Fit and Youthful Life

Guest Author: Andrew Bicknell


When most women think about losing weight they usually attempt one of two options. The first is to go on a diet which involves eating fewer calories over the course of the day. The second option normally involves some form of aerobic exercise, whether it be jogging, bike riding or an aerobics class. The more intrepid losers of weight will combine the two approaches and will have some success getting rid of the extra weight. But more often then not the results are short lived and the weight comes right back on when they fall off the fat loss bandwagon and return to their more normal way of life.

But why is this? Isn’t the latest infomercial exercise guru exclaiming loudly the benefits of this diet or that piece of cardio exercise equipment? Unfortunately the ability to lose weight and keep it off is controlled by your body’s calorie burning engine. That engine is referred to as your metabolism. It’s simple really, the higher your metabolism the more calories you burn, even when doing nothing. That’s right, burn away that unwanted fat even when doing nothing.

So how do you increase your metabolism to the point that it is a constant fat burning machine?

It will come down to your dedication to do the things required to permanently lose the weight and keep it off because the rate at which your metabolism runs is based on the diet you eat and how active you are. It takes calories to burn calories, that’s the way your body’s metabolism works. But it is the type of calories that determines this. The healthier your diet the more calories you can eat without adding any additional fat.

But diet is only one part of the equation. The other is your level of fitness. There are two parts to any good exercise program, aerobic conditioning and weight training. Aerobic conditioning does burn calories, but once you are done with your workout your metabolism gradually slows down. You burn calories only during the time you are exercising. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do aerobic exercise because strong cardiovascular health is very important in this day and age.

But if you are truly looking for the ultimate in metabolism boosting fat burning exercises then you need to weight train.

And here’s why.

Weight training forces your body to build muscle. This muscle building process does not happen while you are lifting weights, it occurs for hours after your workout is over. Lifting weights actually breaks down muscle fibers, which react by getting stronger during the time after your workout is over when you are resting. It takes energy to rebuild these muscles. Calories, lots and lots of calories. Not only that, but the more lean muscle mass you posses the more calories are needed just to maintain that muscle. And we’re not talking about getting huge massive muscles. When you weight train you can adjust the amount of weight you use and sculpt your body anyway you see fit. Just firming up your overall musculature will tone and shape your body while at the same time making it possible to keep the weight off. It’s a win-win situation for anyone who is serious about losing weight and then keeping it off.

Weight training is the best way to boost your metabolism to its fat burning heights. Not only does it strengthen your body it burns calories while you are sleeping, turning your metabolism into a fat wasting machine.

If you have tried the diets and the aerobic machines but have little to show for it try combining them with actual weight training. You may be surprised by the changes you see.



Look 10 Years Younger

Guest Author: Cindy Heller


Aside from the light yoga which you can perform at home using an instructional DVD or family exercise, you may want to raise your yoga training onto a higher standard through advanced yoga. Advanced yoga techniques mainly emphasize on building up the body’s strength, endurance and balance. It will benefit those people with goals of enhancing the visual features and at the same time improving the capabilities of their body.

Though the advanced yoga technique seems to be a difficult task for a starter, the movements involved in performing this higher level of exercise can be easily done with proper concentration and discipline. To fully convince you to experience this elevated aerobic training, enumerated are the five good effects of practicing advanced yoga:

1. Regular practice of the movements involved in advanced yoga sessions effectively boosts the body’s stamina at the same time enhancing one’s vigor and flexibility.

2. Advanced yoga practices greatly help in reducing stress-related body problems and may completely prevent the practitioner from encountering any types of tension and uneasiness.

3. The techniques done in advanced yoga exercises can remove body toxins through a series of workouts using different asana postures.

4. The advanced yoga movements also enhance the practitioner’s memory and sense of awareness due to the concentration required in performing the complex positions.

5. Practicing advanced yoga exercises regularly improves the body’s posture and clears the body and mind from any kinds of stress and discomfort.

