seen a doctor and have clearance from them.

When Mike turned 65, he was 25 pounds overweight. By strict dieting, he shed the extra pounds, but he lost more weight; he also lost his energy and vitality. He was always exhausted, and his friends, seeing his gaunt, drawn face, worried about his health.

By the time volunteered for a particular fitness program two years later, he had put 25 extra pounds back on. After 6 months of exercise and some willpower at the dinner table, Mike slimmed down again. This time he felt better than he ever had, brimming with energy and glowing with good health.

What made the difference? The first time Mike lost weight; the second time he lost fat. The distinction is important. According to research, a large portion of the weight lost by dieting alone is active tissue, such as muscle and connective tissue, while a smaller fraction is excess fat. Exercise has the opposite effect. It increased his lean body mass and decreased his excess fat.

Same thing goes with cellulite. Most people tend to think that cellulites are only present to people who are obese. That is why they sometimes associate cellulite with fats and obesity.

Actually, even if cellulite refers to the chain of wrinkled „fat cells“ and „subcutaneous connective tissues“ beneath the layer of the skin, it should never be associated with people who are fat or obese. In fact, there are many people who have cellulite but are not fat at all.

In reality, nobody knows the main reason why some people accumulate cellulite. However, there are some factors that health experts are considering such as the structure of the fat cells or the poison that entered the body. Some experts say it may be caused by some hormonal changes in the body. But none of these things has been proven to cause cellulites.

However, the only main reason why most of the cellulite cases are abundant in women is that the connective tissues of women are more rigid and firm than men. Hence, whenever a woman gets fat, the fatty cells tend to swell and get bigger. It creates a protruding appearance to the skin producing an „orange peel“ look.

For this reason, women are more prone to cellulite than men. That is why it is important for women to be more careful on their body as they have higher chances of accumulating cellulite.

Fats and Cellulite

With the many cases of obese people having cellulites in their body, most of them believed that their cellulites are caused by being too fat.

Even though not all those who are obese develop cellulites, being overweight can really trigger the development of cellulites. This is because too much fat under the skin tend to push the connective tissue creating a strain on the skin. Thus, cellulites form.

However, this is still dependent on the structure of the cells. If an individual’s cell structure does not inhibit the tendency to bulge or expand even if fat deposits accumulate, then there will be no cellulites.

So, the most important thing to remember here is to keep those connective tissues firm and strong and avoid accumulating excess fats so as to avoid the development of cellulite.

How? Start an exercise routine program.

Transforming food into fat seems all too easy for most of us. Losing fat is far more difficult, and to accomplish this, we have only three alternatives: (1) decrease food intake and keep activity constant; (2) increase activity and keep food intake constant; or (3) combine both approaches: diet and exercise.

Physical activity can help reverse the results of inactivity. An hour of vigorous exercise burns up 300 to 600 calories. If you also cut 300 to 500 calories from your daily menu, you can also lose weight at the rate of one to two pounds a week.

Without exercise, you would have to eat 500 to 1,000 fewer calories a day to lose the same number of pounds in a week. Exercise is not for everyone who is over-fat, however. The severely obese person should exercise only under medical supervision to prevent strain on the cardiovascular system and connective tissue. And no one should restrict food intake drastically without consulting doctor.

Resorting to this kind of activity will only get the matter worse. Remember what happened to Mike? He thought that when he started dieting, he would eventually lose all the excess fats he has accumulated. The problem is that he lost those connective tissues rather than excess fat.

For people who are prone to cellulites, this will be a greater problem. Losing connective tissues instead of fat by strict dieting can only make the skin more prone to greater problems but the fat cells are still there. That only means that the problem is not solved at all.

Hence, if you wish to loose those cellulites, it would be better to loose those fats first. The idea here is to burn those fats by increasing your metabolism by 7.5% to 28% more than your normal rate.

It is for this reason that exercising is an important factor in losing cellulite. So for a more cellulite free body, always engage in an exercise routine.

If you suffer from asthma, you probably think that you can’t exercise properly or safely. Contrary to what many think of this subject, there are ways that you can get in shape and exercise, even if you suffer from asthma.

Asthma is a chronic lung disease that is marked by characteristics such as coughing, wheezing, shortness of breath, and chest tightness. Asthma tends to occur with people who are genetically or environmentally presdisposed to the condition.

Some of the triggers that may start or make an attack worse include exposure to allergens, viral respiratory infections, airway irritants, exercise, and exposure to things such as dust mites or cockroaches.

You can prevent asthma attacks by doing the following: 1. Bathe your pets weekly.
2. Don’t smoke or permit smoking in your home.
3. When mold or pollent counts are high, you should stay inside with air conditioning.
4. Wash your bedding and any stuffed toys at least once per week in hot water.
5. Wash your hands every chance you get.
6. Get a flu shot.
7. Wear a scarf over your mouth and nose in the winter months.
8. Be proactive and know your triggers and how you should avoid them.

Now that you know what you know about asthma, you may be wondering where exercise fits in. As most doctors will tell you, you shouldn’t give up on sports or exercise at all. You just have to be smart about how you play and take special pre cautions to avoid attacks.

