May, 2019 | Life Health Fitness

Exercise Tips for Beginners :5 Mistakes to Avoid When Starting Your Journey

7 Mistakes to Avoid When Working Out

There are many mistakes that you can make on your way to health, wellness and a better body. For example, You may assume that getting in long sessions at the gym twice a week is all you need to come by that dream body. In reality, however, creating a better version of yourself doesn’t work that way. If you want to make your journey a success then you need to be prepared to give it plenty of time and patience, and plan well. If you don’t plan, you will be derailed on your road to a new you.

A Plan in Your Hands

Many people obtain a great deal of confidence from working out to a fitness plan. Some, however, like to make it up at the gym as they go along. It’s important to understand that a plan can be a template that helps you succeed. It can help you track how much progress you make, and help you make tweaks over time, depending on how much headway you make. If you don’t have a plan, you’re likely to be aimless, make mistakes, and lower your chances of success.

Too Hard For That Body

Many people start out with a fitness plan, but don’t allow themselves to progress gradually. Instead, they work out too hard right away. They injure themselves, become discouraged by how difficult exercise is, and give up.

Your fitness plan should include a way to gradually intensify your workouts, giving you plenty of recovery time to help your muscles repair themselves, heal, and develop. Your plan should include exercises that allow you to warm up, work out and cool down. This call progressive overload in the fitness community.

Stuck In Rut

Even if you’ve had a personal trainer design a workout just for you, you need to remember that the plan can’t last you forever. With time, your body is likely to adapt to those exercises and become too efficient at them. Your body won’t be challenged enough by them then. It’s important to keep tweaking your workouts at least once every two weeks. If you don’t alter your workouts over time, the gains in strength and fitness that you make will plateau before long. It essential to change up you routine every so often with a method known as periodization. This will also decrease boredom. Change gyms and find new equipment to use if possible.

Work Hard For That Body

It can be tempting to only work out lightly at the gym, barely breaking a sweat in the process. Light workouts are hardly the way to lose weight or build muscle, however. While you can certainly allow yourself to cheat on your workouts once in a while, light workouts can’t be the rule. If you don’t work out hard enough to get your heart pumping for reasonable periods of time, you probably won’t see results.

Mind Your Position

While modern gym machines are designed to make proper exercise form easy to achieve, you can still make mistakes on them. If you’re on the elliptical machine, you need to hold a good, erect posture, and concentrate on your workout. If you’re the treadmill, you need to space out your steps, look straight ahead, and run with purpose. Not only do poor posture and half-hearted form make it hard for you to get results, they often lead to injury.

Too Much of Good Thing

It’s important to supply yourself with enough energy as your body recovers from its workouts. You can also supply yourself with too much energy, however, if you gorge on sugary energy bars and fast food. You don’t want empty calories from such foods in your diet. Instead you should aim to supply yourself with energy from healthy foods. When you get yourself on the healthy diet, you attain your fitness goals far more easily.

Too Much Cardio and Not Enough Weights or Resistance Training

Do be afraid to push you body against resistance. This can either be done with your own body weight or using equipment either at home or the gym. While you may have a well-designed workout plan to follow, you may hold convictions about how cardio exercises are more important than weights when it comes to losing pounds. If your workouts focus too greatly on cardio exercises and not enough on resistance workouts involving weights, you lose an important opportunity to tone your muscles, raise your metabolic rate and burn calories fast.

It’s important, when you work out, to be sensitive to the needs of your body. You won’t make progress and your mistakes are likely to get in the way of your ability to attain your goals.

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What to do to Sleep Better Tonight

Learn How to Sleep Better Tonight

Many people struggle to get a good night sleep. Whether you can’t fall asleep, or you wake up in the middle of the night, this can be a problem that affects every aspect of your life. While you sleep, your brain and body recharge, but other things happen as well. Your brain uses this time to store information to your long-term memory. Your body uses your sleep time to heal and build a healthy immune system, build muscles, repair tissues and produce hormones. Even though sleep is so important, many people don’t value a full night’s sleep as much as they should.

According to the National Sleep Foundation adults between the ages of 18 – 25 should get 7 – 9 hours of sleep. Adults between 26 – 64 should get 7 – 9 hours of sleep. Adults older than 65 should get 7 – 8 hours of sleep. Once you lose sleep you cannot “catch up” on it. It’s gone.

Do you really need 9 hours of sleep? Well it depends on your energy level and mood. If you are moody and tired all the time then maybe that 6 hours of sleep is probably not working for. If possible, try to test out different amount of sleep and closely observe how you feel. Maybe all you need is 6.5 hours to feel energized.

Either way if you are struggling with getting enough sleep to get you ready to take on the world here are some ways to improve your sleep tonight.

Prepare for Sleep

If you struggle to sleep well, it might help if you do a few things to get your body ready to rest. Try dimming the lights in your house an hour before bedtime. Avoid watching television shows that will get your emotions going like action packed films or thrillers that get your heart racing. Turn off your phone or computer. The lights stimulate your brain. Try reading a book or listening to soothing music instead. Take a warm bath or meditate to help your body relax.

