Archive for July 6th, 2010
Stress Reducing Exercises
So many of us are living our lives in the fast lane, and hypertension has never been diagnosed as much as it is today. By reducing your stress levels, you’ll usually also reduce high cholesterol and blood pressure. Here are a few things you can do.
Firstly, start a journal. At the end of your day, write down how it went, what was stressful, what was not, etc. This way, you’ll be able to track what sort of things are stimulants and what relaxes you. Next, try some form of deep breathing. You can do deep breathing exercises at any time during the day, when you have a few minutes here and there, or at the end of your day. Thirdly, get active. Getting yourself moving on a regular basis is a proven and very effective method of reducing stress. You can really do any activity- just getting yourself panting and sweating and you’re pretty much doing the trick. There are so many different fitness routines out there that you can follow, so don’t think that hitting the gym is the only option.
Extreme workouts for the extreme athlete
If you consider yourself an extreme athlete, then it probably means that you are not game for just any workout and that you’re probably pretty knowledgable on a lot of health and fitness topics. If so, you’ll understand the different between a good workout and a good marketing ploy advertising a good workout. Here is where I’m going with this; there are a lot of products out there looking to sell based on whatever -excuse my language- crap they can make consumers believe.
Here is how you know a product is made for and by experts: It is a full body training system, but does not compromise exercise quality. The product does not make unrealistic promises- such as how many pounds you’ll lose instantly, just that your hard work and dedication will pay off. Lastly, it should consider itself an extreme, or very challenging workout system, instead of just another promising workout system- you’ll only improve your body if it requires you to really push yourself beyond comfort levels.
Why workout your core?
The core- the center of your body is often missed or neglected in a lot of workout routines. We think about having nice shoulders and biceps, calfs and strong thigh and butts. Almost never neglected is the upper abs- we all know how to do some variation of a sit up or crunch. Unfortunately, this is just not enough for your core.
The back is made up of so many different muscles and all of them do need to be targeted to get a healthy workout. Posture and balance are two very important things to consider for long-term health. Stability exercises with an exercise ball can be really effective, and try adding different styles of crunches to your core workout. Doing a wide variety of exercises helps will help to improve your results quicker than usual. If you are finding these exercises easy after some time, you’ll have to do more challenging moves in order to avoid plateauing.