Almost all doctors agree that the best way to prevent attacks during exercise is to keep your inhaler and medication close by. You should never use the inhaler more than 3 times during a game or exercise session. If you are up the previous night with coughing and wheezing, it’s always best to go light with your exercise the next day.

For something known as IEA (Exercise Induced Asthma), the symptoms are somewhat different, in the fact that they appear after 6 – 10 minutes of exercise and will often be worse in cold or dry air.

If you have IEA, there are several activities that you can enjoy such as swimming, walking, biking, downhill skiing, and team based sports. There are many activities for you to choose from, to ensure you get the exercise you need as well.

Keep in mind that the condition of asthma isn’t „all in your head“, it is a real physiological medical treatment that will require treatment to prevent and treat. Even though your doctor will be your best friend in treating asthma, you are the one who can prevent your symptoms.

Always be smart, take your medication, and be proactive. Don’t let it put you in a life of misery – as you can enjoy exercise just like everyone else.

Your bones hang out in a lot of joints. Knee joints. Hip joints. The joints in your fingers and the joints in your toes.

Wherever bones meet, there is also cartilage, a rubbery, protective layer that ensures your joints bend smoothly and painlessly. But even cartilage cannot do this tremendous job alone. A thin membrane called the „synovium“ provides fluid that lubricates the moving parts of the joint. When the cartilage wears out of the synovium becomes inflamed, the result is generally a case of „osteoarthritis“ or „rheumatoid arthritis.“

In osteoarthritis, the cartilage can be eroded so much that bone does rub on bone. Thos type of arthritis develops gradually over a lifetime as a simple result of the wear and tear placed on your joints over the years. Very few people escape some degree of osteoarthritis, though the severity varies a great deal.

As a matter of fact, if you are over the age of 50, you are likely to have at least one joint affected by osteoarthritis. Osteoarthritis affects men and women equally and is by far the most common type of arthritis, with almost 16 million Americans in the list.

In rheumatoid arthritis, damage to the synovium is at the source of trouble. Doctors and researchers are not absolutely sure what causes it, but most think that rheumatoid arthritis is a disease in which the immune system actually attacks certain tissues in the body, including those that connect the joints and the synovium.

Rheumatoid arthritis begins with swollen, red, stiff, and painful joints, but it may progress until scar tissue forms in the joint or, in extreme cases, until the bones actually fuse together. Almost 75% of the 2 million people with rheumatoid arthritis in the United States are women. The disease can hit as early as teen years.

Exercising Your Prevention Options

Investing a little time in developing a good weight-bearing low-impact exercise and stretching plan can add up to great results when it comes to staving off arthritis pain. Strong muscles help protect the joints from wear and tear, and the movement keeps joints flexible.

That is why the quest for fitness is at hand, even if you are 50 years and over. However, most Americans over 50 are still right where they always were sitting back and watching others jog by. Most of them contend that that is just for people who have been athletic all their life, or some say exercise is for young people and engaging into exercise will do them more harm than good.

There are still some that insist on excusing their selves in exercise routines because they do not just have time or they have less energy than ever before. These are all lame excuses. Hence, it is time to start to get rid of those pains. Start exercising.

Consequently, preventing arthritis is not an exact science, but physicians have discovered a few ways to lower your risk. Here is how:

1. Do not weight around

The single most important measure anyone can take to prevent osteoarthritis of the knee is to lose weight if they are overweight. Extra weight puts extra stress on your knees. If you are 10 pounds overweight, for example, you put 60 pounds per square inch of extra pressure on your knees every time you take a step. That extra pressure can slowly but surely erode the cartilage in your knees, leading to arthritis.

A study has clearly supported the theory that weight loss weighs in on the side of prevention. In the study, overweight women who lost 11 pounds or more over a 10-year period decreased their risk of developing osteoarthritis of the knee by 50%.

2. Stretch those muscles

Any kind of stretching is good as long as you do not bounce, which can lead to a muscle pull. This is according to some of the professors of clinical medicine in New York City.

Try to hold a slow, steady stretch for 15 to 20 seconds, then relax and repeat. It is best to flex up by stretching before any exercise, especially running and walking. But it is also a good idea to stretch each day. Ask your doctor to teach you stretches that focus on potential arthritis trouble spots, such as the knees or the lower back.

3. Walking is always the best exercise

Take a good long walk at least three times a week or participate in a step-aerobics or low-impact exercise routine maximum results. There is no proof that running is bad for the joints, but remember, it may aggravate an injury if you already have one. Just remember to check with your doctor before starting a new exercise program.

The bottom line is that of all the healthful habits, exercise is the most important. This is because people are designed to be active. Hence, it is really important for people to exercise in order to stay healthy and keep those joints free from wear and tear.

Just keep in mind that the unexercised body, even if free from the symptoms of illness or problems like arthritis, is not at its full potential. Hence, start exercising right now!

Did you know that everything that gets you moving can and will contribute to your health-from walking to a high-intensity aerobics class?

Research shows that regular exercise can lower the risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, non-insulin-dependent (type 2) diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure and certain cancers. And exercise helps people manage a great number of other health issues, including depression and anxiety, arthritis, osteoporosis and maybe even dementia. Experts say that it may even help slow the aging process. And it makes you feel good!