Get Plenty of Exercise during the Day

Exercise has as many benefits as sleep. When you get the right amount of exercise, you help your body to be strong, shed excess fat, and improve your cardiovascular health. But did you know that exercise helps to relieve stress? In this way, you are managing your stress throughout the day, so you will have less of it to keep you up at night.

If possible, get your exercise outside, because this further helps to manage stress. You should avoid a heavy workout just before bed because you don’t want to spike your heart rate at this time, but some light stretching to help you relax just before bed can help you fall asleep better too.

Meditate Daily

Just like exercise, daily meditation is a great way to manage stress. Stress is a leading cause of not sleeping well. Does your mind race when you try to fall asleep? This is your brain working to solve all your problems. During the day, you may be able to keep your mind distracted, but when you lay down to sleep in a dark and quiet room, your brain will start to go over everything that’s on your mind. Meditation can help with this, leading to better sleep. Try meditating as part of your pre-sleep routine.

Herbal Remedies

There are many herbs that help to improve sleep, and several ways to use them. Lavender is well known to help you sleep. You can spray lavender on your pillow, which has been found to be very useful. You can also use a diffuser to fill your bedroom with sleep-enhancing aromatherapy. Some other good choices include chamomile and jasmine. A nice cup of herbal tea can help too. You can find special blends for better sleep in just about any grocery store. The herbal supplement melatonin has also been found to help people sleep better.

Make Sure Your Brain Associates Your Bed with Sleep

If your brain associates your bed to sleeping alone, getting into bed at night will trigger the brain to know that it is bedtime. Avoid watching TV in bed, as well as other activities such as playing on your phone, paying bills, or other non-bedtime activities. When you do these things in bed, your brain does not recognize that bed is where sleep happens, because so many other things happen there as well.

Sleeping well is one of the cornerstones to good health. Not only does it improve stress levels, memory, and energy levels, but it also leads to a healthier immune system and body. Sleeping well also helps to fight the body’s inflammation response, so if you suffer from things such as arthritis, chronic pain, or other issues with an inflammatory component, you may see improvement in this area as well.

Getting enough sleep is very important. It improves brain function, increases energy levels and supports over-all wellness. If you are not getting enough sleep, then you owe it to yourself to give these suggestions a try.

Good night!

Does Drinking Water Make You Lose Weight?

Our body contains 60% to 70% water and we lose some of it through various process that occurs to keep us alive. Urinating, and sweating causes us to lose the most water. Other ways we lose water are diarrhea and vomiting when we are sick. Most people don’t know that we lose water when we breathe. These are the ways we lose water just from doing regular stuff. If we add intense physical activities to our to routine then we lose even more from sweating.

If you have a heart failure, kidney failure or liver disease you might not be able drinks as much. The amount you drink should be recommended by your physician. We have all heard that water is essential if we want to stay healthy. Our body depends on it to help flush our kidneys, protect our joints and other sensitive tissues, and can help our bowels work normally. Research has proven that we should drink approximately eight glasses of water each day. However, it has also been proven that the amount of water you truly need depends on your activities. Beyond that, we all know that if you are exercising, you need to increase your water intake to keep you hydrated. Water keeps you hydrated but will drinking water help you lose weight?

How Water Can Help You Shed Pounds?

Drinking water helps with weight loss if you stop drinking sugary drinks and start drinking water. Also dehydration can also be confused with hunger. We don’t always know the difference between thirst and hunger. The truth is, leading an active lifestyle is only a part of the challenge when it comes to weight loss. A very active person may still have a few extra pounds that they want to get rid of to achieve their ideal weight or body mass. This is where water will help you the most. If you look at the facts, you will see that water is the key to success when it comes to staying hydrated and it also helps you look and feel better. Dehydration can zap your energy level.

Eating salty food can lead to fluid retention which can show up on the scale as an increase in weight. Water retention can also cause swelling (edema). In these situations water can cause weight reduction. Excess salt causes water retention. Where salt goes water follows. If you drink water, it will washout the salt when you urinate. You can see a decrease in your weight caused by the water loss.

Drinking water will assist with digestion and healthy muscle function. These are two key components in losing excess weight. For this reason, your body will retain more water if you have trained it to feel that water is not always accessible. Water weight gain can prevent you from losing the weight that you feel is important to lose. However, it does not stop there. Other benefits of drinking water include:

Appetite Suppression
Improves Complexion
Increase Satiety
Prevents Dehydration
Prevent Muscle Cramps
Regular Bowel Movement
Healthy Blood Cells

The Right Amount of Water

If want to know if you are drinking enough water, look in the toilet, commode or whatever receptical you use. If you don’t use one then this does not apply to you. Dark urine indicates many things . One is dehydration. How much water should you drink to prevent dehydration? Nobody knows. Some say eight 8oz glasses. Others say to drink the amount based on your weight. I am not sure what that formula is . I say as much as it takes me to get you urine as clear as water.