Adding Power to Your Yoga Exercise

There are several types of yoga postures which are considered part of the advanced yoga training. Most of these asana poses are under the classification of power yoga. Often called as athlete’s yoga, the advanced yoga drills involved in the power yoga consists of stretching calisthenics and muscle strengthening aerobics. These two types of exercises are integrated with meditative breathing to create advanced yoga techniques. Some of the activities done on the advanced yoga training include push-ups, hand stands, reaching toes with the tips of the fingers and side to side body flexing.

Other than the advanced yoga poses used on power yoga, the performance is done at a faster pace. The rapid succession of the techniques focuses on increasing the concentration and perspiration in doing the aerobic exercises. Moreover, the quickness implemented on the advanced yoga practice allows the practitioner to adapt with the progressing level of movements involved in power yoga. The advanced yoga program is composed of a series of exercises with gradually increasing difficulty. A meditative breathing exercise is included between each group of heavy exercise to contemplate the effects on the body.

The intensity of the exercises performed on the advanced yoga practice is becoming popular nowadays. Several types of advanced yoga techniques such as asthanga yoga and hatha yoga offers a wide variety of exercises which builds up the body’s strength, stamina and flexibility at the same time enhancing one’s mental and physical health.



Longevity and Health Now

Guest Author: Carioteam.com Blogs


Our health is the most valuable intangible asset we possess. Staying healthy throughout life is key to a more fulfilling, productive and happy existence.

Heart disease tops most lists as the number one health problem in the world. Thus, maintaining your heart health is crucial for your longevity and success and for the health of our society as a whole.

One way of keeping your heart healthy is providing it with enough aerobic training, or with so called cardio workouts, to keep it fit and in good shape. Cardio fitness trains your heart by giving it an extra load of work in supplying your body with oxygen.

Cardio fitness may include any type of physical exercises which trains your cardiovascular system, such as walking, jogging or swimming. When you work out your heart begins to beat faster, your pulse quickens and you start breathing deeper. Repeated exercise gives the heart extra training to stay healthy.

There are three key things responsible for the success and effectiveness of any cardio fitness routine. Those are: duration, intensity and frequency. So, before beginning a cardio exercise routine you should determine your workout goals and schedule. Remember, you should consult with your physician or medical advisor before beginning any training program or fitness regiment.

Let us start with the duration. Usually, one cardio fitness session may last 20 to 40 minutes. The duration greatly depends on your physical condition, your training goals and on the type and intensity of exercises you are doing.

If you are a beginner and only start with a light cardio session then your workouts may last no longer than 10 minutes. Determining the time of these sessions you should take into the consideration your present physical shape.

Avoid overloading your body and overstraining your heart during your exercise routines. Overstraining your heart will do you no good and may cause significant harm to your health and permanent damage to your heart and body. You may experience some discomfort in your muscles and joints as a normal process while your body acclimates to the new cardio fitness activities. However, if you feel any pain then postpone your next exercise session until after you have healed or consulted your doctor to ensure you have not pulled a ligament, tendon, or muscle.

Next, How Intense Are you?. For determining the intensity of your cardio fitness you should know your Maximum Heart Rate (Max HR). You determine it by subtracting your age from 220. For the beginners the HR during the exercises should not exceed 55% of the Max HR.

However, if you are in a good shape and have some experience in working out the intensity of your cardio fitness may come up to 65-85 percents of your Max HR.

Finally, What’s the frequency?. For attaining the best training results to improve your heart health, you should do cardio workouts on a regular basis. Three or four sessions a week is the optimal training frequency. You may also do your cardio daily while changing the type of activity you choose for your workouts. Remember that you must keep at it. No excericise program will be easy to keep up with, and you must make an concentrated effort to stick with the program.

Keeping in mind the three keys of cardio training you will help you heart stay healthy and attain excellent results through your workouts. Your can improve both the quality and prolong your life by keeping your heart healthy with regular exercise.

Guest Author: Eddie Lomax


Most workout programs, in my opinion, are examples of cardio body building and are wrongly based on bodybuilder isolation movement exercises and marathoner extended aerobic training.