The International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA), the nonprofit association for the fitness industry, reminds people that any physical activity is better than none. The health benefits from physical activity are cumulative. The most important thing is getting started. So get moving-whether that means taking the stairs, parking farther out or walking on a treadmill. Newcomers to physical activity should start slowly and gradually work up to exercising for longer periods of time.

For many Americans, taking those first steps toward building the exercise habit can be difficult and intimidating. So during the month of May, participating health clubs will open their doors for several days to the public, free of charge, so more Americans can benefit from the safe, supportive, and enjoyable environments that health clubs offer. It’s part of the IHRSA-organized Get Active America! program to encourage more Americans to exercise for their health.

Whether you’re a senior, a mid-lifer, a 20-something or a teen, there’s a health club that can provide you with the support you need to create a workable exercise routine that fits your life. There’s a network of professionals across the country eager to help.

Remember: It’s never too late, and it’s never too little to enjoy the benefits of exercise. Do it for your health!

Hydrating, like diet, is extremely important in fitness and in sport in general. If the body does not get enough calories during physical effort, it can take them from its own ‚deposits‘ of adipose tissue, or even from the muscular proteins; but when water is insufficient, things are much more complicated and there are bigger risks for the body.

Water is involved in all the metabolic processes, so not providing the body with enough liquid can have as a consequence perturbation of the bio-chemical reactions, which directly influences the effectiveness of the training and even the practitioner’s state of health.

Physical effort, especially the aerobic one, leads to dehydration through perspiration (which regulates the temperature of the body, preventing over-heating). There is a very strict rule which imposes drinking water (liquid) before, during and after physical effort. Besides regulating the body temperature, correct hydrating helps eliminating the toxic substances resulted during and after the training (urea, sodium, etc.) easier; hydration acts like a ‚means of transport‘ through perspiration and urine. Thus, the metabolism of blood sugar, lipids and proteins is developed in good conditions, ensuring contraction force for short time and especially for resistance efforts.

There is also the opposite of dehydration – over hydration, due to excessive consume of water. In this situation, besides the inconvenient of very frequent urination, the blood vessels are overloaded and this leads to making the work of the heart, which must provide a much too big volume of pumping, more difficult. As a consequence, the effectiveness of the training is hindered and the sport performance does not get to the expected level. The sensation of ‚heavy body‘ can also appear for the practitioner of common fitness.

As for the type of liquids, the sportsman must supervise the level of effort which produces dehydration and melting of the glycogen reserves. Besides water, the practitioner can use isotonic drinks, (which have an electrolytic composition similar to the one of the body) or liquids containing sugar easy and quick to absorb by the body (fructose, glucose, dextrose, etc.). All of these can contribute to fast restore of the glycogen reserves of the body. It is advisable to drink the liquids in small and frequent doses, so that the body assimilates them better and they do not briskly overload the body during effort.

Both in over hydrating and in dehydrating, there is the risk of ‚putting to work‘ too much the renal excretory function. Over hydrating can have as a consequence significant elimination of electrolytes, which are precious for the body (potassium, sodium, iron, zinc, etc), and they need to be replaced from sources as natural as possible (fruit, vegetables, mineral water, etc.). In case of dehydrating, the volume of urine will be severely diminished because the body will try to retain mineral salts and vitamins. Besides unwanted deposits, renal lithiasis, gout, etc., a very severe consequence of this effort of the body to retain liquid is renal blocking.

Correct hydrating involves a certain discipline, which means that liquids must be consumed repeatedly during the day, not only during physical effort. A person must not get to feel thirst. This is only a very late alarm, signaling that the right quantity of water has been missing from the body for a couple of hours. Except while eating and immediately after, in order not to perturb digestion by excessive diluting, a real prophylaxis of dehydrating and over hydrating can be made through correct, constant and preventive consume of liquids.

The health benefits associated with regular exercise are numerous. Specifically, exercise can help prevent heart disease and stroke, high blood pressure, obesity, back pain, osteoporosis. In addition, it can help fight depression as well as promote improved stress management.

To maximize your overall health benefits, experts typically recommend that you perform 20 to 30 minutes of aerobic activity three or more times a week and some type of muscle strengthening activity and stretching at least twice a week. However, you can also achieve significant health benefits by completing 30 minutes or more of moderate-intensity physical activity a day, at least five times a week.

If you are just beginning an exercise program, starting at a slow pace with low-impact activities such as walking or swimming will allow you to improve your physical fitness level while safeguarding you from unwanted overuse injuries and burnout. Once you get in better shape, you can gradually integrate more strenuous and varied activities into your routine.

Positive Impact of Physical Activity
According to the U.S. Surgeon General, regular physical activity reduces the risk of developing or dying from some of the leading causes of illness and death in the United States. Further, regular exercise effectively:

Reduces the risk of dying from heart disease.

Reduces the risk of developing diabetes.

Reduces the risk of developing high blood pressure.

Helps reduce blood pressure in people who already Have high blood pressure.

Reduces the risk of developing colon cancer.

Reduces feelings of depression and anxiety.

Helps control weight.

Helps build and maintain healthy bones, muscles, and joints.

Helps older adults become stronger and better able to move about without falling.

Promotes psychological well-being.

