Entries Tagged 'Workout' ↓

Effective Yoga Workout For Better Bodies

Traditional yoga is focused more on improving one’s mind than the physical state of a person. Of course, the physical state improves with the mental state but the main goal of yoga is the betterment of one’s life through mental dealings and the communion of the body and mind. These days, a yoga workout can be focused more on the body than the mind. Many gyms and activity centers actually sell a yoga workout as an activity to get toned and flexible compared to advancing one’s mental state. An effective yoga workout should be able to improve both physical and mental states of the practitioners.

How A Yoga Workout Works

Most yoga workouts adapt positions which have been used for centuries to improve the state of self awareness and the physical state of an individual. If you are more interested in improving your physical state, you can try some yoga asanas which many experts believe are capable of toning one’s body and promoting flexibility. The positions or postures are the key to the yoga workout for better bodies.

At the start of each yoga workout, practitioners are encouraged to regulate their breathing in such a way that it is calm and relaxed. Beginners are usually started with easier poses so as not to jar their bodies with the more intermediate positions which may cause some difficulties for many novices. A yoga workout must not be forced onto a person’s body because force can decrease the concentration and rob the person of the yoga health benefits.

A yoga workout usually starts with breathing and then progresses to the positions at the same time focusing one’s mind on one’s inner self. A yoga workout can last for just less than an hour or for several hours depending on your stage of yoga. Most workouts involve positions that require some change in movement every few minutes. These movements of changes are done in a slow rhythmic way. Lowering one’s heels in a slow manner is important as well as the lowering on other parts of the body.

Benefits of Yoga

In a yoga workout the control of one’s body is a conscious movement. This is one of the factors that promote good body tone and flexibility of the body. There are other health benefits from yoga and these involve the promotion of better blood and oxygen circulation. Joints and ligaments are also maintained well by practicing yoga.

Are There Benefits Of Practicing Yoga?

Absolutely! There are so many physical benefits of practicing yoga that it can be hard to name them all. The primary emphasis of yoga is on well-being of the self. It is not considered to be therapy for specific illnesses or injuries. Instead, it gives a broad holistic approach, where practitioners learn a new lifestyle and way of thinking and being in the world. A byproduct of this “new life” is the healing effects of yoga. As a person practices yoga, they often find that some benefits of yoga are the fact that some of the specific difficulties he or she has will tend to go away. These effects have been verified clinically. Let’s look as a few of the benefits of yoga as they pertain to specifics.

Healing Effects – Benefits Of Yoga

One of the most important benefits of yoga is its ability to relieve fatigue and stress, to invigorate the body vitality, and the fact that it is anti-aging and a wonderful relaxation therapy.

Yoga has been shown to improve asthma in approximately 75% of cases. Also, asthma attacks can be preventing using yoga instead of drugs. Other studies claim a 93% improvement rate.

For severe breathing problems like chronic bronchitis and emphysema, studies have shown that yoga helped with the ability to exercise, and in ways that traditional physiotherapy did not. Most of them increased their tolerance for exertion and recovered after exertion more quickly than before. They also gained the ability to control their breathing problems.

High blood pressure (hypertension) can be treated and prevented with the relaxation and exercise aspects of yoga.

Yoga is believed to reduce pain, by helping the brain’s pain center regulate the secretion of natural painkillers in the body. Breathing exercises also help with reducing pain. These can be a one of the most wonderful benefits of yoga, since all of us have pain at one time or another.

Back pain has been cured and prevented by using yoga. Yoga will enhance strength and flexibility. Also, reducing the muscle tension can reduce back problems.

Diabetes has also been shown to improve while practicing yoga, so that their blood sugar lowered and they needed less oral medicine. However, the patients in this study were also put on a vegetarian diet, so the yoga alone might not have been responsible for the improvement.

According to one study examining the benefits of yoga, yoga can give one a positive outlook on life and raise one’s energy level, even greater than the other options chosen for the study – relaxation and visualization. The yoga group had much greater increase in mental and physical energy and feelings of enthusiasm and alertness. (Relaxation made people more sleepy, visualization made them more sluggish and less content with life.)

Because yoga is a gentle form of exercise, it is a good way to get relief for arthritis – what a benefit of basic yoga! Exercise has long been recommended for arthritis as a treatment, but now, as long as it is not too much of a strain, yoga can help with arthritis. Yoga does not need to cause pain or strain. Even if you can only move an inch and hold the position for about five seconds, you are enhancing your body’s flexibility – though slowly. Be careful not to overdo yoga on a hurting body!