This is NOT the path to optimum fitness excellence!

The cardio body building combination is actually the biggest training mistake you can make.

Now before you get angry…

There is absolutely nothing wrong with training like a Bodybuilder or Marathoner… especially if you are a Bodybuilder or Marathoner.

I am just proposing that the training philosophies of Bodybuilders and Marathoners are not the path to an optimum level of fitness where all of the physical skills of cardiorespiratory endurance, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, accuracy and toughness are improved… Whether you adhere to the philosophy of each group alone or in combination.

I know this goes against most physical training protocols used in commercial gyms around the world that adhere to the cardio body building combination as the training methods of choice.

It is easy to see how these training protocols came to be combined…

In an attempt to improve fitness on a more general level for the non-professional fitness enthusiast, gyms and health clubs throughout the world have prescribed the typical cardio body building program of isolated movement strength training and extended aerobic training sessions.

The belief was that if isolated movement weight training is effective for Bodybuilders, and extended aerobic sessions are effective for Marathoners, that a combination of the two training methods would give the general fitness enthusiast the best of both worlds.

The fact is, Bodybuilding training methods are more concerned with muscle growth than muscular strength, power and endurance… and both of these training methods almost completely ignore the other physical abilities like coordination, agility, balance, accuracy and flexibility.

It is no wonder why millions of people participating in cardio body building inspired fitness programs fail to meet their over-all fitness goals… They are making a big training mistake.

On a personal Note…

I am guilty of training in the cardio body building fashion in my younger years in preparation for wrestling season.

I would lift weights using isolation exercises and run long distances to increase aerobic capacity.

I quickly learned in the first week of practice that the inflated muscles and aerobic capacity that I gained through cardio body building training did little or nothing to provide the fitness level needed for my chosen sport.

Oh well, there is nothing I can do about that now… but there is something that YOU can do to improve your physical training in preparation for sport, work, life.

Reflect on your current workout program…

If your current workout program looks like the cardio body building protocol described above… don’t despair.

Any exercise is better than none, so you have not completely wasted your time.

In fact… the isolated movement strength training has given you some degree of strength, and the aerobic exercise is an essential base of fitness.

However, to improve your physical training and optimize your performance you must be prepared to radically change the methods you use in pursuit of strength, conditioning and fitness excellence.

Be honest with yourself… are you getting the most out of your current cardio body building physical training program?

Are the exercises and methods you are using best suited to improve over-all fitness… or do they only focus on muscular size and cardiorespiratory endurance?

Ask yourself this question…

Is your current physical fitness training program based on the acceptable and deliberate compromise of competence and ability to perform in ALL the areas of cardiorespiratory endurance, strength, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance, accuracy and toughness to produce optimum performance results under the greatest amount of circumstances?

If not, it is probably based on the cardio body building fallacy… and your physical training can be greatly improved.

If your goal of physical training is to inflate your muscles and perform monotonous, single intensity aerobic exercise for extended periods of time… do nothing.

If your goal of physical training is to become a better human being suited to successfully overcome the random challenges of sport, work and life… It is time to change your physical fitness training program to one not based on the cardio body building fallacy.

Guest Author: Craig Ballantyne


By: Craig Ballantyne, CSCS, MS

http://www.neusight.com/turbulence.html

Is there really a best interval training system for fat loss?

Do intervals really work as well as regular cardio for fat loss?

I’m going to cover these, and many more questions in Part 1 of your lessons on interval training.

But this is not just interval training 101. Today, you’re going to

leave this email with a graduate degree in interval training for

fat loss.

I’ll answer both questions upfront before the lesson begins, and

I’ll give more details on each as we go along:

1) Conservatively, intervals are at least as effective as regular

aerobic training for fat loss. Personally, I believe intervals are

far superior. And there is no denying that intervals allow you to

get your workouts done a lot faster than slow, boring cardio

workouts.