The health benefits of exercise can be achieved by virtually everyone, regardless of age, sex, race or physical ability. Therefore, if you want to feel better, have more energy and live longer, simply follow a program of regular, moderate exercise and enjoy a better quality of life.

Move it throughout the day! Get enough activity that makes you breathe a little harder. Five minutes here, ten there – add it up and go for thirty minutes a day. You don’t have to suit up or climb on an exercise machine to get the benefits of activity.

Balance your activity so that you’re still able to talk while you’re exercising, but not as easily as you could sitting down or just standing. If you find yourself unable to talk, you’re probably overworking yourself.

The more you move and use your muscles, the better fit you’ll become. Your bones will become stronger, too.

Don’t forget the stretching. It will help keep you flexible and able to move more easily. Do walk around a bit to warm up your muscles—save the stretching for the end of your workout so you don’t hurt or damage any muscles. If you save your stretching to the end of your workout, your muscles will be “warmed up” already and you’ll find that your flexibility is increased with each stretch!

Work on your balance. Begin by standing on one foot, bracing yourself with one arm. Work towards standing on one foot at a time without holding on to a support. Just practice this for a few minutes at a time. You’ll find your overall balance improving greatly.

If your main occupation has been “couch potato” for several months, you’ll want to start exercising gradually. Little by little build up your activities and how hard you work at them. Before long, you’ll find yourself moving along with more energy and vitality!

You hear personal trainers emphasizing this mantra to their clients, „Breathe! Breathe!“ For some strange reason, we tend to hold our breath when exercising. What you want to get into the habit of is breathing out while your muscle is working, and breathing in when it relaxes. So as you’re lifting something, breathe out as you lift; breathe in when you stop. At first, you’ll need to remind yourself of this frequently.

Drink plenty of water when you’re doing activities that make you sweat so you don’t risk dehydration. Dehydration can be measured by pinching the skin on the back of your hand—if you can grab it when you make a fist and it (the skin) stays “up,” you’re dehydrated. You may also feel dizzy, tired, and be more prone to headaches. So stay hydrated!

Exercise shouldn’t cause you pain. You may feel tired after exercising, but if you’re actually hurting, something’s wrong—you’ve overdone it. Try easing up the next day, and not doing anything that strains the aching muscle too much. Alternate cold and heat on the aching area, and if your doctor okays it, take ibuprofen or naproxen sodium to relieve the pain.

Quite often, when our children return from afternoon play, they look exhausted, and ready for a nap. That is the most accurate description, and quite the truth. Play is hard work. It is exhausting to the mind and body of the young person, and plays an extremely important role in helping them to become productive, healthy citizens.

The role of exercise and play in a young child’s life provides them with many benefits. Exercise of the body is an important part of keeping the young body fit as it grows into an adult body. When we reach adulthood, if we have had the benefit of exercise and play, we tend to continue that habit into our adult years.

What else is to be gained from the opportunities that play affords? We often participate in organized sports, coordinated play times, and are a member of a large group during all of these activities. Play on this level teaches us how to interact with our peers, develop camaraderie and perform as a team with other players. These skills are absolute necessities in today’s business world. But what else is happening here, during this time of play and exercise?

What we learn in body language, coping skills, and the interaction of the mind and body during our interaction with others, is invaluable. When we learn these skills well, we not only learn how to interact with others, we learn how to interact with our self. Interact with our self? That seems like a pointless exercise, but it is an all important part of maintaining our health and wellness. There are times that our bodies try to tell us things about our physical or mental condition, and we simply refuse to listen. If we have learned how to listen to others around us when they attempt to point out a need or desire, we have a useful tool in listening to ourselves. This often can mean the difference between optimal health, and creating an unhealthy situation.

What else do we learn? We learn what our physical and mental limitations are. During play, you see children and young adolescents push themselves to the very limit. But as children, we are better able to distinguish between a real limit versus what society deems our limits. As a child, or young adult, the pressures of the world do not weigh on us as they do when we are adults. We are better keepers of the temple at ten, than we are at twenty. We are still very in tune to what our body tells us, because it is our true master as a child. As an adult, we have let outside influences master our body and mind, and dominate our time.

As you can see, the benefits to be gained during our exercise and play time as children, is a benefit to us for the remainder of our lives. Too often, we adults forget the importance of exercise and play and the principles that are to be learned from time spent in these activities. We want to rush our children into their daily responsibilities, forgetting that their chief responsibility during the younger years is the play and interaction of young minds.

In our society, the perceived perfect image of women falls right in line with the slenderness of girls 10 to 12 years old. This unrealistic perception spawned by the supermodels seen today in ads for popular clothing and undergarment makers such as Victoria’s secret has caused many women to become obsessed with their own images.

In our society, women are ten times more likely to develop eating disorders and compulsive exercise habits that can be life threatening and often do prove to be fatal.
Here are the most commonly developed eating disorders:

“Anorexia nervosa” is a life threatening disorder that occurs when you eat very little food and become obsessed about your weight even when you are badly underweight. An anorexic person will often see themselves as being fat when they look at themselves in the mirror even though they appear very skinny to everyone else. People with this disorder often turn to laxatives and various diet aids such as fat burning pills to bring their weight down to dangerous levels.