When you are trying to get ahead of the scales, weight loss with water may seem tricky. How do you know that you are getting enough? First, you must understand that people who mostly drink water over sugary drinks will naturally have a lower calorie intake. For some people, this could mean approximately 200 fewer calories each day. To know whether your body is hydrated enough, you only need to listen to your body. If you feel thirsty often throughout the day, you should drink more water. You should also look at your urine. A hydrated body will produce very light-colored urine.

Water Improves Your Overall Health

Beyond weight loss with water, you will feel healthier and look younger if you add more water to your daily diet. Watery fruits are also good, but pure, filtered water that is ice-cold can ensure you have healthier nails, hair, and skin. In every way, water is worth it. Are you ready to drink more and improve your life?

Should You Buy an Activity Tracker?

A fitness tracker also known as an activity tracker is a wearable technology . It is a device that you wear on your wrist or elsewhere to measure the amount of physical activity that you do each day. Studies show that people who wear fitness tracker move more. With a tracker constantly showing you (and, on some devices, your friends on Facebook) how well you’re doing, it’s easy to become mindful of how healthful every part of your lifestyle really is. You’ll find yourself conscientiously thinking about walking or taking the stairs to get anywhere, just to make the numbers on your tracker go up. So should you buy an activity tracker to track your every move? If you are serious about becoming healthy, you should.

Every Move You Make I Will be Tracking You

The simple explanation is if you want to track every move you make you will not be able to mentally and manually keep track of your movements. It is just not feasible. If you ever had to fill out one of those questionnaires at the doctor’s office asking you about your activity level it would be impossible for you to remember all the activities you do through out the day. Furthermore, those questionnaires ask about they regular physical activity such as a walking, running, swimming etc. It does not ask about cleaning the house, folding laundry or mowing the lawn. Therefore you will be under reporting your movements.

If you purchase an activity tracker, as long as you are wearing it, every move you make will be registered on the device. This will give a better estimate of your daily activity.

While you can depend on an app on your smartphone to do much the same thing as a physical tracker device, you aren’t likely to be carrying your smartphone in your pocket all the time. Also if you are talking on your phone it will not accurately measure your movements.

How Do Fitness Tracker Work

Activity tracker monitors your movement pattern by way of a built in gyroscope and accelerator. It measures speed, frequency, duration and intensity of your movements. The devices have a built in algorithm that calculates the information and gives you a reading on the display screen.

Unlike pedometers, fitness trackers are designed to give you much more than a simple readout of the number of steps that you take each day. They express this information in ways you can understand better — they tell you how many miles you walk each day, how many calories you succeed in burning, how much rest you get and so on.

Some also have a heart rate monitor built in. This is beneficial to you because one way to monitor the intensity of the workout is by tracking your heart rate. You can program the device to alert you when your heart increases to a certain level or drop below a certain level. Hence you can program it to alert you when your heart rate is out of a certain range. This data is stored and can be reviewed. You will be able to know which activity was the most intense and which one was not.

Yet, before you jump in and buy one, it’s important to understand the limits of these devices. Your goals and budget will determine the device you purchase. If you only water to monitor your steps and calories then you probably will not need the high end ones.

Fitness Trackers Can Be Wrong

The verdict is still out whether these devices are reliable especially when determining how much calories are burned. However, most studies showed that they are reliable when calculating steps and walking .The ones that are worn on the hip calculate steps more accurate than the ones on the wrist. When you take a step, walk or run you are moving your hip joint. Therefore it make sense that the hip devices are more accurate for steps. The draw back to the hip devices is that they cannot measure your heart rate. Therefore the wrist devices are better if you want to know your heart rate.

Fitness Trackers Can Only Sense Certain Types of Activity

Fitness trackers are better at tracking some activities than other. For instance they are pretty good at monitor walking . Unfortunately, you don’t accelerate when you lift weights or when you perform yoga. In both cases, fitness trackers usually record you as sitting or lying down. In these cases they calculate your heart to determine calories burned. But this is only if you have the one that can track heart rate. Furthermore the more sophisticated devices allows you to select your activity before you start but the basic ones do not give you that option.

Lastly, you can get credit for being active when you are eating or taking a shower. If you use your hands to vigorously gobble down food, the tracker on your wrist can record you being very active when you are just eating.

Are You Sleeping

The entry level fitness trackers have simple sleep tracking modules. They track how long you’ve been inactive. The more advance once monitors your sleep by tracking your heart rate. Here is how they work. At rest or if you are asleep your heart gets to number and stays there. It does not go up unless you move. Lets say you when you are asleep your heart is in the 70s, if your heart is healthy it will remain in the 70s while you are asleep. Once you start to wake up and even before you start to move it will start going up slowly to 80s. If at any time you turn or do any activity while you are “asleep” then your heart rate increases. The sensor will record this as you being awake. Once you fall back asleep your heart rate slowly go back to 70s. You will have to wear the device your wrist to have you heart rate monitored while you sleep.

