A 3 Part Series: Nothing to Sweat! - Part 2

Component 2: Strength Building Exercise

There’s more to fitness than just a healthy heart, of course. You need some muscle power to go with it, and not just for moving refrigerators or carrying heavy bags of groceries. Muscle is vitally important for weight control, because muscle is the best calorie-burning tissue the body has. It’s more effective than fat even when at rest, and its calorie-burning ability can leap as much as 20-fold when called into action. The more muscle we have, therefore, the better at burning calories we’re going to be — even while just watching the evening news!

This is why people who do only aerobic exercise, which is not effective at building muscle, tend to gain weight so quickly if they stop: With relatively little muscle mass to fall back on, their calorie—burning is dependent almost entirely on what they use up during their aerobic workouts. If they’re suddenly derailed by an injury -— or an exceptionally busy schedule — boom: Calorie-burning stops and fat production begins if appropriate dietary cutbacks are not made.

Maybe crawling inside a muscle to see what it really looks like will help illustrate why this is so.

Muscle tissue is composed of two types of fibers. Within each of the 650 muscles we have, two types of muscle fibers lie side by side: fast-twitch and slow-twitch. When a muscle is exercised aerobically (that is, in the continuous, rhythmic fashion mentioned above), it is primarily the muscle’s slow-twitch fibers that get called into action. These fibers gain in endurance from such activity, but they do not increase in strength or size — thus, the birdlike physiques of most good marathoners. Despite their grueling 100-plus-mile-a-week training regimens, there is no appreciable increase in the muscular bulk of their legs. Their legs often get even thinner, in fact, as unused fast-twitch fibers shrink and in some cases even die,

When a muscle is exercised in a strength-building way, however, fast-twitch fibers get the call, and their response— is to increase in size, This is why the folks in those muscle-building magazines look the way they do.

Their exercise routines focus primarily on the development ol their muscles’ fast-twitch fibers, and yes, some amazing growth can be the result.

But hold the dumbbells — who wants that Amold Schwarzenegger look, especialy if you’re a woman who just wants to be slimmer?

Be careful. Studies show that the losses in muscle mass and strength that we suffer with age are due almost entirely to atrophy of our fast»twitch, not our slow-twitch, fibers. This is because our slow-twitchers get called upon by even the most minimal exertions. Our fast-twitch fibers, by contrast, sit around and do little more than twiddle their thumbs as we age, eventually disappearing entirely if we don’t remind them we know they’re there. This disappearing act can begin in earnest as early as our 30s, and if left unchecked can progress to truly a pathetic degree. Surveys show, for example, that over one»quarter of American men and two-thirds of American women cannot lift more than 10 pounds by the time they reach age 75. Fast-twitch neglect has been targeted as the primary cause.

Some loss of muscle and strength with age is inevitable, don’t get me wrong. But when someone like fitness dynamo jack LaLanne can commemorate his 65th birthday by swimming 1% miles towing 65 rowboats loaded with 65,000 pounds of wood pulp —— while wearing hand-cuffs! — it’s clear that many of us are letting Father Time get away with far more than we have to.

Don’t worry, though. I’m not going to be recommending the daily diet of push»ups that have earned ageless Jack his legendary acclaim. I’ll simply be showing you how to incorporate the recommended 5 to 10 minutes of strength-building activities naturally even advantageously — into your busy life.

A 3 Part Series: Nothing to Sweat! - Part 1

My collection of makeshift maneuvers worked perfectly for me because it included each of the three components that a well-balanced fitness program requires:

1) Cardiovascular or aerobic component — for improving function of the heart and lungs, burning calories, and helping to control cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and stress

2) Strength-building component — for maintaining good muscular firmness and shape

3) Flexibility component- for greater mobility along with relief from stiffness and stress
These are the raw ingredients of fitness, to be cooked up in any way you find most palatable to your particular responsibilities and lifestyle. Bits and pieces of each type of activity, like pennies in a piggy bank, can add up; they count just as much as the same amount of time spent at these activities all at once.

Component 1 : Cardiovascular/Aerobic Exercise
Yes, this is the type of exercise that started the fitness movement off and running, and it includes, quite simply, activities continuous and rhythmic in nature that work major muscle groups (such as the arms and/or the legs) sufficiently to strengthen the respiratory system and heart.