“Bulimia” is a disorder that occurs when you go on an eating binge, and then immediately purge it all out. You will eat a large amount of food, even junk food, and then get it all back out of your system by both self-induced vomiting and laxative use. This practice may throw off your body’s mineral balance in the blood and put the health of your heart at risk.

“Compulsive overeating” followed by “compulsive over exercising” is a pattern that is not as dangerous as anorexia and bulimia but still can lead to both physical and psychological problems. This is a pattern in which you will eat a large amount of food followed up immediately by exercising excessively hard and for a long period of time.

It is estimated that more than one out of three collage female athletes may at one time develop an eating disorder. If you suffer from an eating disorder, seek medical help as soon as possible because if left untreated, these disorders can cause permanent health problems and even death.

When it comes to the Big Three of exercise – cardiovascular, strength and flexibility training – it’s pretty clear which one can get overlooked. After all, while we prize cardiovascular and strength training for their role in helping us lose weight, build muscle and get fit, the benefits of flexibility training are less immediately alluring.

However, as the population ages, more of us are learning to appreciate the rewards of stretching. Staying limber can offset age-related stiffness, improve athletic performance, and optimize functional movement in daily life. Research shows that flexibility training can develop and maintain range of motion and may help prevent and treat injury. In fact, the American College of Sports Medicine has added flexibility training to its general exercise recommendations, advising that stretching exercises for the major muscle groups be performed two to three days per week.

How can you include an effective flexibility workout in your fitness program? Here are some guidelines:

Think in Terms of Serious Flexibility Training, Not Just Brief Stretching. Squeezing in one or two quick stretches before or after a workout is better that nothing, but this approach will yield limited results. What’s more, generic stretches may not be effective for your particular body. The more time and attention you give to your flexibility training, the more benefits you’ll experience. A qualified personal trainer, physical therapist or health professional can design a functional flexibility program specifically for you.

Consider Your Activities. Are you a golfer? Do you ski, run or play tennis? Do your daily home or work routines include bending, lifting or sitting for long periods? Functional flexibility improves the stability and mobility of the whole person in his or her specific environment. An individualized stretching program is best to improve both stability (the ability to maintain ideal body alignment during all activities) and mobility (the ability to use full, normal range of motion).

Pay Special Attention to Tight Areas. Often the shoulder, chest, hamstrings and hips are particularly tight, but you may hold tension in other areas, depending on your history of injuries and the existing imbalances in your muscle groups. Unless you tailor your flexibility training to your strengths and weaknesses, you may stretch already overstretched muscles and miss areas that need training.

Listen to Your Body. Stretching is an individual thing. Pay attention to your body’s signals and don’t push too far. Avoid bouncing or jerking movements to gain momentum; this approach can be dangerous.

Instead, slowly stretch your muscles to the end point of movement and hold the stretch for about 10 to 30 seconds. Older adults, pregnant women and people with injuries will need to take special precautions.

Get Creative. Varying your flexibility training can help you stick with it. You can use towels, resistance balls and other accessories to add diversity and effectiveness to your stretching.

Warm Up First. Don’t forget to warm up your muscles before you begin. Walking briskly for 10 to15 minutes is a simple way to do this.

Find a Flexibility Class That Works for You. Classes that include stretching are becoming more popular and more diverse. Some combine cardiovascular and strength components with the flexibility training; others focus exclusively on stretching.

Stretch Your Mind and Body. Did you know that your emotional state may affect your flexibility? If your body is relaxed, it will be more responsive to flexibility training. Listening to music and focusing on your breath can help you relax as you stretch. You may also want to explore yoga or Pilates. In addition to stretching, classes in these disciplines may include relaxation, visualization and other mind-body techniques designed to reduce stress and increase mindfulness.

It’s Not Just for Wimps. Forget the idea that stretching is just for elderly, injured or unconditioned people. Many Olympic and professional athletes rely on flexibility training for peak performance.

Do It Consistently. It doesn’t help to stretch for a few weeks and then forget about it. Integrate regular stretching into your permanent fitness program. For inspiration, look to cats and dogs – they’re dedicated practitioners of regular stretching and you rarely see them getting the kind of joint or muscular injuries that humans get!

Shoulder and Trapezius Stretch
** Stand upright with shoulders back, chest out, and feet hip-width apart.
** Clasp your hands behind your buttocks.
** Slowly lift your hands up and away from your body until they have reached the furthest comfortable position.
** Keep your chest out and your chin in without hunching over.
** Once you feel a comfortable stretch in your chest and anterior shoulders, hold this position for at least 15-30 seconds.

Lying Quadriceps Stretch
** Lie face down on a mat.
** Lift your right leg up towards your buttocks.
** Reach around with your right hand and grasp your foot. Slowly pull downwards, stretching your quadriceps to the furthest comfortable position.
** Hold this position for at least 15-30 seconds.

Shin Stretch
** Using a wall or chair as support, place your left foot behind your right foot, with the top of your left foot on the ground.
** Extend the bottom of your left shin as far forward as possible. Slowly lower yourself by bending both legs.
** Once you have stretched your anterior tibialis to the furthest comfortable position, hold for at least 15-30 seconds.
** Switch legs and repeat.

