Sunday, 23 March 2008

Don't Wait for Your Doctor to Tell You to Exercise

An issue of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, a national survey showed that only 28% of all physicians advise patients to become more physically active. Ask anyone who is physically active, and they will tell you exercise gives them an overall positive feeling of well being. People feel better when they exercise, sleep better and have fewer aches and pains.

In a national research, sponsored by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institutes of Health (NIH), 1,800 adults were interviewed. Their doctors suggested they make a lifestyle change, but only 28% of the participants said their physicians had recommended that they become more active. And only 11% of the MDs had offered advice or further assistance to help their patients on an exercise program. Those patients who received both the suggestion and follow-up support from the doctors were 80% more likely to meet the basic physical activity requirements than those who didn’t. The basic physical activity requirement is 30 minutes of moderate-intensity activity, five times a week.

Let’s be honest. Doctors are busy people. Many doctors themselves don’t exercise. So how can we expect them to tell us to do something they don’t do. That’s why Americans have to turn to exercise experts and personal trainers. We really don’t need our doctors to tell us to exercise, do we? You would have to be pretty blind to not know about the health related benefits of exercise. Exercise education is all around us. We can either choose to ignore these messages or take action and get off our couches and exercise.

I believe many people don’t exercise because they don’t know how or are intimidated by the large health club scenes. Seniors, overweight people and new exercisers are confused with all the equipment, don’t appreciate the loud music and noise, and are uncomfortable exercising among the younger people. That’s where small personal training studios are beneficial. A personal trainer’s job is to teach their client how to exercise. The trainer should first have a complete understanding of the client’s goals, physical strengths and limitations, past and present injury history and proper medical history. Then after designing a program for the specific needs and goals, they teach proper form and technique, safety in the gym, how to properly adjust equipment, explain how to focus on the right muscle for a given exercise, make recommendations for cardiovascular exercise, strength or resistance training, flexibility conditioning, and help the client make positive lifestyle changes. If you have any special medical condition, your personal trainer should contact your doctor.

If only, the most sedentary person who is obese started to exercise, they would feel better in just 7 to 10 days. For a sedentary, obese person to start an exercise program, they should first check with their doctor on any precautions to exercise. Starting with a 10 minute walk per day and gradually increasing the time and intensity is the beginning of a more active lifestyle and a healthier new you. For more information and tips on exercise, go to http://www.easyexercisetips.com

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com

Saturday, 22 March 2008

Join A Gym Or Purchase Exercise Equipment

The age old question when it comes to working out is: should I join a gym or purchase exercise equipment? Depending on your needs and specific method of working out, different individuals experience different results with each of these methods. However, before you rush out and sell your gym membership to purchase thousands of dollars in exercise equipment or sell your exercise equipment in order to purchase a gym membership, consider your options carefully. Depending on your schedule, budget, workout schedule, and dedication, the decision you make must be personal and honest in order to experience the best results.

Whether you are looking to lose weight, gain muscle, or just become healthier, a gym membership may be just what you need. In addition to access to top of the line equipment, professional gyms employ professional trainers, intuitionalists, and other individuals that will allow you to meet your goal. Furthermore, most gyms hold a series of classes in all types of exercises and activities. From popular activities like yoga and Pilates to more action packed classes like kick boxing and classic aerobics, exercise classes are a great way to meet people, stay motivated, and see results.

You should join a gym if you are looking professional guidance in the correct methods and techniques to working out. Also, if you find yourself unmotivated to begin exercising, joining a gym will keep you motivated, since many individuals are resistant to let their hard earned money spent on a gym membership go to waste. Furthermore, join a gym to meet other individuals with your interests or goals, so that you can form a support system to ensure that everyone meets his or her goals.

However, if your schedule finds little time that you can dedicate to visiting a gym, consider establishing a home gym. Typically, outfitting a home gym is much more expensive than paying a gym membership, but having the ability to work out any time of the day is well worth the cost. Additionally, you only have to purchase gym equipment once, where you have to renew a gym membership on an annual basis. Furthermore, if you are shy or feel intimidated while working out in gyms and find yourself often sacrificing your work out routine in order to avoid exercising in rooms with many people, consider starting your own home gym.

Although you have a home gym, a professional trainer is not out of the question, as many trainers will gladly travel to your home in order to establish a work out regimen that best works toward your goal. Having a professional trainer on call may be more expensive than working with a trainer at a professional gym, but the cost is well worth the service.

