niedziela, 5 października 2008

Answer My Health Question - It's All In The Heart

THE HUMAN HEART, MORE THAN A PUMP?

It's nothing more than a pump, or is it? The latest research suggests a direct link between your state of mind and the state of your heart. Answer my health question shows you how to keep it happy.

Your industrious organ that pumps your blood and it's cargo of oxygen through the body is also an age old symbol of emotion. The heart has always been thought of as the wellspring of the way we feel, be it aching or breaking or overflowing with love.

The latest research seems to confirm that there's a real link between our hearts and our minds. This means that stress at work or at home, along with your perceived ability to cope with life, can significantly increase your risk of developing a heart disease.

There also seems to be a strong link between depression and heart failure, the mortality rate in patients with depression being two and a half times higher than in patients without depression.

Depression often goes undiagnosed because of the overlapping symptoms of the two conditions which includes fatigue, loss of energy, poor appetite and sleep disturbance.

Depression is also often seen as a character weakness or personality flaw when it's really a clinical condition, affecting one out of five heart patients.

So is heart failure an outcome of depression or is depression a consequence of the life changing effects of heart failure? The answer in both cases is yes.

Depression is a risk factor for heart disease but heart disease is also a cause of depression. This can be a vicious circle that has to be addressed proactively. We need to know how to make out hearts happy.

And this all begins with proper exercise and nutrition. We can all do something about the food we eat and the activities we do. Physical activity boosts your circulation, reduces stress levels and stimulates the release of happy hormones or endorphins.

Even if you have a heart condition exercise can help you to feel better and get back on track. Remember your goal is to do whatever it takes to keep your heart happy.

So to answer my health question: get moving. Hurry to find out how to keep in shape and have a happy heart. Do it now, before it's too late. Your life may depend on your action.

Core Benefits of Performing the Cardio Exercises

Cardio Exercise is actually meant to be a part of the aerobic exercises. The good thing about the cardio exercise is that when your perform the exercise you get involved into it, you enjoy doing it and you stick to it and pull the best results out of it. Cardio exercise basically becomes your habit very soon and you enjoy it while performing.

Cardiovascular exercises are most beneficial for your heart and help you to attain the ideal heart rate. To calculate the ideal heart rate you need to count your heartbeat for 15 seconds and multiply the result by 4. This gives you your heart rate and to calculate your ideal heart rate you need to subtract your present age from 220. Once you are done with finding your ideal heart rate Cardio exercises than helps you to attain and maintain your ideal heart rate. Here are some of the core benefits of performing the cardio exercises:

1.It principally helps you to loose your weight and burn your excessive fats.

2.It helps to strengthen your heart and your muscles.

3.It increases your bone density by a remarkable rate.

4.It helps you to release your stress and your fatigue.

5.It reduces the chance of heart attack and minimizes its probability.

6.It helps to safeguard the individuals against many of the cancer and lung diseases.

7.It helps you to get rid off anxiety and depression temporarily.

8.It helps to build up self-confidence about ones own habits and things.

9.It helps the individuals to be more confident about the looks and the way he performs his work.

10.It helps to improve the sleep and it increases your sleeping hours. It helps to give the individual a more comfortable sleep along with prolonged timings.

11.It helps the body to gain extra energy. It improves the energy level of the body and also helps to maintain the acquired energy level.

12.It helps the children and younger ones at your homes to develop a habit of this workout. It helps you to set up an example for your children encouraging them to stay active and more alert.

These 12 points clearly reflects the importance and the need of the cardio exercises. They clearly highlight the benefits and tell how these exercises helps to improve the overall quality of the life.

Know Your Limits in Group Classes

On Friday I attended an Ashtanga yoga class. It was a level 1 class. Even still, students of all levels, including (the very) advanced participate to brush up on their skills and impress the newbies.