Hip, Gluteus and Back Stretch
** Sit on the floor with both of your legs extended in front of you.
** Bend your right leg over your left leg, keeping your right foot flat on the floor outside the left knee.
** Place your left elbow on the outside of your right knee, and extend your right arm behind you with your palm flat on the floor for support.
** Slowly twist your upper body to the right while looking over your right shoulder.
** Lightly apply pressure with your left elbow on the outside of your right knee as you twist. Be sure to keep your upper body straight.
** Once you feel a comfortable stretch in your hips, buttocks, and lower back, hold this position for at least 15-30 seconds.
** Switch sides and repeat.

Calf Stretch
** Put the sole of the top half of your right foot against the wall. Slide your right heel as close towards the wall as possible.
** Slowly lean forward towards the wall stretching your calves. Once you have stretched your calf to the furthest comfortable position, hold for at least 15-30 seconds.
** Switch legs and repeat.

When you exercise, you do it in order to try to maintain good health. You know that you have to eat so that your body has the energy to perform the workouts that you do as well as for everyday tasks. But, just what you should eat before and after you workouts is important for making the best of your workouts. Also, how long you eat before and after each workout is equally important.

Whether you are going to be doing a cardio workout or a resistance workout, you should try to make it a point to eat a mix of carbohydrates and protein. What determines the percentage of carbohydrates and protein you should consume is whether you are doing cardio or resistance and the intensity level you will be working at.

The ideal time to eat your pre workout meal is 1 hour before you start. If you are working at a lower intensity level, keep this meal down to around 200 calories or so. If you are working at a higher intensity level, you may need this meal to be as high as 400 to 500 calories.

If you are doing a cardio session, you will need to eat a mix of around 2/3 carbohydrates and 1/3 protein. This will give you longer sustained energy from the extra carbs with enough protein to keep muscle from breaking down during your workout.

If you are doing a resistance session, you should eat a mix of around 1/3 carbohydrates and 2/3 protein. This will give you enough energy from the carbs to perform each set you do and the extra protein will help keep muscle breakdown to a minimum during your workout. It has been shown that your body most effectively uses protein during exertion meaning that taking in more protein before resistance workouts aids in faster recovery as well.

Now, eating after a workout is just as important as the pre workout meal. Remember that when you exercise whether it is a cardio or a resistance session, you deplete energy in the form of glycogen. Our brain and central nervous system relies on glycogen as their main source of fuel so if we don’t replace it after exercise, our bodies will begin to break down muscle tissue into amino acids, then convert them into usable fuel for the brain and central nervous system.

Also, mostly during resistance workouts, you break down muscle tissue by creating micro tears. This means that right after a workout; your muscles go into a repair mode. Proteins are the key macronutrient for muscle repair and so you don’t want muscle breaking down further to create fuel in place of lost glycogen.

If you have just finished a cardio session, you will need to consume mostly carbohydrates, preferably ones with high fiber. Oatmeal, rice, whole wheat pasta, and most northern fruits are good sources. Try to consume around 30 to 50 grams of these carbohydrates after a cardio session. After cardio, it is ok to eat within 5 to 10 minutes of completion.

If you have just finished a resistance session, you will need a combination of carbohydrates and protein. Because unlike cardio workouts, with resistance workouts you are breaking down muscle tissue by creating micro tears. The protein is needed to build up and repair these tears so the muscle can increase in size and strength. The carbs not only replace the lost muscle glycogen, but also help the protein get into our muscle cells so it can synthesize into structural protein, or muscle itself.

Chicken or fish with a potato, egg whites with a piece of fruit, or a protein shake with fruit mixed in are good meals after resistance workouts but remember to keep the fiber low here. High fiber slows down digestion, meaning the protein will take longer to reach the muscle cells.

After resistance, it is recommended to wait 30 minutes before eating so as not to take blood away from your muscles too soon. The blood in your muscles helps with the repair process by removing metabolic waste products from them.

Any fats should be consumed well before and well after exercise.

Anytime you exercise, you do so in order to try and maintain good health. You also know that you have to eat as well, so your body will have the energy it needs to exercise and maintain for the everyday tasks of life. For making the best of your exercise, what you eat before and after you workout is very important.

No matter if you are going to be doing a cardio workout or a resistance workout, you should always make it a point to eat a balanced mix of protein and carbohydrates. What makes that determining percentage of carbs and protein you consume is whether or not you are doing cardio or resistance exercise and the intensity level that you plan to work at.

The ideal time for you to eat your pre workout meal is an hour before you start. If you plan to work at a low intensity level, you should keep your pre workout meal down to 200 calories or so. If you plan to exercise at a high level of intensity, you will probably need your meal to be between 4,000 and 5,000 calories.

Those of you who are doing a cardio session will need to consume a mix of 2/3 carbs and 1/3 protein. Doing so will give you longer sustained energy from the extra carbs with enough protein to keep your muscle from breaking down while you exercise.

For resistance exercise, you’ll need to eat a mix of 1/3 carbs and 2/3 protein, as this will help you get plenty of energy from the carbs to perform each set you do and the extra protein will help keep muscle breakdown to a minimum while you exercise.

