There is an interesting article in New York Times entitled “Never Too Cool for a Hard Workout” which was written by John Branch. It features numerous athletes for ice sports such as snowboarding.

We always have assumption that exercise is not needed for sports. Anyhow it is already physically demanding activities which utilize your energy and improve your fitness level. However oftentimes we forgot the importance of conditioning our body to give optimum performance in any sports.

Regular exercise conditions your body muscles and enhances your stamina. If you are playing sports for leisure, then it is still best to exercise. Do not underestimate the benefits of exercise to your body. It avoids injuries and improves your sports performance.

Similar reasons are cited by the athletes in the article ‘Never Too Cool for a Hard Workout‘.  To read the full article, click it here.

The equation for weight loss is simple. Eat less and exercise more. Though as simple as it seems, it is difficult to keep your weight from escalating. You can consume the same amount of food however engaging yourself to move can help you shed extra pounds faster.

The article “Motivation to Move” of Joan Westlake is very helpful to encourage you to keep on moving. The motivations are very practical but oftentimes taken for granted. Reading this motivational list regularly can boost (no doubt about it) your desire to exercise more.

If you are falling off from your track, try to read the article “Motivation to Move”. It will definitely ignite your commitment to lose weight and to continue exercising. So fortify your will power by remembering these motivations and you will certainly not hesitate to engage yourself to move.

Word of advice. Print it off and post it in a place where you see it every day. Make it a habit to read it on daily basis to reinforce your motivation to exercise.

Read the full article ‘Motivation to Move’ from HealthKey.com.

Sometimes you may ponder what happen now to your washboard abs. Though you maintain the same set of abs exercise, the fat belly is still there. Then you try harder to have the same abs as you had five years ago.

As Alyssa Shaffer mentioned in her article ‘Flat-Belly Shortcuts’, you have to maintain workouts and to start learning how to eat smartly because burning the fats around your belly is difficult as you age. Shaffer has suggested the best exercise and nutrition for faster result of flattening your belly.

The first she mentioned is the walking exercise. If you have been doing it, then continue however you need to speed up your pace. Increasing your speed means burning 25% more calories. The crunch is already known for defining
your abs but try to crunch with the ball for best result.

Like any exercise program that is tailored for losing weight, cardiovascular exercise and strength training are best for your body. You convert the fats in your body to muscles which is good because the more muscle you have, the
higher is the consumption of calories for energy.

As for the food, the nuts, whole grains and proteins are proven to be flat-belly friendly food.

Shaffer has indeed made excellent recommendations on how to flatten your belly faster.

Read the full article, ‘Flat-Belly Shortcuts‘ from MSN Health and Fitness.

Fitness Editorial Credits to Alyssa Shaffer, Prevention.com.

by Julie Brealy

Do you workout everyday in a confined air-conditioned room and stare at the same wall every time you run in the treadmill? Sometimes the gym can be suffocating especially during the peak hours. You are lucky if your time is flexible because you can hit the gym anytime of the day.

However, if you are one of those unlucky who can workout only in the gym after office hours, then perhaps you may want to consider other options for fitness. Why not step out from a typical crowded fitness gym and hit the neighbouring park to get fit?

Here are the top five benefits why you should consider outdoor exercise for your fitness.

The Unrivaled Benefits of Sunlight. Nowadays our work and lifestyle has driven us to spend more time indoor. More so, there is the news, researches and stories about over exposure to sun can lead to skin cancer.

These are few reasons that propel us to take for granted the benefits of sunlight. However, proper exposure to natural sunlight is good for our health and well-being. It has a significant effect in our bones because sunlight makes our bones denser. The Vitamin D that we get from the natural sunlight helps the process of calcifying our bones.

Also, skin exposure to sunlight boosts our immune system and it makes the healing process of cuts, bruises and rashes faster because it transports more blood to the skin surface.

Indeed exposure to sunlight is vital to our body and for these reasons; its benefits cannot be underrated.

Fresh Air for Cleaner Lungs. Most of us know that fresh air is good for our health but have you asked why?

You stayed for few hours in the bar last night or you occasionally spray air fresheners at home. We also regularly inhale dust that is swirling unnoticed around us. All these impurities are breathed in through our nose and mouth, and because our respiratory system is like a sponge, it absorbs all the impurities.

However, with fresh air it cleanses our lungs because it brings more oxygen to our body. The more oxygen we have in the body, the better it is because it boosts up our energy level and it significantly clears our brain.

If you want to be on top of your performance always, physical and mentally, step out and get a fresh air. The easiest way to achieve this is to carry out a regular outdoor exercise.

A moment to Appreciate Mother Nature. Let us face it. We run in the treadmill everyday and looking at the same wall for an hour or two. Or you can deceive yourself and install a nature theme TV screen but still, nothing can replace the real beauty of nature - the vast blue sky, the greenery landscape and the woods.

These beautiful sceneries are soothing not only to our eyes but to our total well-being. Exercising outdoor is invigorating and revitalizing experience.

Fun & Adventure. How many of us quit the gym because of boredom because we do the same routine every day?

There are great outdoor workouts that you can choose and it ranges from jogging, hiking, swimming, cycling, gardening, skiing, skateboarding and so on.

