Archive for the 'EXERCISES' Category

Do you know that breathing plays a vital role in your routine body exercises?

If you really want to reach your fitness goals in your life, then it is very essential for you to realize that breathing fully and deeply helps you a lot in reaching your goals effectively.

Breathing can greatly affect on your routine exercises and how you feel after exercising.

If you fail to concentrate properly on your breathing technique, then you can feel much difficulty in exercising and at times, it can also mislead you in a wrong way of exercising.

Improper breathing can greatly interfere in the burning of excess calories and it might not encourage your body in burning excess fat.

So, it is very essential for you to practice exact breathing techniques to get better out of your regular routines. Here are certain essential things, which you need to know about breathing while exercising.

Oxygen helps you in burning fat! Is it true?

Your body needs water and increased levels of oxygen, the major sources to burn excess fat. When you are practicing various exercises to burn more fat from your body, you have to considerably increase your regular intake of water.

Most of you want to learn how to dance as there are various reasons behind it. Among those, the great thing regarding learning to dance is, you will find a revitalizing exercise workout.

Learning dance greatly help to pump your heart and also you will get in definite shape.

If the main cause behind dance learning is to get in shape, then practicing dance for a week will not do any trick. You need to attend the dance classes for at least 3 months.

If you want to get into shape, then you need to consider dancing seriously and try to do each step with precision. You have to push yourself to get maximum benefits with your dance workout. Before going to begin dancing, make sure that you stretch the muscles.

There is no need to bother about which style of dance you select to learn because any dance style will give you a great workout, despite of whether it is ballet, swing, hip hop, modern, contemporary, ballroom, etc.

Dance is such a popular exercise that most of the exercise dance classes and exercise videos include various dance movements in their workout routine. Dancing and exercise are closely related to each other.

Nothing makes you to look sexy than a well built figure with a six pack of piercingly clear abdominal muscles in front of it. Don’t forget that the abdominal definition is entirely reliant upon a remarkable bodybuilding diet.

You can easily perform them in the comfort of your living room. Also, you can observe that there is no direct oblique work, because the direct oblique works can cause to build a wider waistline.

Here is the abdominal exercise routine that concentrates both on the upper and lower abdominals. Do 10-15 repetitions of each exercise [Abdominal exercise equipment].

When you are a beginner to start this training routine, you can only able to do 6-8 repetitions of each exercise. Don’t worry about it. Just stick to the routine, within a few weeks; you can able to perform 10 repetitions.

Lying crunches: Lie on your back and slightly bend your legs, keep them crossed and elevated. Then get the upper half of the body towards your knees. Usually, this is a sharp and short movement. Put your hands close to your head but not at the back of the head.

Are you anxious about your regular body fitness? It might be your busy day schedule or a business trip, which interrupts your regular workout time.

But, don’t bother about it! Here is a simple 15 minute workout plan, which you can practice at your home conveniently and achieve enhanced body fitness [Health and exercise for busy folks].

However, you can face dozens of daily life circumstances that often get into your way of perfect exercise routine. But, you should be able to defend yourself with all those situations and spend some time for your body fitness.

Even though it is not possible to avoid all those obvious situations, you need to make out some time for your regular body routine.

So, enter into a 15 minute body workout plan. This can become a perfect way for you to attain better health and fitness, in spite of your hectic daily busy schedule in life. A 15 minute workout plan mainly includes:

Yoga!

Apart from building strength and improving your body flexibility, yoga greatly helps to relax your mind and also improves your concentration level. There are many ways to practice yoga workouts, try to know more about all those yoga work outs and daily perform them every day for at least 5 minutes [Power yoga for strength and flexibility].

Three months of aerobic exercise decreased body fat and calorie intake in overweight and obese people, according to a new study, and the researchers believe that changes to a central nervous system factor are responsible.

A research team at the University of Chile Clinical Hospital in Santiago, led by A. Veronica Araya, MD, assistant professor, showed that decreased food intake and reduced body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat, were linked to increased levels of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF. Its main role is promoting the growth and survival of nerve cells, according to Araya.

However, recent evidence shows that BDNF also is related to obesity and metabolism. The authors speculated that it could suppress appetite.

The team evaluated blood levels of BDNF before and after a three-month program of aerobic exercise in 15 overweight or obese men and women.

Over the three months, BDNF levels greatly increased. This higher the concentration of BDNF, the less the subject’s intake of calories and the greater the weight loss, Araya said. Thus, it is possible that increases in BDNF suppress appetite, she said.

Source: News Medical

Triangle stretch consists of three steps, hold each position for 15 seconds, alternate between legs and repeat the procedure.

Step 1:

Lunge out:

Move the left leg forward so that you will be in lunge position. Keep your right leg straight and completely extended. Keep your left shin vertical to the top of your foot and your back foot at 90 degrees to your front foot.