When you practice yoga, the first thing you might notice is how quickly your muscles loosen up. Before the class, you could not even touch your toes. By the end it's possible to fold yourself in to a pretzel, while balancing on your head. With the advanced students doing their thing, it's pretty easy to become ultra ambitious and want to try everything.

After my first class I could not move for a week. The muscle soreness was intense! Not in a good way either. The thing is, my muscles were warmed up from the class. They were not magically flexible. Forcing myself in to postures my body was not conditioned for, to "keep up" with the class was a big mistake.

This time around I went at my own pace. I'm only really sore in my hamstrings from the downward dog. Every other muscle feels worked but not insanely stiff and painful. "Good hurt!"

I'm writing about these experiences because I know anybody that has attended a fitness class has felt the same way. Group classes are meant to motivate and push you. It's up to the individual to decide their limits and pace themselves. An instructor won't be able to tell if you are pulling every muscle in your body or you are bending your injured shoulder the wrong way.

I've known people that have fainted, thrown up and have been hurt pretty badly in classes because they were too embarrassed to slow down or tell the instructor their limitations. Just remember it is a class for your benefit. Do what's right for you.

Pace Yourself In Classes!

3 Most Important Things You Must Do in Order to Lose a Lot of Weight With Aerobics - Don't Miss This

Weight loss is one of the most challenging tasks for a lot of people out there. Cardio is one of the best possible ways to lose weight fast but at the same time there are certain thing which a person must do in order to get massive results fast. You could be doing an exercise and at the same time not getting the kind of results you should be getting. This is the reason why you should know this before it's too late. Read on to discover some of the most important things you must do in order to burn fat fast using cardio...

Choose an exercise which targets the major problem areas- One mistake a lot of people make is that they tend to choose the exercises which do not really target their real problem areas due to which they never get the type of results they are looking for. You should always choose an exercise which laser targets you real problem area which means the area of your body where you need to burn the most amount of fat.

Choose an exercise which would give you fast results with lesser workout- This is where the concept of high intensity workouts comes into existence. You should always choose an exercise which is high intensity as it would allow you to get more results with lesser amounts of hours put into workout.

Use a set of different exercises- You must keep changing your exercise routine from time to time as that would keep surprising your body and eventually will help you get maximum results real fast. Never stick to one type of exercise for too long as sooner or later your body will stop showing much changes if you keep doing the same thing over and over again.

Common Cardio Workout Exercises

Cardio workout routines are one of the most essential workouts that are necessary for every person. Whether you work out regularly or you work out occasionally. A good workout should be a vital part of your regime. There are many exercises that you can integrate into your routine keeping an eye on the time availability and the amount you can work out every day.

Also, there are several training sessions that you can solely dedicated to cardio vascular workouts. The cardio workouts help to develop your heart muscles and the muscles in your lungs. This lessens the chance of any cardiac diseases and other heart related problems. Below listed are some of the common cardio workouts:

The simplest of the cardio exercises is walking. It is the most easy of all the cardio exercises that are available you can walk around your neighborhood, the playground anything.

Associated with walking jogging is the next logical step in the series of easy cardio exercises. In fact walking and jogging are recommended as warm up exercises before any other kind of exercises.

Running is again a good cardio exercise. This is also in line of walking and jogging. Although running will require a lot more energy and you will only be able to maintain your speed for so long. It is always recommended that you mix the three together to have a good cardio workout.

Make sure that you always have the right king of foot gear before running or jogging. A wrong type of foot ware can leave your feet sore that can be quite painful.

If you are a patient of arthritis or are pushing towards middle age then it is recommended that you run on a treadmill.

This is because the impact of running on the joints and bones can lead to pain.

Also running on a treadmill has many other advantages apart from absorbing the shock. It will give you the necessary support that you need for your accelerated runs. Make sure that you have the level adjusted to your needs.

Skipping is another very useful cardio exercise. This not only helps to strengthen your lungs and heart muscles but also strengthens your legs and brings rhythm back in you. It is also very useful to improve reaction time and hand and eye co ordination.