Smart Watches

Fitness trackers continue to evolve and have improved since they first came out a few years ago. Now we can track our activity via watches. Smart watches are a recent product category that have been doing fitness tracking better than dedicated fitness trackers. They include GPS monitors and heartrate monitors. The latest Apple Watch also performs electrocardiograms on wearers, and is cleared by the FDA for medical grade ECGs.

Some high-end fitness trackers now borrow features from smart watches, and include heartrate monitors and GPS monitors to offer more accurate activity tracking than models that depend on simple accelerometers.

Conclusion

Fitness trackers are not perfect. But they can help you keep track of your activity and I think they are worth the investment especially if you just starting you journey towards good health and well being. The American Heart Association recommends 30 mins of physical activity 5 days a week. How close are you to reaching this goal? How are you currently tracking your activity?

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Can Stress Make You Gain Weight?

You have been working out vigorously to lose weight, but you are experiencing problems at work and home. These problems keep you in a state of constant tension and anxiety. With time, it begins to show in various ways. One of the things you start noticing is the bulge in your abdomen getting bigger. You start getting worried because previously you had managed to shed off extra pounds, but now they are back, and you are wondering what the culprit is? Most likely the enemy is stress!

Stress can affect your body in many ways, but few people link it with weight gain. Basically, there are several ways stress is linked to putting on extra pounds. One of these is cortisol-the stress hormone. During stressful events, the fight or flight mechanism is activate leading to the release of several hormones including adrenaline and cortisol. You want these hormones to be released when you are being attack , however you do not want them around all the time. Unfortunately if your a chronic stressor, that is, you are always stress out about one thing or another those stress hormones will stick around.

Fight or Flight Stress Hormones

When you are being attacked or your become alarm by something whether it is good or bad your brain sends a signal to your adrenal glands and your adrenal releases two stress hormones: adrenaline and cortisol. Once the threat has passed the adrenal glands stops releasing the hormones. Adrenaline tends to wear off faster compared to cortisol, so, after the situation has calmed down a little, your body is still flooded with cortisol. When these hormones are floating around it stops other process in your body such as digestion, immunity, growth and reproductive system. If this happens to often it can be detrimental to your health. Furthermore, when there is high levels of cortisol floating around the body then there is also high level of sugar and insulin. To add fuel to the fire, eating a high carb diet and increase cortisol causes an increase in insulin level.

High insulin levels in your body prevents you from using fat for energy and high blood sugar can lead to Diabetes. Both of these situation will cause to gain weight around your belly.

Most people reach for food when they are under stress. However, instead of reaching out for healthier alternatives such as fruits, you are most likely to go looking for the cookies and cream. These are your comfort foods. We all have a few. In response to comfort foods, the pleasure center in your brain send signals to the body which in turn temporarily lowers stress levels by releasing endorphins. These feel good chemicals are similar to the ones that are trigged when drug addicts consume their drug of choice. And just like they do over time, you associate junk food with low-stress levels making you likely to eat them when you feel anxious.

Sleepless Nights

When you lie awake at night wondering how you will pay your bills or balance family and work, your mind becomes over active and refuses to switch off. This leads to insomnia which affects the regulation of leptin and ghrelin-hormones that regulate appetite. In addition, not getting enough sleep weakens your willpower to turn down junk foods.Later in the day you confuse hunger and sleep. You the choose to eat because you are tired and not because you are hungry. It is very difficult to tell the difference when you are tired and stressed.

How to Manage Stress

Stress can sabotage your weight loss goals. Regaining the weight you loss can add even more weight which can be very discouraging and make you want to give up. All remember ” this too shall pass” and stress is inevitable. However, all is not lost. To keep off stress-related weight, you need to do the following:

Give The Stressor Some Distance

If possible, the first thing you should do is remove yourself from the stressful situation. There is no point in staying in a stress situation and think it will only get better without taking some action. If you cannot remove yourself permanently , then distance yourself. If you know the situation is temporary then you should look for ways to manage and ask for help if necessary. Sometimes we take on way too much without realizing it until we are overwhelmed.

”No” I can’t do that right now or ever should always be an option.

Eat Mindfully

Stress erodes your ability to consciously choose the healthier food as the body craves for foods high in sugar and fats which defeats your weight loss goals. To get your groove back, harness the power of mindful eating. These techniques are mostly taught in meditation classes and help you to transition from emotional, compulsive eating to conscious eating. Mindful eating means that you slow down and tune into your diet. Your senses come alive to the experience of eating. You start seeing food from a holistic point of view by acknowledging the texture, sight, and smell of the meal. In addition, it helps you to tune into the subjective feelings of fullness and hunger rather than eating just because there is a meal in front of you or because you are anxious.

Keep a Journal

Keeping a journal of your goals, responses and experiences help in keeping your mind and hands busy. In addition, it gives you insight into why you are experiencing stress and captures your expectations that could be increasing anxiety in your life.