Exercise of this type — partly because it can be done for extended periods but also because it helps the body develops fat-burning enzymes — is generally regarded as the best for controlling weight. Because of its continual employment of the circulatory system, aerobic exercise also is considered the best type for lowering blood pressure, reducing serum cholesterol and triglycerides, and helping to alleviate and build resistance to stress — all significant factors in reducing the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Do we need to run races or chain ourselves to a ski machine for hours to reap the benefits? No. All we need is a total of about 30 minutes a day, divided into whatever time quantities we like. Best of all, this potent health-enhancer can be found nearly everywhere.

Or at least it could be, “if we’d just approach more of our everyday activities with a little more oomph,” says exercise physiologist Bryant Stamford. “So many of our everyday activities have the potential for being far more forms of exercise than we let them. By increasing the intensity with which we approach many of our household chores and leisure time activities only slightly, we could increase the health benefits they produce quite substantially?

Activities that otherwise would be good merely for being mild calorie-burners could become officially aerobic, in other words. They would be strenuous enough to misc the heart rate and oxygen consumption to levels which measurably improving not just our fitness but also our odds against most major diseases.
This isn’t to suggest that there aren’t significant benefits to virtually any physical activity we undertake, even if it’s just washing the dishes,” Dr. Stamford says.

“There is, however, a threshold beyond which health benefits appear to increase rather dramatically? That threshold is the target heart rate you may have heard mentioned in connection with some of your fitness efforts of old. Put simply, it’s a level of exertion capable of producing measurable improvements in the cardiovascular system — an increase in the amount of blood the heart is able to pump with each stroke and a decrease in your pulse rate while at rest. Calorie burning also increases proportionally to the amount of passion with which we approach any given activity, so it’s not just our hearts that benefit when we pick up the pace — our figures do, too.

But for a go-getter like you, that shouldn`t be a problem, right? The fact that you’re so busy needn’t hinder your fitness: It can help by motivating you to employ the levels of exertion that promote fitness best!

10 Amazing Ways To Find Exercise Where There Is None

Are you a traveler who is always rushing from here to there? Are you feeling mentally-drained, experiencing insomnia, or overeating at fast foods at the airport? Do you find it difficult to overcome the discomfort and tiredness of traveling?

This book was written as a survival guide for all the fellow travelers who want to claim control over their busy lives by a salesman who clocks over 200,000 air miles a year. In this useful book you will learn:

1) 10 amazing ways to find exercise where there is none.
2) How to lose fat and have fun at the same time by being more active on the road.
3) How to exercise without having to go to a gym.
4) The secrets of a super-fit salesman
5) Fitness at 40,000 feet
6) How to run two miles in a hotel room
7) De-stressing techniques which you can use anywhere and anytime.

Buy now at a introductory price of just $25USD! We can’t promise that the price will stay there forever!

The New Approach To Fitness

The real challenge now is how and when to fit this potentially unwieldy thing called exercise into your already hectic life. It does continue trip up millions of us daily, don’t forget, so we must be doing something wrong.
For an exercise program to succeed in becoming a permanent and worthwhile endeavor, it’s going to have to do two things:

1) lt’s going to hove to fit comfortably into your life.

2) We going to have to work.

A do-or-die approach to exercise is as doomed to fail as even the most diligent use of something electronic to shrink the thighs. So often fitness programs don’t last because we undertake them aiming for a Mercedes, and lose interest when it becomes clear that all we may have time for is a Honda.

To which we say: A Honda beats whatever heap is currently transporting your bones around. Research continues that even a little exercise, so long as it’s don’t consistently, can be significantly better than no exercise at all. That’s basically all the motivation you should need. The rest — actually fitting that exercise into your life — is going to be up to you.

If there’s one key ingredient that’s been lacking in the ways exercise has been sold in years past, it has been permission to exercise the imagination. There’s been an abundance of encouragement and instruction to exercise our biceps, triceps, and abs, that’s for sure, but too often it has been given within guidelines that are restrictive to the point of being prohibitive. Do we really need a 2,000•pound weight machine to work our peers, or something available for three “easy” payments in tighten our tummies?

Of course not. lt’s the movement that counts, not machinery, and there are far more ways to get that movement than would be economically wise for manufacturers of exercise devices to admit.