Regular breathing exercises must be carried out with the various cardio exercises to keep the lungs active and fresh.

6 Reasons Why There is a Need For Cardio Exercise

Cardio exercise is another form of exercises that is designed to burn calories and makes you physically fit and healthy. Cardio exercises are gaining popularity day by day but many of us are confused as how much to do it or what are the benefits. Some experts believe that 20 to 60 minutes are enough while other believes that there is no need for this exercise. What I would recommend is that you should know the benefits of cardio exercise and decide for yourself whether you need a cardio exercise or not.

Given below are some benefits of cardio exercise:

1. You body feels active: Exercise can leave you fit, healthy and active. Generally, after a tiring day our body feels exhausted and inactive with joints, muscles or back aching. One also feels stress in their shoulders or head is hurting badly. But think about how you feel after a workout session. Your body feels active with all the stress and pain gone and muscles feeling flexible and warm. This is one of the greatest benefits of cardio exercise. It will leave you sweaty but active.

2. Another benefit is weight loss. Cardio exercise is known for burning calories thus resulting in weight loss. You can shed those excess calories by performing cardio workout routine regularly.

3. One healthy benefit of cardio exercise is that it makes your lungs and heart stronger. Also, research has suggested that performing a cardio exercise such as walking for about fifteen minutes per day can decrease chances of heart disease. The blood circulation to our body is increased.

4. As your body becomes active with regular exercise so does the metabolic rate increases which again results in burning calories more quickly. This increases your chances of losing weight and getting lean body more quickly.

5. Cardio exercise is known to increase the blood circulation to the system. This not only makes heart strong but also the level of flow of blood is increased. This in turn leads to increase in red blood cell. Red blood cells are known for carrying oxygen to the different parts of body so as the number of these cells increases the oxygen level is more efficiently delivered to each body part.

6. Our body needs oxygen to stay active. The oxygen is efficiently delivered to the body when you regularly perform cardio exercise so the cardio vascular system of our body is strengthened.

Five Cardio Mistakes

Whether you are just starting out, or a cardio veteran, don't make these common mistakes:

1. Not being safe.

Cardio safety means wearing the kill switch cord on machines and pausing your headphones when you run through an intersection. Cardio safety means wearing clothes that won't get caught on a fence and wearing proper shoes that support your feet. Being safe while performing cardio means you can exercise again and again.

2. Going too hard, too long.

Cardio doesn't have to be an hour long. Actually it should rarely be an hour long unless you are training for an endurance event. Furthermore, cardio should not be performed at maximum intensity the whole way through. If you do cardio in the morning and you are tired by noon. Or you regularly feel fatigued and even cranky, you need to take it easy and throw some intervals in to your routine.

3. Not knowing when to rest.

If your knees and hips hurt, if you have exercised everyday for weeks, if you are never hungry and exercise is not fun anymore, you are suffering from over training. Over training can cause depression, anxiety and a variety of psychological and physical problems. Rest is a sure fire way to feel great about every workout before, during and after the session. If you think you are over training take half to a whole week off to rest and eat healthy.

4. Refusing to change the routine.

If you always run 10 miles an hour for 30 minutes everyday, your body is on to you. It's not challenging and you will not see results. The body learns and adapts quickly. When you exercise, cardio or otherwise you want to challenge yourself constantly, to stimulate progression. No new routines, no new results! Don't be so stubborn!

5. Not eating and drinking enough.

Not enough water before and after exercise causes muscle cramping, headaches and fatigue. Food is your body's fuel to complete a great workout. You need stored carbs for energy and protein for muscle repair. If you are dieting make sure you are not skimping on calories where it counts, like when you need energy for a purposeful cardio workout.

Cardiovascular activity is a necessity for losing weight and strengthening the most important muscle of them all...The heart! Exercise consistently and use these tips to make the most out of every session for cardio that works!

Go Get 'Em!

