DEMO: Health Theme

If You are already fitness walking several times a week ? great! Now its time to step it up a bit. Here are 6 ways to turn your walks into workouts. They involve adding a little creativity but with these few simple techniques you can maximize the benefits of your walk and get more of an overall body workout.

Swing it!

Have you ever made fun of the walkers who swing their arms? Well they know something you don’t. This is the best way to increase the effectiveness of your workout. Bend your arms at your elbow 90 degrees as you walk. Swinging your arms will quicken your pace, raise your heart rate and help you to burn 5 to 10 percent more calories. Continue walking at a quick pace with your arms swinging naturally by your side. As you walk gradually bend them into the 90 degree angle. Keep a natural rhythm to your swing. Walking with bent arms will help with your gait, balance, and propulsion.”

Interval walking

In the first article in this series (http://tinyurl.com/8ztbo), we gave you an overview of the stages of change in Prochaska’s Transtheoretical model. The first three of these stages are all about getting started. They apply to anyone who’s not actually regularly exercising at the moment. If you were active in the past, but don’t now (i.e. you’re in the "Relapse" stage), then, motivationally speaking, you’re in one of these stages. Just as a reminder, the stages are:

- Pre-Contemplation: When you’re not active, not thinking about it, and really don’t see why you should be;

- Contemplation: When you’re thinking about getting active, but not quite ready to get around to it yet; and

- Preparation: You’ve thought, you’ve decided, and you’re making arrangements as you read this ? you’re just about to start, honestly!

PRE-CONTEMPLATION

If you’re at the Pre-Contemplation stage, you don’t really want to change. Others might have said you should, or you may have read something about why activity’s supposed to be good for you, but deep down, you’re not convinced. As far as you’re concerned, there’s nothing wrong with your life exactly as is.

For years exercise scientists and physiologists have preached that lactate/lactic acid build-up in the muscle is the direct cause of muscle fatigue and a decrease in performance. It is proposed that lactate builds up in the muscle cells during intense exercise and literally "poisons" them, essentially shutting down activity biochemically by reducing the pH or increasing the acidity level. Lactate has therefore been dubbed a metabolic by-product or dead end and as the enemy of human exercise and performance. This may be far from the truth as this article explains.

Unfortunately, the information that gave lactate this unearned reputation is outdated and very questionable since the research on which this theory is based was isolated frog muscle experiments from 1910-1914. The experiments were performed and the lactate theory proposed by A.V. Hill and associates. Basically, these investigators took excised frog muscle and continuously stimulated it with electric shocks until failure and then took lactate samples for analysis. Lactate levels were extraordinarily high, and from this finding the scientists came to the conclusion that lactate buildup must have been the culprit for the fatigue and ultimate failure of the muscle. Hill also concluded that since there was no blood and therefore oxygen supply to the muscle, that this condition must have been the cause of the accumulation of lactate.

1. Cardio in Combination with Strength Training- If you need to combine your cardio with Strength training then do your Cardio AFTER your Resistance Training workout. You need that extra energy for the Hi Intensity Strength training and you also want to pump blood into your muscles after you have just broken them down from a heavy resistance training program… So Pump it up first then do your Cardio.

2. Exercise in the Morning - A Recent Study showed that after one year, 75% of the morning exercisers stayed with their fitness and health program. Compared to only 25% of those that worked out in the evening. Exercising early gets you moving and energized as well not allowing yourself to find 1,000 excuses at the end of the day on why you can’t work out.. I am TOO Tired… I am TOO Busy… I am TOO far from the gym… You know!!!!

3. Exercise @ Home - A Recent study by the University of Florida in Gainsville found that those that worked out at home lost more weight than those that trained at a gym. Reason - You are less likely to skip workouts when you do not have to travel to a place to workout….. NO EXCUSES when the gym is @ home.

This is a list of ten common mistakes made during exercise. Quite often the exerciser and even the personal trainer or coach is unaware of these mistakes, decreasing the effectiveness of the exercise and even risking injury. This list describes each "mistake" but follows with a suggested "correction". You may find this list helpful in grading yourself or even your personal trainer.

Ineffective warm up prior to a workout

The purpose of a warm-up is to gently prepare the body for the increased stress from the upcoming exercise session. A 5 ? 10 min bout of moderate intensity cycling, treadmill walking or elliptical work or even sports specific type movements to induce a mild, sustained stretch will be sufficient. These activities have the effect of increasing blood flow to the muscles (including the heart) and increasing the core muscle temperature for improved joint flexibility and range of motion, possibly helping reduce injury. Quite often exercisers go to the extreme when it concerns a warm up, they either do not perform one at all, or "prefatigue" by running at a high intensity for 15 ?20 minutes (or more) before their session. This has the effect of draining valuable muscle carbohydrate stores (glycogen) needed for the upcoming strength training/bodybuilding exercise session. If the goal of exercise is to lose weight, it is actually better to perform extended aerobic exercise or interval training at the end of an intense strength training session as the body will be likely to burn more fat as a fuel due to the decreased glycogen stores.