Spin around your torso to the left and forward by placing your left elbow on your bent left knee and your right hand on your right hip. This will open up your torso and you should feel the stretch in your inner thighs [Inner thigh exercises], abdominals [Abdominal exercises] and obliques.

Step 2:

Reach up:

Moving into the similar pose as step 1, place a yoga block straight and aligned with the back of your left heel. Move your left hand on the block by locking your elbow to provide a stable platform on which to rest your weight.

Fully stretch your right arm overhead by keeping it as close to your face as possible. Try to keep the top arm, pelvis and back leg assembled in a single plane. You should experience the stretch all up your right-hand side through your lats and obliques.

Chest and Back Exercises for Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced Lifters!

Practice chest [Chest developing exercises] and back exercises before you work on any other muscle groups. Try to raise the amount of weight you lift in each exercise by about 5-10 percent every week. Do the remaining lifts in your workout in any order you wish.

Here are some suggestions for beginner, intermediate and advanced lifters:

Beginners: Practice total-body workouts 2-3 times in a week. Once you complete the chest and back exercises, attempt to do any one set of 8-12 repetitions which are given below:

• Leg curls
• Dumbbell biceps curl
• Squat or leg presses
• Seated alternating dumbbell press
• Crunches (15-20 repetitions)
• Cable triceps extension

Intermediate lifters: If you are an intermediate lifter, then divide your program into two workouts, one for your upper body and the other for lower body. Alternate between the two programs and take one day break after each workout program.

Upper body workouts: After the completion of chest and back workouts, select one workout each for your biceps, triceps and shoulders. Practice 2-3 sets of shoulder exercises and 1-2 sets of the arm exercises.

According to the new long term study, healthy seniors who are physically active and exercise for more than 60 minutes each week can lessen their chances of disability as they age.

The researchers looked at 805 adults between the ages 50 and 72 at enrollment and followed for them for 13 years.

Each year, participants answered survey questions about their overall health and vitality and rated themselves on their ability (or inability) to do tasks such as dressing, eating and reaching.

Participants also reported their level of activity and were considered “active” if they exercised vigorously — for example, running, brisk walking, swimming, biking and hiking — more than 60 minutes per week, or “inactive” if 60 minutes or less per week.

After 13 years, the overweight active seniors had significantly less disability than the overweight inactive (average disability score 0.19) and normal-weight inactive seniors.

The researchers concluded that being physically active, regardless of body weight, helped lessen disability.

For more information, visit: ScienceDaily

For a beginner, the very first day in the gym is awkward enough. Beginning a workout program without knowing what you are doing makes it even worse.

Here are the common 10 mistakes that you should know about immediately:

1. Holding your breath:

This one may certainly look like a no-brainer. Don’t forget to breathe when you lift. Whenever you feel that the activity is new for you, you will concentrate more on doing it correctly. During this, you forget the natural things that you need to do. For lifting, the breathing pattern is exhaling on the positive phase and inhaling on the negative phase. Holding your breath causes your blood pressure to raise. If you hold your breath for even a longer time, it may cause fainting.

2. Spotting incorrectly:

Hanging around the gym long enough, you will eventually be asked to spot someone or you may need spotting yourself. If you think you’re going to require a spot, then ask for it. Gym rats are always more willing to help and it’s better to ask earlier to be spotted than screaming loudly when you get in trouble.

3. Exercising a wrong form of bench pressing:

Don’t pick your feet up from the floor when you bench despite of what it looks like just because someone else is doing it.

Somebody tells you to continue with your feet up, so don’t bend your back while you are doing this movement. But, if you have to bend your back then your benching way is beyond your abilities.

Prefer lighter weight so that your feet are always steadily planted. This prevents you falling from the bench and injuring yourself or others.

It is perfectly possible to reduce body fat simply by exercising, but it requires little time and effort. Remember that one pound of body is equal to 3500 calories. Following these simple routines for two to three times a week will ensure a fat-free body.

Slow running:

Run slowly for 5 minutes. Split this into three 30 seconds parts in which bring your heels up to your backside and knees up to your waist height.

Step-ups:

Stand by keeping your feet shoulder-width apart about 1ft from a rock or a bench with your hands on your sides.

Keep your upper body straight and step forward with your left foot onto the rock/bench.

Then bring your left foot to the starting position, followed by your right.

Begin this slowly and then pick up the tempo. Hold weights in your hands to increase the difficulty.

Do 3 sets of 40 seconds each, resting for 30 seconds between each set.

Squat thrust:

Begin with the press up position by keeping your feet together and extended behind you.

Bring your feet towards your hands in a single jumping motion, then comeback to the starting position.