Eating after you exercise is just as important as your pre workout meal. Anytime you exercise, whether its cardio or resistance, you deplete energy in the form of glycogen. The brain and central nervous system rely on glycogen as their main source of fuel, so if you don’t replace it after you exercise, your body will begin to break down muscle tissue into amino acids, and then convert them into usable fuel for the brain and the central nervous system.

Keep in mind that mostly during resistance exercise, you’ll break down muscle tissue by creating micro tears. What this means, is that after a workout, your muscles will instantly go into repair mode. Protein is the key here for muscle repair, as you don’t want muscle breaking down even further to create fuel instead of lost glycogen.

Once you have finished a cardio session, you’ll need to consume mainly carbohydrates, preferably those with high fiber. Rice, oatmeal, whole wheat pasta, and northern fruits are excellent sources. Also, try to consume 30 – 50 grams of there types of carbs after you exercise. After your cardio workout, it is fine to eat within 5 – 10 minutes.

Once you’ve finished a resistance workout, you will need to consume a combination of carbs and protein. Unlike cardio workouts, resistance workouts will break down muscle tissue by creating micro tears.

You’ll need protein as this happens to build up and repair these tears so that the muscle can increase in size and strength. The carbs will not only replace the lost muscle glycogen, but will also help the protein get into muscle cells so it can synthesize into structural protein, or the muscle itself.

After your resistance exercise, you should wait up to 30 minutes before you eat, so that you won’t take blood away from your muscles too fast. The blood in your muscles will help the repair process by removing the metabolic waste products.

The aim for beginners to weight training must be to lay the foundations for the intensive workouts that their bodies will eventually be subjected to. Obviously successful bodybuilding involves bringing together disparate elements such as nutrition and rest but choosing the right exercises is crucial. In this article we’ll outline the dumbbell exercises that will enable new bodybuilders to develop the general strength and body conditioning needed.

Initially beginners should aim to complete two sets of ten to twelve reps but after a few weeks, when you have developed sufficient control and basic strength, experiment with one set of six to eight reps to failure. This will maximize your muscle growth and give you the impetus to move on to the next stage of development. Before long you’ll find the use of this single piece of equipment restricting, so later in this series of articles we’ll pull together a muscle boosting program that utilizes other equipment to take you to the intermediate level. In the meantime, get to work with these exercises in order to get used to working your muscles.

Start off training four days per week and work body parts on the following basis not forgetting to incorporate rest days:

Day 1 – Biceps, Back, Abs

Day 2- Hamstrings, Shoulders, Abs

Day 3 – Quads, Forearms, Calves

Day 4 – Triceps, Chest, Abs

The exercises recommended for beginners are as follows:

CHEST: Bench press, flyes

UPPER BACK: Prone reverse flye, seated reverse flye, bent over row, pullover

SHOULDER: Lateral raise, shoulder press, upright row

TRICEPS: Lying triceps extension

BICEPS: Curl, concentration curl

FOREARMS: Wrist curl, wrist extension

LEGS: Squat, leg curl, calf raise

I often get clients coming in who have been exercising with machine circuit training and are frustrated with the lack of results. What happens too often is we repeat the same exercise routine for a particular body part or muscle group until the muscles adapt. As a rule of thumb, I always change my exercise routine every month to keep it progressive and making gains. Every once in a while I will do a “special” workout. I’ll do all my favorite exercises and not the ones I’ve designed into a specific fitness training program. I do this because it is beneficial to mix up exercises and equipment on occasion. If you keep repeating the same things and have done so over time, you have done a good job at maintaining your fitness level and muscles. You certainly have not challenged them and will not get them to make any gains. Even if you exercise for maintenance, I still recommend changing up your exercise routine.

Another way to vary your fitness routine is by changing from exercise machines to free weights / dumbbells or visa versa. For cardio exercise, move from the treadmill to the stepper, elliptical or bike. With cardio workouts, I like interval training because it does just that, it varies the workout each time. Instead of always walking on the treadmill at the same speed and incline or grade, change up your speed and increase your grade. This will keep your exercise dynamic and prevent boredom. More importantly it will challenge your muscles, heart, and lunges to work at different levels.

There are many ways to change your exercise routine. Be creative. Try creating a simple six-week training cycle in which you alternate between heavy, medium and light training sessions for each body part. Each time you try a heavy day, push your limit, leaving your medium and light days for building tendon and ligament strength as well as muscle endurance. At the end of your six-week cycle, take 2 – 4 days off and allow your body to rest. This prevents overtraining and will help your body with improved performance when you start up again. The cycling approach will be particularly effective for preventing injuries to muscle groups and connective tissue down the road.

Your goal will determine the number of reps you typically use. Different numbers of reps serve different purposes. First, know what your goals are in your training. What are you trying to accomplish? The standards are as follows: for strength train at 6 to 8 reps; endurance at 15 to 20 reps; toning at 10 to 15 reps; mass and size 6 to 20 reps.

There are also other factors to training in addition to reps. The number of sets is how many times you do the exercise with rest in between. Intensity is the level of difficulty in performing the exercise usually stated in a percentage of a 1 to 10 rep maximum. Rest, is the amount of time you wait until you do another set. All of these factors are controlled variables in an exercise program. Knowing your fitness goals will help you or your trainer determine what the best mix is for you in designing your exercise program. For more information and tips on exercise, go to http://www.easyexercisetips.com

Burning fat from the abdomen through exercises specially destined to the abdominal muscles was, is and will always be one of the most resistant myths.