2) I have to admit, there is no best interval training program for

fat loss. But that is a good thing, because there are so many waysv that you can change your interval training to keep your fat loss results coming week in and week out.

By changing your training program every three to four weeks, you are using one of the key principles of Turbulence Training -

variety. It is essential to change your workouts this frequently,

otherwise you might suffer from a dreaded fat loss plateau.

And if that is the case for you now, I’ll show you dozens of

alternative interval training workouts you can use to kick-start

your metabolism and fat loss.

Now what many people don’t know, or perhaps just fail to recognize, is that interval training is not just for advanced fitness superstars. No way. In fact, intervals are an effective and perhaps even the most effective method for beginners to get fit and lose fat.

First you have to understand that interval training is based on

relative performance. While my intervals would be much too hard for a beginner, my intervals would be a joke for Lance Armstrong.

So even for those men and women that are just dipping their toe

into the fitness waters for the first time in months, years, or

dare I say, decades, they too can do interval training.

If you are a beginner and you can walk at 3.3mph for 20 minutes, then your intervals will start at a walk at 3.6mph for 30 seconds to a minute. That is interval training.

It doesn’t have to be high-intensity, sprint-to-the-death activity.

Instead, just increase the intensity slightly more than you can

normally handle, and do so for a short time, and intersperse that

with periods of easier exercise for twice the duration.

So if you did 1 minute at 3.6mph, drop down to 3.0mph for 2

minutes. Do that up to 6 times, and you’ve had yourself an interval session.

Now for those of you that have been doing only slow, traditional

cardio, switching over to interval training 2-3 times per week is

going to be the fat loss equivalent of throwing a lit, gasoline

soaked rag on a pile of dry kindling.

Here’s why…research has given us a lot of evidence that intervals are superior to traditional cardio. First, a study from Laval University in 1994 compared interval training to aerobic training – straight up – over a 12 week training period. Subjects that used interval training had better results. They lost more fat. You can’t argue with that.

And second, interval training causes metabolic turbulence – also

known as boost in your metabolism. Due to the high-intensity nature of intervals, there is more “turbulence” applied to the muscle. That means more muscle breakdown and more adaptations in the muscle.

Now I know that sounds very technical, but all you need to

understand is that when all this extra activity goes on at the

muscle level, it requires a lot more energy to return your muscle back to normal (i.e. to get out of turbulence and back to a normal resting state).

And when your body uses more energy, it means, in laymen’s terms, that you are burning more calories.

So it’s important for men and women not too get hung up on the

calorie counters in the gym. First, because the calorie count of

the workout is not the only factor in determining fat loss

(intervals burn far more calories after the workout – more on that later).

And second, a report on CBS showed that the calorie counters on some machines are often significantly inaccurate.

Doesn’t that boil your blood when you think back to all those times you did slow, boring cardio and patiently watched the calorie counter creep up to your goal of 250, 300, or even 400 calories? And who knows if that was even accurate?

With intervals, you can forget about the calories on the machine.

Just work hard, do the intervals, then leave the gym and let your muscles continue burning calories on its own while it recovers from exercise.

OK, time is up, so I’m going to leave off here for Part 1.

I apologize, you don’t have your Master’s of Science Degree in

Interval Training yet, but you will after Part 2.

So your homework between now and next week’s class is to start incorporating interval training into your fat loss program. For beginners, see the outline above. Make sure to include a 5-minute specific warm-up and cool-down.

And if you truly did just peel yourself off the couch last week and you have not exercised in years, I insist that you see a doctor before you take up any exercise program. Believe me, you’ll thank yourself for it.

For more advanced fitness levels, let’s start with 60 second

intervals.

Do a 5-minute specific warm-up, then exercise for 60 seconds at a slightly harder than normal cardio pace.

Follow that with 90 seconds of exercise at a very easy pace. (Don’t exercise too hard in the recovery period – that is one of the biggest mistakes people make with interval training!). Repeat this sequence for 3 more intervals (let’s just do 4 intervals for your first session).