7 Great Cardio Workout Routines

Cardio exercise are very essential for its many benefits like :

A.Weight loss
B.Stronger heart and lungs
C.Increased bone density
D.Reduced stress
E.Reduced risk of heart disease and some types of cancer
F.Temporary relief from depression and anxiety

Following are 7 steps for cardio workout routines:

1. Running

Running is one the simplest exercise to do which is very effective too. It doesn't require special equipment (except some quality shoes) and you can do it anywhere. Best of all, you burn serious calories, especially if you add hills and sprints. The downside is, it takes lots of practice and you should watch your knees and ankles for any discomfort or pain.

2. Bicycling

Do it Outdoors or indoors, cycling gives some great cardio. Using all the power in your legs, you'll increase endurance while burning lots of calories, anywhere from 250-500 in 30 minutes, depending on your speed and your resistance power. This exercise is fun too.

3. Step Aerobics

Step is one tough workout that targets your legs, butt and hips while burning almost 400 calories in 30 minutes (during high intensity sessions). Though it might look complicated, step is easy to learn if you start with a beginner class or video.

4. Walking

Walking is a great exercise, burning about 180 calories in 30 minutes. Addition of hills, sprints or even a few minutes of jogging will only increase the amount of calories you burn. Make sure you walk briskly and keep you head up, back straight and swing your arms. This isn't a hard exercise at all.

5. Swimming

Swimming is an exercise for the entire body. The more body parts you involve in your workout, the more calories you'll burn. 30 minutes of breast stroke will help you shed 400 calories. Best advantage is that your joints are fully supported so you need not worry about high-impact injuries. It's also great cross-training for other cardio activities.

6. Handball

The side-to-side sprints while playing strengthen your legs and increase your heart rate. The learning curve is high, so plan on practicing a lot before you can even hit that little ball.

7. Rowing

This is an often a machine in the gym which is not used much because most people are confused about how it works. Increase in heart rate as well as arm work rate are the effects of rowing.

Zumba Aerobic-Dance Workout - I'm Approaching 50 Years Old and Loving It!

Two weeks ago my neighbor and good friend asked me to join a Zumba class with her. If you are not familiar with Zumba, it is a style of intense dance-aerobic workout with pulsating Latin music. We both are approaching 50 and although we walk regularly, I wasn't sure if we were up for the challenge. We had our first session last Tuesday and I couldn't have been more thrilled with the outcome.

First let me tell you that I had already rehearsed in my head that I would remain in the back of the class at all cost. I don't know how to dance and I didn't want to mess up any of the young people that were familiar with the moves. You can imagine my shock when my friend and I were one of the youngest members of the group. There were of course some mother-daughter couples, but for the most part the class consisted of older women to down right elderly. It was a blast!

We were fortunate to have a first rate instructor who has a large following. She was very good at keeping the crowd moving with instructions easy to understand. I have never danced in my life, but with these classes the point is keeping your heart rate up and keeping your body moving, moving, moving.

The Latin songs are loud and fun, the movement is wonderful and when the instructor shouted, "It's time to get your sexy on" we all just roared in laughter. There was some very good older ladies who consistently take the eight week Zumba course and looking at their toned bodies you were certainly able to tell. The need for water can't be overstated. You will sweat like you have never sweat before and next week I plan on bringing two bottles.

If you are interested in a group workout, I highly recommend Zumba. You don't have to feel embarrassed because you don't know the moves. You just keep moving and eventually things start to click. It is a great workout, loads of fun and the results come quick. I am absolutely proud of the ladies who decided that they weren't too old for this form of exercise and proud of myself for trying it as well.

In closing I also wanted to tell you that you will make tons of friends. My neighbor and I are fortunate enough to live close to the firehouse that hosted the class. As we walked home from Zumba , several of the ladies passed us while driving by. Everyone of them shouted "ZUMBA" out of their car windows as they drove past. It really is a very fast paced exercise routine for young and old alike. If you are looking for something new and exciting to do, try Zumba!