Rebounding: Health and Fitness Benefits

As quoted by NASA, rebounding is "the most efficient and effective exercise yet devised by man". It is an excellent, non-impact, aerobic excercise gained by bouncing on a mini-trampoline.

The benefits of rebounding are astonishing and have been promoted significantly within the last decade.

It is a unique excercise in which a weightless state is achieved at the top of each jump and then land with twice the force of gravity on each bounce. This shift in gravity benefits every muscle and cell of the body and provides huge benefits to the lymph system.

On studying the benefits of rebounding, NASA found that a 150-pound individual spending one-hour on a rebounder will burn more calories than the same person jogging for an hour!

Benefits of Rebounding

- 68% more efficient than jogging (N.A.S.A., Journal of Applied Physiology 49(5): 881-887)

- Fights fatigue by strengthening the glandular system to increase the capabilities of the thyroid gland, the pituitary gland and the adrenals.

- Rebounding has a natural analgesic effect on the body which helps to relieve joints and pain in the neck, back, and head through the increase of circulation and oxygen flow.

Do you know the health and fitness industry is plagued by an over abundance of workout myths? A myth is a fiction or half truth, especially one that forms part of an ideology. Rob tells Jen about a new fitness program that is suppose to deliver amazing results; Jen tells Ted, and Ted then tells Pam, but only half of what Rob said. Confused? Just image how confusing Rob’s “cutting edge” theory has become. And the funny thing is, Rob made this up by telling people they will lose 3 inches from their bellies, and hips by holding their breath for 30 seconds. Rob, without any scientific backing, dreamed this all up.

The sad thing is most people believe what they hear from so-called uninformed myth spreaders. After consulting with thousands of people, I have heard every possible workout myth known to man, and continue to de-bunk myths daily. Listed below are my all time 5 favorite workout myths. Always look for the science and logic behind what people claim. Don’t automatically assume it is true unless studies back it, or specific quantitative results are shown.

After reading my 5 workout myths, you will be able to finally protect your own workout results, and share the fitness truth with others.

The Art of Multifunctional Training

People often complain about how they just do not have enough time to spend working out in a gym. It seems every year the lives of many Americans become more hectic and they have less time to devote to bettering their health. As a certified personal trainer I often hear people stating that they just have to spend too much time working out to get the results they desire. They tell me how they have to rush to the gym before or after working out, in some cases change into workout clothes or work clothes, then they have to workout, shower and then rush to work or home to tend to their families. Working out can defiantly be a time consuming process.

However it does not have to be. When a prospective client approaches me and asks how I can help them get a great workout with results, but without the time commitment; I just smile and introduce them to Multifunctional Training. Multifunctional Training, which also consists of many core training components, is the concept of working multiple muscle groups in a single exercise. Multifunctional Training is a great way to work multiple groups, which allows for a shorter workout time, because time is no longer spent working one muscle group at a time. While, single muscle isolation is great for body builders or those who are trying to build or shape a particular muscle most people do not need to spend time isolating a muscle with multiple exercises. With Multifunctional Training you can hit multiple muscle groups in a just a few exercises.

These days many people spend a significant part of their day slaving away over a hot computer and as a result, their posture is not what it should be. Bad posture can result in short-term discomfort such as neck stiffness and headaches and also lead to more serious problems in later life. It is therefore worth spending some time to counteract the damage we may be doing to ourselves every day. But how about this - did you know that some of the same exercises that you can do to maintain good posture are the very same exercises, which if done regularly, can help you to achieve a six-pack? I am totally serious ? this is something I discovered recently while looking at different exercise routines because I wanted to do something about my own bad posture. As well as sitting and standing up straight, you will also look good on the beach next summer. Kill two birds with one stone!

The following exercises should be done a minimum of three times per week and although you will not see and feel significant results for approximately 6-8 weeks, you will start to feel the developing muscles encouraging you to sit and stand straighter, almost immediately.

Quite often runners and exercisers experience painful muscle cramping either during or immediately following a strenuous exercise bout and as a result, these types of cramps have become known as Exercise Associated Muscle Cramps or EAMCs. Much confusion surrounds the causes of EAMCs including dehydration to electrolyte imbalances. This article aims to explain the latest model for describing EAMCs, how to prevent them and how to deal with them once they occur.

What is a muscle cramp?

A muscle cramp is defined as a painful, involuntary, spasmodic contraction of a muscle. The muscle remains contracted and may last for a few seconds to several minutes. The muscles most prone to EAMCs are those that cross two joints ? for example the calf muscle called the gastocnemius (crosses the ankle and knee joint) and the hamstrings (cross the knee and hip joint).

What causes an EAMC?

There are many theories surrounding the cause of muscle cramps. Some proposed causes are fluid loss and dehydration, electrolyte imbalances (sodium, potassium, magnesium), heat and congenital/inherited conditions. Recent evidence collected by Professor Martin Scwellnus at the Sports Science Institute of South Africa indicates no strong relationship between these causes and exercise cramps. After completing several studies and studying the results of other experiments using electromyography or EMG (measures muscle nerve electric activity), Schwellnus has proposed a novel model of the cause of EAMCs.