Almost all the people with a big belly take up, with a lot of determination, sit-ups, crunches, side-bends, twists, etc., hoping that every new series or set of exercises, every session of repeating them, will help them get rid of the ‚ring‘ of adipose tissue around their waist, also called ‚the ring of death‘.

Besides the fact that it is probably the most anesthetic ‚deposit‘ of adipose tissue, abdominal fat involves many risks for the health of the person which possesses it (related to diabetes, high blood pressure, cardio-vascular diseases, cancer, impotence, etc.).

We must keep in mind, once and for all, that when we refer to the melting of the subcutaneous adipose tissue, there is no spot reduction. No matter how much we strive to locate effort in the areas we are focused on, we will only fortify the muscles under the fat, but the reduction of the fat itself will be insignificant. The explanation is simple and is connected to the energetic support of the anaerobic effort, which uses, for the exercises, muscular and hepatic glycogen, and not fat acids from the adipose tissue. For getting to the deposits of fat, what we need is cardio training (running, biking, fast walking, swimming, etc.).This type of exercises must be maintained for a long time (45-60 minutes) and they must be intense (60-70% from the maximum of heart rhythm).

An alternative is cardio training with periods when intensity varies, although the total volume is not smaller than in the case of uniformly cardio training.

A very important role in burning fat is held by the diet. It is said that the most effective of training can be sabotaged in the kitchen.

The nutritionists say that a diet which maintains caloric deficit, but keeps a balanced proportion of the basic principles (proteins, lipids, blood sugar), with a slight increase of the protein part, will always have as a consequence losing weight. Physical exercises like sit-ups, crunches, etc., without other exercises meant to involve bigger groups of muscles (thighs, chest, back) and to fortify the abdominal muscles, do not increase very much the basic metabolic rate.

As a consequence, indirect burning of calories (during breaks, post-training) is very small in comparison with the burning due to aerobic effort (especially the ones with alternative periods) – in their case, during effort taking more than 20 minutes, the energetic support is exactly the adipose tissue.

The magic formula for burning abdominal fat is a combination of hypo caloric diet and exercise – especially aerobic, but also anaerobic (focused on all the body, not only the abdominal muscles).

Q. I find breathing exercises very boring is there anything I can do to make less boring?

Have you ever used visualization when you are doing your breathing exercises, a lot of people think that breathing exercises are only a manner of sitting down and concentrating as they inhale exhale, which to the outsider can seem as being very boring and monotonous but here’s a few things you can try out the next time, try…

• concentrating on a particular colour on inhalation and another colour on exhalation (for example some colour you link with calmness or purity, and another colour for stress or impurity)

• having a picture in your mind of your body and as you breathe in, think of all the extra parts of your lungs that have been under used because of bad breathing habits.

• Taking a breath and picturing the air coming into your body from different areas (such as the soles of the feet for example.)

It can especially seem complicated for beginners when starting out to do breathing exercises as you can’t see the muscles that they are working on but by visualizing their lungs in action in their mind it makes it all the easier to do…and remember when you’re doing your breathing exercises you’re not really learning anything new but undoing all the bad habits you’ve picked up over the years.

Does this sound familiar to you? After getting through a long day of work, engaging in obligatory social activities and then doing the upkeep on your house or apartment you may feel as if every last second of your time and every last drop of your energy have been spent.

By that point, you just want to collapse on the floor, exhausted. Then you wake up and have to do it all over again the next day.

Fortunately, there is help. You just need to know about an amazing exercise and self improvement system. This may be the easiest exercise to learn that you have ever seen. You’ll feel wonderful and energized afterwards, unlike ordinary workouts. Its called Falun Dafa.

I attribute the disappearance of my back pain to Falun Dafa. Another thing I feel that it did for me personally was give me the energy to get things done. You may also be excited to learn that it is something you can implement in your life very easily, without a lot of effort.

What you’ll want to do is visit Falun Dafa website. You’ll want to get the book, Zhuan Falun, and exercise instruction videos. Both are available for free download. You’ll want to read the book to gain the full benefits of this self improvement system.

Now, you may be thinking that it might not be easy to learn all the ins and outs of these 5 sets of simple, energizing exercises just from a video.

You’ll find the solution for that on the very same website. There is a volunteer instructor list. Scan it for your city or one near you. The list covers most major cities around the world and even many smaller cities.

The best part is that none of these volunteers will accept a penny of your money. They will show you these exercises free of charge and with no strings attached.

The reason they will do this is because they have also received amazing results from this practice. For this reason, they are willing to take their own time to show you how to do it at no cost to you.

So, what are you waiting for? Go over to that website and get started on what might be the most amazing and beneficial treasure you’ll uncover in this lifetime. Discover for yourself an incredible wellspring of health and energy.

This article is for information purposes only. It is not meant to prevent, treat or diagnose any health condition or disease. If you have or suspect you have a health problem, and before embarking on any exercise program you should consult your physician.