Through trial and error, find an intensity that allows you to work to near fatigue – but not complete fatigue, there should still be some “gas” left in the tank – by the end of the 60 second interval.

In the next newsletter, I’ll discuss at least 6 different interval

durations and when you should use them, as well as the best

interval training methods – and don’t miss when I expose the most ineffective machine in the gym.

Hint – It is also the most common machine these days, yet I’ve yet to see a single person change their body by using this machine for their cardio and intervals.



Look Young Again

Guest Author: Andrew Bicknell


Taking good care of your body is something many people take for granted. Witness the increasing problem with obesity in this country and we can all start to see why this is true. If you are overweight then you need to understand why the fat loss benefits associated with cardio training are so important. It is one of the best ways to maintain overall bodily health and weight.

So just what is cardio or aerobic training? It is physical activity that uses the largest muscles in the body in a continuous and uninterrupted manner, usually in a repetitive motion. To be most effective your heart rate needs to be elevated to 60 to 85 percent of its maximum rate. These types of activities can include walking, jogging, aerobics, biking, swimming, and any other activity that keeps your heart rate at a sustained level.

Here are 5 good reasons that cardiovascular exercise can help you meet your fat loss goals.

1. Energizes the body and mind – As your fitness levels increase with regular exercise you will find you have more energy during the day which helps you concentrate on the tasks at hand.

2. Disease prevention – The thing that is great about cardio training is the workout your cardiovascular system gets. It strengthens the heart and lungs and the fat loss benefits include reducing the effects of diabetes and lowering cholesterol levels.

3. Weight reduction and control – One of the hardest parts of any weight loss attempt is keeping the weight off once it’s been lost. Aerobic training not only helps you lose the fat but it also keeps it off if you stick to your exercise routine.

4. Loss of body fat – When it comes to weight loss this is what everyone wants. Excess body fat is not something anyone desires and cardio training helps burn away those excess calories and reshape your body.

5. It’s a great stress reliever – With all of the stress that modern life throws at us spending that half hour to hour working out can help relieve many of life’s stresses which leads to a healthier mind and body.

But remember that in order to gain these fat loss health benefits from cardio training you need to stick to your program. Be consistent to the point that it becomes habit and before long you’ll feel like you are missing out if you miss a workout.



Secret of Youth

Guest Author: Andrew Bicknell


Most of us know that cardio training is a great fat loss activity and it is probably the second most popular way to lose weight, right behind diet. It also goes without saying that it is beneficial for the cardiovascular system, contributing to an overall healthier body. If the benefits of aerobic training are appealing to you here are some recommendations to get the most out of your workout.

It is generally recommended that you start out slow with a goal of exercising three days a week for at least thirty minutes each time. As you get stronger and in better shape this can be upgraded to five times a week upwards of 45 minutes or more per session. It is better to work your way up to longer and more sustained workouts over time. Over doing it when starting out is one of the reasons many people fail to stay motivated when undertaking a cardio exercise routine.

It is also important that as you increase your fitness level that your training intensity increase as well. By varying your workouts and exercises you will see greater weight loss over a shorter amount of time and you’ll keep your routine from getting stale. You can also do this with individual exercises by varying the intensity level during the workout. For instance, if you are jogging you can push yourself by increasing your pace for several minutes before returning to your normal pace.

Here are several things to remember about when to do your aerobic workouts. Try to avoid doing any type of exercise at least 2 hours before you normally go to bed. It will raise your energy levels and make it hard to get to sleep.

If you need a snack before your workout try to eat 30 minutes before the beginning of your workout. Avoid working out after eating a large meal as this will make your workout much less effective. A small, high carbohydrate snack will help fuel the intensity you need to lose that fat.

There is no time like the present to start your fat loss cardio program so head on out the door and go for a walk, or take a bike ride around the neighborhood. Build up your stamina and before long you’ll be pushing your body harder as the fat begins to melt away. Stay consistent with your fat loss goals and stick to your training routine for a healthier and trimmer you.