Health and exercise go hand in hand.  Exercise aids in weight management, in releasing endorphins that produce feelings of well-being,  increases lean muscle mass, helps keep your health insurance premiums down, and allows you to look your best.  But because our bodies are extremely complicated and sophisticated life forms, our fitness programs should fulfill the diverse needs of our bodies.  To remain healthy we need a routine that incorporates some kind of stretching, strength training, and cardiovascular or aerobic exercise.  Attention to all three kinds of exercise leads to stronger muscles, including your heart;  flexible muscles; stronger bones; and burns fat. 

THE ELEMENTS OF A WELL ROUNDED EXERCISE PROGRAM

•    STRETCHING requires holding a muscle in a fixed position and maintaining that for approximately 30 seconds.

•       STRENGTH TRAINING requires using resistance to contract the muscle to build strength.

•       AEROBIC OR CARDIOVASCULAR EXERCISE requires using the large          muscle groups to intensify the work of the heart and lungs continuously for a prolonged duration at a low intensity.

STRETCHING

There are contradictory studies dealing with stretching.  Yet any serious runner or dancer will inform you that stretching is a extremely critical component of a fitness regimen.  Muscles that are too tight are not strong and create an imbalance in your body that inescapably brings on injury.  Stretching sustains the flexibility of muscles and assists in preventing injury.  There are lots of ways to stretch and lots of good books that show a variety of stretches for individual muscles.  Ballet, yoga and Pilates are excellent disciplines make use of] a certain amount of stretching.  

STRENGTH TRAINING
To perform this discipline one pulls or pushes something that is resisting.  Not only does this produce stronger muscles, but it assists in strengthening bones. Strength training builds dense muscles which require more calories to maintain.  So the stronger you are the more calories you consume.  Weight training is undoubtedly the most known form of resistance training.  Pilates and yoga are also strength training workouts.  Pilates works with  the resistance of spring tension and some yoga poses utilizes the person’s body weight as resistance. 

AEROBIC EXERCISE
Running, biking, and walking are all well-known forms of aerobic exercise.  These physical activities strengthen the heart and burn fat.  Aerobic means “relating to, or involving oxygen.”  Aerobic exercise makes the heart stronger , making it more efficient, pumping more blood, an beneficial circulation booster. The more blood pumped, the more oxygen retrieved from the blood is supplied to the muscles.

Now there are some theories and research that advocate HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training).  This regimen is considered to be anearobic exercise.  This is defined as “relating to, or involving an absence of oxygen.”  Research has indicated that this kind of workout can supplement aerobic exercise.  It burns the glycogen in the muscle to maintain high energy bursts of exercise.  HIIT involves bursts of high intensity repetitions followed by low intensity ones.  For instance, a cycle would be 30 seconds of running at 80 % capacity and then running for 60 seconds at 30% capacity.  Usually aiming at 6 or 8 repetitions.  Like aerobic exercise this should be preceded with a warm up and followed by a cool down.  This would not be recommended for anyone beginning an exercise program.  

All this may seem like a lot of work that will also take a lot of time, but the rewards of fitness are vast.  There also seems to be a domino effect.  Those who exercise naturally want to eat healthier meals.  They become more aware of what they eat and other life style choices.  A well rounded exercise program can lead to a well rounded life style.   That could lead to a very satisfying life.

Tags: circulation booster, diet, pilates, weight management
Filed under: Fat Loss