Saturday, January 28, 2006

Create Unbalance to Get More out of Your Exercise

One of the reasons I highly recommend adding a swiss ball to your exercise routine is because it allows you to create unbalance in your exercises. That causes your muscles to work harder and your body core to develop.

If you don't have a swiss ball, you can still create that effect.

When you do your pushups, lift one leg during the exercise. Or do a pushup and, at the top of the movement, rotate one of your arms and point it to the ceiling to form a T. Change arms with each pushup.

Lift one leg off the floor while doing squats. You'll probably need to lightly hold on to something to keep your balance.

Or just lift your arms to the sky when doing a squat.

The idea is to create some inbalance so your muscles have to work harder and, in turn, your exercises become more effective.

But I am still going to highly recommend you consider a swiss ball. I just don't see a more effective way to create this effect for virtually every exercise you do.

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Don't Neglect Importance of Recovery

In order to improve as an athlete you need to make rest and recovery a key part of your training schedule. Yet most beginning and intermediate runners tend to neglect this, and unfortunately pay the consequences in the form of a soft-tissue injury, or a general feeling of overtiredness.

So, how do elite athletes maintain schedules of a hundred miles a week full of intense training? Because it is training like this that gets them to the top, and keeps them there. Often they are one or two sessions away from an injury, but they know from experience when to take it easy.

Here's five easy ways to recover between training sessions, and make the improvements you desire without getting injured:

1) Treat rest and recovery as seriously as you take the rest of your training. Don't be tempted to do another training session when you have got a day's rest scheduled.

2) Stretch both before and after a run. Many authorities recommend stretching mainly after your training sessions, but to neglect stretching before running will put you at a greater risk of injury. Don't wait until you get injured to realize the importance of stretching.

3) Use ice and cold water. Elite athletes like the women's marathon world record holder, Paula Radcliffe, take regular ice baths before and after hard sessions or races. You do not have to go this far, but the regular use of ice or cold water can help to ease any muscular aches and pains.

One recommendation is to hold an ice pack to a troublesome joint for ten minutes, then allow it to warm up again for an hour. Then reapply the ice for another ten minutes. You can also alternate hot and cold water on your leg in the shower. This can help your legs recover after a hard session.

4) Vary your training. Variety adds spice to your running, as it does the rest of your life. So, vary the speeds at which you run. Perhaps twice a week you can run fast-- do structured speed sessions with your local running club, for example. But, you cannot run fast every day. To recover for your next hard training session you need to run slowly, as well as take days off.

You don't want to be always running with the same people either. If you always run in a pack you are more likely to get injured as you will get drawn into running faster than you would like. Vary your training partners, and run on your own as well as this will help you to listen to your body.

5) Listening to your body is probably your best defence against overtraining and injury. This takes practice so don't be surprised if you DO get injured a few times before you realize when to take it easy, and when to train hard.

If you follow these five guidelines you will recover better between training sessions, avoid injury, and become a better runner. The same basic idea applies to all forms of exercise.

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Exercise In The Morning?

It seems pretty common to plan your exercise routine in the evening. And that's fine if it works for you. I always ran after work but it became a little tougher to work that in due to personal circumstances.

So I decided to get up earlier in the morning and workout before going to work.

There are two advantages of setting apart time in the morning. The first advantage is that in the morning our bodies are fresh and full of energy. Now over here I want to make one point clear.

There is a popular misconception that exercise depletes the body of energy but the case is just the opposite. Exercise pumps up more blood through the different parts of the body and warms up the body, so in fact, after exercise we feel more charged and ready to face the challenges of the day.

The second advantage is that in the morning we can plan for the whole day without letting the exercise routine affect the rest of our activities.

Give it a try for a couple of weeks and see what you think.

Sunday, January 08, 2006

Startling Weight Statistics!

Here are a few of the surprising statistics about our weight:

- A whopping 64 percent of U.S. adults are either overweight or obese. That's up approximately 8 percent from overweight estimates obtained in a 1988 report.

- The percent of children who are overweight is also continuing to increase. Among children and teens ages 6-19, 15 percent or almost 9 million are overweight. That's triple what the rate was in 1980!