Here are other ways to manage stress:

Exercise
Get Social
Get A Massage
Listen to You Favorite Music
Use Aromatherapy
Breathing Exercise
Read a Book
Be Grateful and Positive
Watch a Funny Movie
Take a Warm Bath
Dance
Have Sex
Get a Dog
Rest
Visualize
Cut out caffeine and sugar
Play with kids in your family
Take Magnesium
Get a good night sleep

Stress causes some individuals not to eat . Consequently they will not the overeating issues mentioned above. However, if you know you head for the chips and dips when you are stressed then you need to find better ways to manage your anxiety without binge eating. Losing weight is not an easy process especially when you are experiencing stress. Your goal should be to promote peace and calm in your life.

8 Reasons Why Working Out Is Important

8 Reasons Why Working Out Is Important

For some exercising is a lifestyle, something they do to stay fit but also as fun. For others, they do it to lose weight, tone their body or improve their health. No matter the reasons for working out, the exercises should be based on your goals. It is for this reason that there is no instant way to build muscles, tone the body, or lose weight through exercises. Obtaining health via exercise is not a “one size fit all” plan . As such, while high-intensity workouts may be well-placed, they do not always correlate with getting the best or desired results. Furthermore, they are not appropriate for everyone and are sometimes not sustainable.

But then again, the health benefits and advantages of working out have been trumpeted for years. To exercise, you have to put in the time and effort; to push your body to stay active. But you do not just start anyhow. You should have a specific goal, plan, and schedule. This will determine which type of exercises you will do, when, and at what intensity.

There are so many different workout you can choose from and they all have different benefits.

Irrespective of all of that, do it right, and you will realize the health benefits of working out that include:

1. Exercising keeps you fit and healthy. Workout out regularly and you will hardly find yourself walking through hospital corridors unless you work there or you are visiting someone. You significantly reduce the risk of developing health issues if you exercise and eat healthly.

2. Being overweight can be detrimental to your health. Working out will help avoid being obese while also lower the risk of associated health problems. Many of the diseases are linked to inactivity.

3. Working out gives you energy and helps to sleep better. However, the energy that you get from working can cause insomnia if you do it too close to bedtime. Therefore, do no workout too close to bedtime.

4. Working out can be fun. Exercising does not have to be a pain; it can be an exciting, enjoyable and fun activity . You do not have to engage in a boring aerobics class or strenuous weight training. There are plenty of fun workout tools such as battle ropes that can make your workout more interesting. You may also like Zumba or walking.

5. It is possible to learn a new skill when you engage in different exercises. For instance, you can enroll in a martial arts class such as tai chi or you may want to learn how to swim, ride a bike or dance. You do not have to stick to traditional exercises such as running, jogging, or lifting weights.

6. You can connect with like minded people . Experts advise people to consider finding a workout partner. How about inviting a friend to workout with you. You can find plenty of workout videos on line. If you are a member of a fitness club or enroll in an aerobics class at your community center, you have the opportunity to meet new people and make new friends. You may be surprised to find people with whom you share common interests aside from your love for exercising. Moreover, working out with other people helps you to stay motivated.

7. Your efforts to stay fit and healthy will be a good example to your kids and others around you. Rather than being a couch potato or spending time in front of the TV playing video games, go to the park to play football, take the kids to swim, go hiking, or engage in any other outdoor activity? A family that plays together stay together.

8. Starting a workout routine can be your first step toward self improvement. Perhaps you would never have thought that you would run and complete a 20k race, have a ripped body, or even be flexible enough to do yoga poses. You will not know what is possible to achieve until you try.

In a nutshell, working out is important because it will help improve your health and make you fee better about yourself especially when you set goals and meet them.

Should the Elderly Exercise?

Modern portrayals of senior citizens show smiling, grey-haired couples playing with their grandchildren, enjoying a leisurely stroll, planting a flower garden, and otherwise enjoying an active lifestyle. But the stark reality is that many seniors aren’t physically able to do these things. There is no soccer in the backyard, enjoying a bike ride, or getting down on hands and knees to play in the dirt. As our bodies age, we lose the strength and energy to participate in the activities and hobbies from our youth. In order to become the silver-haired vision of health, we must be pro-active in our health habits, particularly in the areas of nutrition and exercise. Furthermore, when it comes to muscle and strength, you will loose it if we don’t use it.

Exercise for seniors is a relatively new concept. Where adults once worked in manual labor through most of their lives, today’s adults are retiring earlier and finding less active ways to spend their time. We no longer have to physically work to live, forage for food, and chop wood for heat. Since life expectancies have increased and senior lifestyles have become more sedentary, exercising throughout adulthood and into the senior years is vital to maintaining a healthy mind and body functions.

Exercise is commonly credited to a reduction in heart disease since it lowers overall cholesterol levels, increases the efficiency of your heart, and lowers blood pressure. Exercise actually helps your body in hundreds of ways beyond your heart and lungs. There are three important functions that are positively affected by exercise as you age:

Brain Function

Seniors are living longer, but how many are able to enjoy it? Diseases and disorders such as dementia and Alzheimers attack the minds of seniors at increasingly alarming rates. “Use it or lose it” is the new mantra of brain function. Besides reducing the risk of stroke, senior and even elderly exercise is also shown to reduce the natural decline in memory function and cognitive abilities that occur with aging.