Each of these benefits of yoga can be yours if you become a yogi – or practicer of yoga.

Can Infomercials Sell More Than Just Promises?

If you’re like me, you’re a sucker for infomercials. Lazy Sunday mornings eating breakfast and flipping through the numerous infomercials that are on. One that caught my attention, besides the Magic Bullet and the 3 second omelet, was The Perfect Pushup. There were a few reasons for that.

I love to see and research the latest fitness fads. Actually, critique might be a better term. It seems that just about any fad can have an infomercial developed around it. But, when it comes to fitness fads, I really like to see if they can be for real or not. While many of these types of infomercials don’t really amount to much, there are a few that are serious products. Take Bowflex as an example. This is a company that puts a great amount of research in the mechanics of their home gyms and continuously update them with new technology to give you the ability to have a great workout. And they have had an infomercial for as long as I can remember.

And secondly, I’m always looking for something new to add to my workout routine. Doing the same routine over and over can quickly get stale. With something new, you actually get excited to workout and use it. And it seems that doing the same exercises predictably allows your body to adapt so after a while, you hit a plateau as far as gains go.

Push Ups That Don’t Hurt

I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with doing push ups. It’s a great exercise that uses your own body weight as resistance. However, the pressure put on my wrists is a killer. I wasn’t able to do push ups on a very regular basis because my wrists would hurt too much. This was terrible because the pushup is not just a great stand alone exercise, but is also great in conjunction with other chest exercises, like the bench press.

I kept talking about it, and for Christmas I got it as a gift from my sister and brother-in-law. The Perfect Pushup seemed to have such a simple design, but yet at the same time put a new twist on an old exercise, literally. For those who haven’t see it, click here to see what the Perfect Pushup looks like.

Essentially, It is a handle that sits atop a circular disk that rotates 360 degrees. The package comes with two, one for each hand. You place the two handles opposite each other, and you can vary the distance for variations of the exercise. As you do the up and down motion of the exercise, you are also rotating the handle to workout your arms in addition to your chest and back.

For an “As Seen on TV” product I was pleasantly surprised by the build quality. These are very sturdy devices. The handles are magnificent. Doing pushups holding the handles takes away the pressure from my wrists. My wrists are no longer sore after doing the routine. The twisting motion is very smooth and is something I got used to very quickly. They are nice and small and can be stored easily under a bed or in a closet.

Because of the comfort, I am able to do push ups more frequently and do more reps per set. I am getting awesome results in my arms, chest, shoulders, and back. These results can be seen and felt.

Included in the package are instructions showing different variations you can do with The Perfect Pushup, this way the pushup routine doesn’t become stale. It also maps these variations out in what they call the “Get Ripped Plan.” It is a routine that maximizes your time and the exercise variations to get the best results. After two and a half months of being part of my regular workout, I can say that I am very happy with the results that I can feel and see as a result of the Perfect Pushup. If you are looking for something to mix up your fitness routine or a better way to do a great exercise, The Perfect Pushup is definitely something I would recommend using.

Big Fitness
Regular Price: $54.95

Sale Price: $39.95

Bodytrends
Regular Price: $49.95
Sale Price: $39.95

GNC
Regular Price: $49.99
Sale Price: 39.99

My brother decided to join the gym I go to. I really liked the idea because now I have a more consistent workout partner. Having someone to workout with is a great idea. It makes everything seem a whole lot less tedious because you have someone there to talk to.

I don’t know the last time he’s been in a gym, and I don’t think he knows either. He’s not that out of shape, it’s just been a while since he’s had a regular workout routine. Well, last night was his first chance to go since he joined on Sunday morning. We get there and do our 10 minutes of cardio warmup and decide to hit the weights. It was chest and back routines on the agenda. He starts piling on the weights and I asked him why? He tells me that was what he was used to. I reminded him that he hasn’t been in a gym for awhile and it was wiser to start with a more manageable amount of weight and work his body into a routine, then slowly add the resistance. He decided to be macho and keep the weight on…and could only do a few reps.

When starting a new fitness routine or adding a new exercise, it is important to start with a manageable weight. This way you don’t risk serious injury. It is also important to get the correct motion down first. It is easier to learn the motion of the exercise when you have a manageable amount of weight and not straining to keep the bar up. Don’t be macho! Don’t go into the gym and try to impress anyone.