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com-By: Mike Barus

Thursday, 20 March 2008

Pooling Your Resources: The Benefits Of An Aquatic Workout

You'd definitely work out more if it wasn't, well, so much work, and didn't leave you with all those aching bones. Maybe your doctor even advised you to "take it easy" due to a pre-existing condition.

Well, now experts note there are even fewer reasons to make excuses. And one of the best ways to get your feet wet when it comes to physical activity is by literally getting your feet (and entire body) wet, by submerging yourself into a fairly stressless fitness routine.

Water workouts, according to the experts are great for folks of all ages, strengths, shapes and sizes.

Experts note that when properly executed, water workouts can offer results similar to those achieved by "regular" workouts, including aerobic fitness, muscular strength and endurance, flexibility and greater balance. Furthermore, physicians and fitness professionals alike recommend water workouts for the following reasons:

1. Water's buoyancy help support your weight. When you are submerged in water (up to your neck), the water "deletes" up to 90 percent of your (total) body weight, significantly decreasing tension on your weight-bearing joints, bones and muscles. Additionally, instead of working and landing on a hard surface and with the impact of your total weight, aquatic workouts mean landing with only 10 percent of your total body weight jarring you and thus decreasing your chance and risk for injury.

2. Immersing yourself in water helps increase your circulation and can help boost your cardiovascular health.

3. Water pressure on your joints and muscles can help reduce swelling, especially if you have painful injuries.

4. Water provides resistance that helps strengthen your muscles, as you push against it.

5. Because the effects of gravity are less in water, you may be able to do more stretching exercises than you could on dry land.

So when it comes to a balanced form of exercise, few options offer the overall benefit of an enjoyable swim.

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com-By: Jason Flintstone

Wednesday, 19 March 2008

Health and Diet During Holidays

Holidays are a perfect time to enjoy and chill out with families and friends. Parties with wide variety of food on display tempt one and all to indulge in mouth watering delicacies. If you are the kind who swears by a fitness routine, you might tend to enjoy less of yummy foods and spend more time worrying about the increasing waistline. You can still stay healthy and fit by savoring all the delicacies. Little of planning, a dash of goal setting and dose of old fashioned discipline and control over your self will let you enjoy the holiday season without any worries. Let me list down few ways wherein you can follow your diet and stay in great shape too.

- Holidays are just an excuse to go off track from your fitness program. The mindset of people is that since we follow our fitness regime all week / month / year long, we can indulge in gorging over those cakes and ice creams. Aim to stay on track with your fitness program this and all other holidays. By skipping workouts, eating more, exercising less one tends to gain weight. It’s like going back where we started off from. Make a decision to stay in shape with all the food around you.

- Holidays are a hectic time. All premeditated schedules can go haywire. To stay on track, create a work out time table listing down all the parties, dinners and so on. Keep the time table at such a place where you are forced to look at it every day. This serves as a reminder to stick to your time table religiously.

- If you think you would like to lose 25 lbs during holidays despite enjoying parties, set a goal much before and start working towards it. Goal can also be to gain few kilos also.

- With so much lip smacking, gorgeous food all around, you will feel tempted to just give your fitness program. Keep one day aside where you can treat your self to all your cravings and give in to all your bingeing. Stick to your fitness program rest of the days. And don’t feel even one iota of guilt while satiating your self. Schedule your day to cheat on fitness routine when you have major event lined up.

- If you skip one day of exercise, don’t despair. Get on with it the next day. Nothing goes waste. One day of holiday in your fitness schedule should be a motivating factor for you to get back on your fitness regime.

- If you have planned a big dinner, you might tend to skip either morning or afternoon meal. Avoid changing your eating pattern. Treat the big dinner party at night just like regular dinner time and eat how much you would eat normally.

- Control food portion size in holidays. Eat your favourite foods in moderation. Overindulgence will show around your waistline.

- One always has choices, no matter where you are. Make the best possible choice based on the alternatives available in front of you. If it’s impossible, eat a small portion than a big one.

- Drink 8 – 10 glasses of water daily. Drink few glasses of water before dinner to control your appetite and not kill those hunger pangs. If you just drink and not eat a well balanced meal, you will bloat. Drink water throughout the day to maintain a steady state of hydration.

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com-By: Kevin Pederson

Tuesday, 18 March 2008

How to Double Your Energy Levels In Three Days

Are you often tired, lethargic and feeling older than you should? Do you want to get more done and have the non-stop energy of a 7-year-old child? With this report, you'll learn two easy ways to double your energy levels within the next three days.