Musculoskeletal Function

Exercise increases our ability to move, stretch, and carry our own body weight, (which has been known to increase in the older years, but bonus, exercise can help with that, too). It helps us get up after we’ve sat down, maintain the balance and posture to safely get in and out of bed or use stairs, and find food in the back of the fridge without straining our backs. This leads to increased mobility and decreases the opportunity for injury – two things every independent senior can appreciate.

Systemic Function

You might remember the days when your thighs benefited from those long walks on the beach, but how about your heart? The lungs, digestive tract, and skin also function more effectively with regular exercise. Senior exercise can greatly increase the efficiency of your ability to get oxygen to your organs and expel waste products. This prevents many of the painful and annoying conditions associated with aging, such as edema, bowel obstruction, and incontinence.

Exercise releases hormones into your blood stream that boost your mood and help you sleep better. It decreases your risk of developing cancers of all types, as well as kidney and gall stones. Exercise for women over 50 can also reduce the effects of menopause, including stifling the dreaded hot flashes. With all the benefits attributed to this simple activity, the call to action is obvious. But as an aging adult, how can you be sure to find the exercise routine that is right for you?

Videos and Guides

Exercise videos designed just for seniors will help you slowly build stamina, strength, and flexibility through controlled aerobics and stretching exercises. Most routines offer a variety of substitutions that can be used for seniors with a particularly weak neck, back, or knees.

Special Equipment

New developments in user-friendly senior exercise equipment have made weight training possible for older adults. Extra padding and new designs for popular multi-function weight room machines allow adults with weak joints and muscles to confidently rebuild their strength.

Chair Exercises

Even if you’re not able to stand for long periods of time, chair exercise videos and routines are available to help you redevelop your upper body and leg strength. They can be done in ten to thirty-minute increments, several times per day, to maintain an elevated metabolism, and are especially useful for seniors who are just getting started with an exercise program or are recovering from an injury or illness.

As the Baby Boomers are reaching their fifties and sixties, with their parents headed towards their eighties and nineties, we see an increase in the medical services needed to serve this aging population. While modern medicine can help us live longer, the trend is to squelch symptoms with pills. Heartburn, diabetes, asthma, osteoporosis, arteriosclerosis, organ diseases and deficiencies, sleeplessness, anxiety and depression, and headaches have become generally accepted conditions of old age. But the truth is most of these illnesses could have been prevented through simple exercise and proper nutrition, and many of them can still be minimized and reversed.

Is it ever too late to start exercising? With both short and long-term benefits on your side, the answer is a resounding “no.” However, the earlier, the better. Staying healthy into your older years so you can enjoy your retirement, grandchildren, and hobbies are contingent on taking action now. By starting a fun and consistent senior exercise routine early, you can be sure to enjoy the benefits of better health well into the future.

What Is A Battle Rope?

The battle ropes name conjures up a utility rope used as a tool in military missions in rough terrains or guys jumping from helicopters to buildings. But now due to their ability to build endurance, muscle and strength they have become staples. in most gyms. If you have the space at home, they can also be used n your backyard or living room. You don’t need to go to the gym to use one of these.

Battle ropes are thick and heavy ropes used mostly to work the upper body and core by acting as dynamic weights that are anchored to a fixed point. However, since you can squat. lunge and go throught numerous exercises with the aide of your legs, they can also help tone and stregthen your lower body.

Battle ropes are also known as power ropes, battling ropes, training ropes, conditioning ropes, muscle ropes, thick ropes, undulation ropes, combat ropes, and exercise ropes. A battle rope is not a weighted skipping or jump rope.

The battle ropes can be challenging but fun. You will be activating a few muscles at the same time while using the ropes. The workouts can be used for strength training, cardio or functional training. Although most of the images depicted are with fit people, anyone can use a battle rope. It is not impossible to learn how to use them effectively.

Battle Rope Benefits

Battle ropes offer a full body workout that probably won’t find with any other tool. While the initial intention for the lines was working out the upper body, by integrating the ropes in other exercises they help build your strength and endurance for the arms, the back, shoulders, abs, legs, and the entire core.
You can get an effective cardio session by intensifying the movements. The fluid motion of the exercises won’t strain your joints. This effect allows you to push harder.
The movements also help with stability coordination.
There are so many battle rope exercises that you can transition in and out of with ease. Try them all until you find a few that you like.

Battle Ropes Buying Guide

When thinking about purchasing battle ropes, the things to focus on are material, thickness, and length. The determinants of which rope you get to buy include the size of the room and whether you will use them outside or inside. You should also consider the purpose of your workout since a cardio oriented, HIIT training will require a different diameter compared to a workout seeking to build muscle.

Material

Just like anything else, you get what you pay for. Plus nothing last for ever. But if you are going to be beating the crap out of the rope few times a weak then you need something strong. In terms of material, there is manila the natural material used mostly in battle ropes. It is best used outdoors since frequent use leads fraying . They are also heavy and can soak up water if left outside. Synthetic material is great for both outdoor and indoor use, and there are many options from Nylon to Polypropylene and Dacron.