- Nearly one-third of all adults are now classified as obese. At present, 31 percent of adults 20 years of age and over or nearly 59 million people have a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or greater, compared with 23 percent in 1994.

(The BMI is a number that shows body weight adjusted for height. For adults, a BMI of 18.5 - 24.9 is considered normal. A BMI of 25.0 - 29.9 is overweight and 30.0 or above, is considered obese.)

Modern life both at home and at work has come to revolve around moving from one "seated" position to another: whether it's television, computers, remote controls, or automobiles, we seem to be broadening the scope of our inactive endeavors.

At times, life seems to have gotten almost too easy! For entertainment, we can now just sit-down, dial-up our favorite TV program or DVD movie and enjoy hours of uninterrupted entertainment...

And all those simple calorie burning activities that were once a normal part of our daily routine not so long ago? Long gone!

You know the ones I'm talking about...activities like climbing stairs instead of using escalators and elevators. Or, pushing a lawn mower instead of riding around on a garden tractor. And what about that daily walk to school? Now, our kids complain when the school bus happens to be a few minutes late getting to the bus stop!

The time to start exercising is today - not tomorrow. If your kids see you exercising and taking care of your body, they are more likely to do the same. Lead by example.

Sunday, January 01, 2006

Run Your Way to a Healthy Body

I don't think you'll find too many fitness experts who don't feel running is one of the best exercises you can do to keep in shape.

The criticism is the stress on the body. The knees and leg muscles do take a beating. But . . . there are plenty of runners in their 60's and 70's who have been running for years and continue to do so.

Running is simply too great of an exercise to dismiss. Here's a way to make running a lifelong exercise with minimal injuries.

First, warm up is very important. Ideally you should walk at a brisk pace for 5 minutes of more. After the body starts to get warmed up, some stretching exercises will help loosen the muscles and prepare them for the workout to come.

A continuous steady stretch should be used. Do not bounce!!

Forget distance - think time. We want to work up to a nice 30 minute workout.

Before you try to progress, the first goal will be walking at a brisk pace comfortably for 30 minutes. If you can do this now, you can move to the next step. If not, work towards that goal.

Once you reach the 30 minutes of brisk walking, you can move to the next step. Warm up as stated for no less than 5 minutes. Now you're going to begin to walk briskly and then run at a slow pace until you become winded. Then walk briskly until you recover. Begin running again.

If it's 15 seconds, fine. 30 seconds - go for it. The idea is to gradually build up your running time.

Start out doing this 3 - 5 times during your exercise. You can do more if you have been exercising regularly.

Here's the good news. Just doing that will be a good exercise routine. Even walking for 30 minutes but getting to the point where you throw in 5 - 1 minute runs is great! You get your heart beat to climb and when you drop back to walking, the rate stays elevated for awhile.

Now, if you're up to it and are so inclined, start increasing the running. Again, a little at a time. If you injure yourself, not only do you have to stop the exercise for a time, but you also might be less likely to pick it up again.

So walk and then begin running for a couple minutes at a time. Or jog at a slow pace for as long as you feel comfortable.

Here's another tip to remember if your routine works up to running the entire time. If you run at a steady pace, then throw in faster runs of 30 seconds or more, and return to running at a steady pace to recover, you will actually get more benefit in your running routine.

The sprints (not all out but we'll call them sprints to make it easy) will force your body out of it's comfort zone. You will become much fitter than you would by running at a slow and steady pace for your entire routine.

Now, if you want to break the boredom, run some hills. You'll feel it in your shins and the front of your thighs as you run up the hill but, and this is good news, it's actually less strain on your knees.

However, be careful and slow it down while running down the hill. Here's where your knees can really take a beating. There's a tendency to pick it up while running downhill as you have great momentum.

Ignore that tendency.

Obviously if you are training for a racing event or such, this type of routine will not apply to you; unless you are just starting to run. But this running routine is something you can do to keep yourself fit while minimizing the risk of injury.

You will have less chance of injury and you're more likely to do it for a lifetime!