The same holds true for the time normally recommended for exercise, and for the attire. Exercise for at least 30 minutes within a target heart rate, we’re told. Wear Lycra because it breathes.

As long as you’re breathing, that’s what matters. lt’s time we stopped making exercise so needlessly and extravagantly complicated.

Exercise Your IQ

By getting the body to run better, exercise improves the functioning of the mind. The brain may think it’s the boss, but without a healthy body supporting it, it’s about as powerful as a candidate with no votes.
Research now concludes that regular physical exercise can improve brain Function by:

1) Improving memory. Memory depends on good communication among all parts of the brain, and exercise appears to help keep the wires (blood vessels) responsible for that communication in good condition.

2) Increasing problem-solving ability and creativity. The brain cell benefiting from exercise may also be the more clever brain cell, as attested by recent research with business executives — plus the cerebral track records of such avid exercisers as Wordsworth, Thoreau, Einstein, and Aristotle.

3) Creating stronger immunity to stress. “Exercise appears to burn up excess stress chemicals by using them tor energy expressed outwardly rather than inwardly, where they can do harm,” explains cardiologist Robert S. Elliot.

4) Helping us to keep our chins up. And not just over the bar. Exercise is a potent mood—elevator, as shown in clinical studies with depressed mental patients. To be thanked: the TOO percent all—natural uppers called endorphins.

5) Improving stamina. Let’s face it: It’s tough to be smart when you’re pooped. Exercise can give the physical boost that intellectual stamina cannot do without.

Adequate physical activity has been found to be so important to good health that a recent report in the Archives of Internal Medicine warned that insufficient levels of exercise should be considered as detrimental to health as - believe it or not - smoking half a pack of cigarettes a day.

To add to the alarming findings of that report, doctors presented statistics a year later in the Journal of the American Medical Association showing that people who don’t exercise, when compared to those who exercise moderately, could expect their risk of dying prematurely to double.

Seventeen Great Ways Exercise Improves Your Life

1)    Exercise increases circulation by widening blood vessels and even creating new ones, thus reducing risks of heart attack and stroke, In addition, it boosts physical and mental stamina by improving the delivery of oxygen and other vital nutrients to virtually every cell in the body in those of the brain included.
2)    Exercise lowers blood pressure, a major risk factor for heart attack, aneurysms, glaucoma, and stroke.
3)    Exercise improves the ratio ot good [HDL] to bad (LDL) cholesterol in the blood, thus reducing the risk of heart attack due to arterial blockage caused by the accumulation of plaque on artery walls.
4)    Exercise helps the body make better use of insulin, thus substantially reducing the risk at type ll (adult onset) diabetes.
5)    Exercise improves lung Function and hence physical as well as mental stamina by increasing the amount of oxygen in the blood.
6)    Exercise helps bolster the immune system, thus increasing protection against everything from cancer to the common cold.
7)    Exercise strengthens bones by boosting their uptake of calcium, thus dramatically reducing the risk of osteoporosis (a major problem for women following menopause).
8)    Exercise helps keep joints healthy, thus reducing the risk of osteoarthritis.
9)    Exercise speeds reaction time, reducing risks of driving mishaps as well as accidents around the home.
10)    Exercise improves coordination, lowering the risks associated with falling (especially among the elderly).
11)    Exercise aids digestion and hence optimal absorption of vital nutrients.
12)    Exercise helps promote intestinal regularity, thus reducing the risk of cancers of the colon.
13)    Exercise helps burn body fat and maintain healthy weight, thus boosting energy levels and improving appearance as well as reducing risks of diabetes, high blood pressure, harmful wear and tear on joints, and even certain types of cancer [i.e., breast cancer in women and prostate cancer in men].
14)    Exercise aids restful, higher-quality sleep.
15)    Exercise lowers the resting heart rate by increasing the amount of blood pumped by each at the heart’s contractions, thus saving the heart as many as 50,000 beats a day, and l7 million in a year!
16)    Exercise helps slow the aging process lay improving blood circulation and hence the delivery of vital nutrients to, and the removal of metabolic waste from, virtually every cell in the body skin included!
17)    Exercise improves sexual performance by boosting physical endurance and flexibility as well as body image and self-esteem.

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