Size

Battle ropes are differentiated by their grip diameter and length as follows. 1.5/2.0/2.5 inches. There are two main size categories; 1.5 and 2.0 diameters. The 1.5″ ropes are great for a solid grip, and they are light enough making them great for cardio and HIIT workouts. If you have small hands its best you purchase a smaller diameter rope. However, if you are strong and well seasoned weight lifter then you can go for the bigger grip.

Length

The length of the rope is primarily determined by the size of the room and also your strength The most popular size is the 50 feet rope then the 40 feet rope and the 30 feet. There are ropes as longs a 60 feet. The longer the rope the heavier the rope but you will also need more room to play with the rope.

Ideally, most individuals are well served by the 1.5 and 50-feet diameter rope which explains why it is the size combination that is most sold.

Are they Worth The Money? You decide.

Their size and material may intimidate you, but they are actually among the most affordable gym equipment. Investing in them provides a range of uses from the workouts to adding the intensity of bodyweight workouts like squats and push ups.
They can be used anywhere and anytime. All you need is the rope, an anchor point. This make them very convenient. No set up necessary.
The ropes can be used to do a range of exercises working out the whole body. You can also use them for climbing and pulling.
The thickness and length of the rope are what determines how difficult it will be to use them. You can play around this by tying a knot in the middle of the rope and keep increasing it as your ability develops.
The ropes are also portable. You only need to roll them up like a hose, and you can carry them to where you wish from the garden to the park. beach, backyard, garage or living room.

Using the rope effectively involves torso and core stabilization. Grip both ends with each hand like you are giving a strong hand shake and swing them through a range of motions. Here is how to stabilize your core, spine and legs.

How to Use Ropes

Assume this position to workout your legs for a full body workout.

 Hold the ropes at the end like you are giving a strong hand shake
 Squat down ¼ way with heal into the floor. Feet should be shouldered width apart
 Make sure you stabilize your spine, core, and legs
 Make sure you breath
 Move only shoulders and arms

In the above position, you can do these variations. Remain in a squat position

 Rope Slams (Both Arms) – Raise rope over your head with both hands and lower rope as hard as you can. Repeat
 Rope Slams ( Single Arm) – Raise right arm then slam rope to the floor. Repeat with left arm. Repeat
 Double Arm Waves –Raise both arms at the same time and make up and down medium waves on the floor. Repeat
 Side to Side Slide the rope on the ground from side to side. In a snake-like fashion. Repeat

Impress your doctor at your visit next by telling him that you have started battle rope training. He will probably be clueless but once you tell him what it entails he will be please. .

You can use battle ropes as a part of your 30 min physical activity required for the day. First practice the position and movement patterns. Then start at 10 seconds and rest for a min between each one. Do as much cycle as you can for 30 mins. You can also do other activities in between. If your are intimidated by barbells and dumbbells then battle ropes can be you weights of choice and will also help with your cardiovascular endurance

Here is a plan for you if you are new to working out and want to try out the battle rope. Start at 10 seconds and increase as you get better. Its best not to start too hard or you will get burned out quickly Once this becomes easy you can do the exercise longer and decrease the amount of time you walk in place. Increase exercise by 10 seconds and decrease walks by 10 seconds.

Beginners Battle Rope Workout Plan

Exercise	Time
Rope Slams- Both Hands	10 sec
Walk in Place	60 sec
Rope Slams- One Hand	10 sec
Walk in Place	60 sec
Double Arm Waves	10 sec
Walk in Place	60 sec
Side to Side	10 sec
Rest	2mins

Does Lifting Weights Cause Weight Gain And Bulkiness in Women?

Why Women Should Not Fear Heavy Weights

Women, are you afraid of lifting heavy weights because you think it will make you gain weight or become bulky? If so, do you head for the lighter weights or avoid weights altogether? Contrary to popular belief, women do not gain weight or bulk up by lifting heavy weights. Heavy weights ensure muscle tone and strength. Lifting light weights with many repetitions does not strengthen or tone muscles effectively.

Testosterone is the culprit for large increases in muscle mass. Therefore, men have a tendency for large increases in muscle mass due to their high levels. Most women, on the other hand, have only a fraction of the testosterone that men have.

For women, lifting heavy weights is the only way to become toned and shapely. The formula for achieving these goals is to maximize the amount of calories burned. Not only does your body burn more calories lifting the heavier weights, the body continues to burn calories even after the workout, prompting the process of repairing muscle fibers that were damaged during the weight lifting itself. This is known as building lean muscle. Building muscles, while burning off the excess fat, increases metabolism, which in turn, burns more calories throughout the day.

A pound of muscle, does in fact, weigh the same as a pound of fat, but muscle takes up a lot less room. If the scale inches up slightly, it is coming from water gain because more water is retained by active muscle tissue. Your muscles begin to store more carbohydrates in the form of glycogen. Glycogen has a tendency to hold on to water. After a while, your muscles adjust and don’t retain as much of the glycogen. At that point, the weight begins to come back down.