Whenever I'm shopping or out walking in NYC, I notice, I'm always the fastest person by far. Everyone does things so slowly.

I literally move twice the speed of the average person and I don't use any stimulants. I'm not trying to impress anyone, I just have so much energy, that my body wants me to use it.

What Bodily Process Wastes The Most Energy?

Digestion uses up the most energy out of all your bodily functions. You're brain is the next biggest user of energy. What you eat can make a tremendous difference in your energy.

Certain foods are difficult to digest, the more processed, cooked, and complex the food, the more energy it takes to digest. What happens after eating a big holiday meal?

You get so tired that you start falling asleep in the middle of the afternoon. That's because you ate so much food and so many different combinations of foods that all of your remaining energy is used up for digestion and you don't have enough energy left to stay awake.

Raw Fruit Is The Ideal Energy Food

Fruit is predigested fuel or simple carbohydrates. Your body requires the least energy to digest them compared to any other food. The former director of nutrition for the US Olympic Team said "Fruits are miracle foods for athletes."

Fruit provides your body with its ideal and preferred source of fuel, which is sugar. Every cell in the body is fueled by sugar. After sugar the body prefers fat and the least efficient fuel source is protein.

The simple sugar from fruit is completely healthy. Most people don’t know that your body cannot use complex carbohydrates or starches. Those starches first have to be broken down into sugar. This breaking down process depletes energy from the body.

Fruit is the most nutritious food on the planet. A diet rich in fruits and leafy green vegetables supplies you with virtually all of your nutrient needs, even protein and the essential fatty acids. We all know that fruits and vegetables are the healthiest foods on the planet. Why not eat more of them?

Action Plan

Make fruit your morning and lunch meals and watch your energy levels soar through the roof. Eat as much fruit as you need to feel full. You'll have to eat much more than an average person eats. By lunch I've already eaten 8 to 10 bananas.

What Is The Second Energy Boosting Technique?

In high school, I started using an exercise that made my energy levels scream. Combine this exercise with eating more fruit and your energy levels will soar through the roof.

You’ll swear that you were taking uppers. Your body will beg you to exercise it more. The great thing is that you don’t have to drink coffee or take any stimulants to get this boost.

The other day I had so much extra energy; I decided to run sprints in my house. This was after I already did a great workout earlier in the day. I ran back and forth, from room to room. It was great fun, constantly changing direction, accelerating and stopping on a dime. I had more energy than a five year old.

This exercise is a specific way of doing aerobics. I’ve found that jogging for instance, which is an aerobic exercise, won’t give you this energy increase.

The key is to do exercises that keep you in the aerobic heart range, that build muscle and use all of your limbs in one exercise session. The exercise system I used in high school was Heavy Hands.

These days I use another exercise routine that gives me better overall results and I don’t need any equipment.

Owners of my Lightning Speed Fitness Program have already seen this in our member's only forum.

Here is the exercise routine post from the forum.

Lightning Aerobics

Another great way to do cardio is to do a whole calisthenics routine in a special way. I call it Lightning Aerobics. You can use any bodyweight exercises to get a similar effect.

Start by doing a strenuous exercise like the Lighting Speed Exercise (LSE) or pushups. As soon as you get winded, take a short break until your heart rate is back in the lower to middle aerobic heart range (50 to 85% of your maximum heart rate) and then switch to another exercise. You have to watch that your heart rate doesn’t get too low or too high.

You must stay within the aerobic heart range throughout most of the routine. It’s ok to go above it for short periods. If you’re into the anaerobic heart range for too long though, you are going to be very sore the next day.

Today's routine. 20 minutes

Three Sets of:
1. Pushups: 20
2. Lighting Exercise (LSE): 50
3. Jumping Jacks: 50
4. Jumping Lunges: 10
5. Superman Pushups: 10

Plus an extra set of pushups at the end and 10 mountain climbers.

I had so much energy today. My body was simply dieing to exercise.

Later on, I did a set of 20 Burpees. Man was I winded after that. Then I did several sprinting sessions in my house. I did a couple of handstand pushups, Hindu pushups, Superman pushups and two more sets of 50 LSE's.

Doing Lightning Aerobics is important because it dramatically increases your energy levels by oxygenating every part of your body. Once you start using these techniques you're body will beg you to exercise it on a regular basis. You'll finally have enough energy to play and run for hours with your children or those of your friends.

Regain your youth and energy with these strategies.

Article Source: http://www.articlerich.com-By: Roger Haeske

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