The only thing women are going to gain by lifting heavy weights is a leaner more defined body. So if you think all of a sudden you have bigger thighs, it is not from lifting heavy weights, but either from a temporary water retention or from consuming more calories than the amount being burned. Being obese and out of shape will make you look and feel years beyond your age, while building lean muscle and being fit will improve your health and appearance by building strength, reducing the potential for injury, increasing metabolism, and elevating the good cholesterol levels.

If your goal to is to have shapely toned muscle then you should lift heavy weights. On the other hand, if you only want to loose weight then you don’t even have to exercise. What you eat will determine how much weight you gain or loose. If you want to be healthy, then do both. There are other health benefits of exercise that you will miss if you only diet. Furthermore, the American Heart Association recommends 30 mins of cardio daily and resistance training 2 times per week.

How to Become More Active

How many times have you told yourself that you will get more exercise from now on? Your doctor recommends that you should. He knows that you are a couch potato because it shows on the scale. You are gaining weight. You know it too. Perhaps you have joined a gym or downloaded that workout app, full of good intentions, only to find that after a few visits your motivation begins to fade and you find yourself back on the sofa, consoling yourself with chocolate. Or perhaps you have spent a lot of money on equipment for exercising at home and are now feeling guilty every time you look at it. For people who are not used to regular exercise, starting and then maintaining an exercise program can seem a daunting prospect, and some people even can hurt themselves because they went to hard to fast. Which causes them to stop all together. However, with the right approach, starting to live a healthier, more energetic life can be very enjoyable and also pain-free! Want to know how to become more active and reach the recommended goal of a minimum of 30 minutes of aerobic activity a day, its not as hard as you think. You don’t need a gym membership.

The Benefits of Exercise

If you stay inactive you are missing out on the health benefits of exercise and physical activity. There is no doubt that regular exercise provides physical benefits. Muscles, including the heart, are strengthened and blood circulation is improved. In addition, many scientists now agree that exercise also promotes mental health and well-being. Endorphins, which are released into the bloodstream during exercise, are believed to reduce pain and stress, and may also stimulate the immune system and delay the aging process.

Set Small Goals

The best way to get fitter is to set small, achievable targets. It may be something as simple as walking up stairs instead of taking the elevator to get to your office each day, or perhaps getting off the subway one station earlier and walking the rest of the route. This way, you are less likely to give up and feel like a failure. As you begin to take more exercise you will probably find that you want to increase your levels. If membership of a health club appeals to you, regular routines can be established and gradually built up, often with the help of a trainer, but this can be expensive and there are many cheaper or even free alternatives.

Step, Walk, Run

Both walking and running cost nothing except shoe leather and they can be either solitary or sociable pastimes. Depending on where you live there may be clubs or societies to join if you are looking for company, or you can simply set off alone or with a friend. Most busy cities have parks and open spaces where you can enjoy traffic-free surroundings, and if you can get out into the countryside a walk amongst trees and flowers can be a delightful way to spend an afternoon or even a whole day.

Ride a Bike

Cycling can seem a little daunting or even dangerous on the busy roads of today, but there are ways to avoid the perils of traffic. Many towns and cities have cycle routes, but if yours does not, a folding bicycle is an option worth considering. There are several models that fit easily into a car and can be assembled and folded in a matter of seconds. If necessary you can drive to a park or open space and then use your bicycle once you get there. Some of these bicycles are quite expensive, but there are a number of internet sites where a used bicycle can be bought at a reasonable price. In this case it would be worth taking the bicycle to a cycle store for a safety check and buying a cycle helmet at the same time.

Swim a Lap or Two

Swimming is one of the best all-round ways of exercising, and the fact that water supports your body makes it a good choice for people who weigh more or whose lack of mobility would make running or cycling difficult. If you have not been swimming for a long time it is better to start with short periods in the water and then gradually build up your strength. If swimming lessons are available and you can afford them, they can be very helpful in improving your technique. Good breathing is one of the secrets of successful swimming.

Dance Like No one Is Watching

Dancing is a great form of exercise and is also a lot of fun and a way of making new friends. There are so many different types of dancing, from square to ballroom and from jazz to tap, that there is sure to be one that appeals to everybody. An hour or two of energetic dancing works off a large number of calories, but even the more sedate types of dance are beneficial.

Have More Sex

Having sex counts as physical activity. Although having sex won’t replace any of the above activities it can be a supplemental form of activity. It really take vigorous and consistent sexual activity to replace running, biking, etc. If you are able to engage in that type of sex for 30 mins a day 5 days a week, well go for it. You do not need to anything else.

On Your Mark, Get Set, Go !

The best thing to do is to choose one type of exercise to begin with and just give it a go. Keep the time short to begin with. 10mins at a time counts toward your goals. Aim to do your chosen exercise regularly, perhaps twice a week, and really try to stick to it.. Then add a day each week until you get to 5 days a week . Then you can start to go for longer time. Once you let your routine slip it becomes harder to start again, but if you stick to it you will gradually find yourself wanting to do more and really begin to feel the benefits.