Opportunity to Develop New Skills or Hobby. You cannot certainly be extremely good in all various sports but you can definitely try and continue practicing until you become good at it. This process can lead you to discovering an untapped potential to excel at certain outdoor sports or exercise that you never consider before being good at.

It is a good occasion to learn, explore and nurture new skills or hobby.

These top five benefits of outdoor exercise cannot be taken for granted. It is the best way to keep a healthy lifestyle and improve your fitness level. Though another option you can consider is fitness boot camp wherein you will have the proper guidance from certified fitness experts and nutritionists. Boot camps offer varied outdoor activities and exercises.

Julie Brealy is the health manager at FitFarms, UK’s No. 1 Weight Loss Holiday and Fitness Boot Camp. She has been working for over 10 years in the weight loss industry advising companies in the US and the UK. Julie is also an experienced deep tissue massage therapist.

Article Source:  http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Julie_Brealy

There is an interesting article in New York Times entitled ‘Train the Mind to Run Right Through Winter’ written by Gina Kolata.  She cited how other people’s exercise routines are affected with the weather. During winter and fall people tend to quit their exercise routines compared in the summer season.

How many of us are guilty of this? It can be a good excuse to escape our exercise regime, right? However, the article conveys a message that we should carry our exercise regardless of the weather.

It means exercising against all odds. Exercising despite of the weather condition is a matter of commitment to our fitness goal. A one-day-slip from our exercise routine can turn to two days or more until we realize that we eventually lost track of our fitness goal.

It may not be easy to run in a chilling weather but a proper conditioning of the mind will greatly help. To be a seasoned runner or biker, one has to run or bike in any season. Weather condition should not beat your determination to keep up in your fitness goal.

Read the full article, ‘Train the Mind to Run Right Through Winter‘ from NYTimes.com - Fitness and Nutrition.

The article ‘Keep Your Indoors Workouts Interesting’ written by Matt Fitzgerald gives us an insightful ways to maximize the result of our indoor workouts using the five popular gym equipments.

It is based on the concept of Chris Carmichael, founder of Carmichael Training Systems, and coach to Lance Armstrong. According to him, “by decreasing the duration and varying the intensity of your exercise sessions, you’ll get better results in less time”.

The article offers guidelines on how to effectively use the elliptical trainer, the rower, the stair climber, the stationary bike and the treadmill while allocating 20 minutes for each equipment.

This is a great idea to resolve the routine workout in the fitness gym that results to boredom. Instead of doing 3-4 hours workout, you can do it in one hour and forty minutes with the same result by following the guidelines in ‘Keep Your Indoors Workouts Interesting’.

It is no doubt that walking daily for one hour in the treadmill is boring. So why not make a twist in your regular gym workout and rake the optimum benefits in less time.

Before you hit the gym tomorrow, make sure to read first the full article of  ‘Keep Your Indoors Workouts Interesting’ from MSN Health and Fitness. Health article provided by Men’s Health.

It is an interesting (and surprising) piece to read the article of Gina Kolata in New York Times. All the time we practice this school of thought that it is necessary to cool down after exercising.

However, it is cited in the article ‘Is the Exercise Cool-Down Really Necessary?’ that this particular subject is in fact understudied. There is no exact process on how to cool down or a concrete rationale as why it is necessary to cool down after exercising but there is one possible risk, a fact that is agreed by exercise researchers.

When we exercise, our heart beats faster and our blood vessels in our legs expand to send more blood to our feet and legs. A sudden stop in any exercise activity will result to slow heart beat and pool of blood in your legs and feet. This is the reason that sometimes you feel dizzy or even pass out after you suddenly stop from an intensive exercise.

Actually, those people who undergo intensive exercise such as athletes are likely to suffer from this because their bodies are conditioned with trainings and exercises. As a result, their heart rate is slow and if they abruptly stop from a physically rigorous exercise, the heart’s slowing down process is faster.

This information is really opposite to what we have been thought and practicing; nonetheless, there is no harm to do a cool-down after your exercise.

Read the full article, ‘Is the Exercise Cool-Down Really Necessary?‘ from NYTimes.com - Fitness and Nutrition.

by: Matt Helphrey

by: Judi LaPoint

Judi LaPoint has studied health and fitness for more than 3 decades. She works to educate others about nutrition, healthy life-styles, and fitness.

http://www.jumpropeworkoutfun.com/

Michelle and I met at our anternal class in October 2005, our babies were both due in December. Each week we would meet for a coffee and biscuits and be 3lbs heavier! Eventually I’d put on 3 stone and Michelle 3 and half stone. Once we’d had our babies, we sat back and waited for the wait to fall off!! - Strangely, contrary to belief very little happened.

We started an 18 month cycle of diets. Weight watchers, slimming world, south beach, atkins, cabbage soup, detox, fasting, blood type, personal trainers (3 x per week). We gradually lost some of the weight, although 18 months later we were both still two stone overweight. In desperation one afternoon we scanned the internet for fasting retreats and stumbled across the FitFarms website….. After piling on a few more pounds over Christmas and a depressing (couldn’t fit into any clothes) New Years Eve we couldn’t procrastinate any longer. We booked to go to FitFarms in February 2008 and not wanting to be totally useless on arrival we started exercising in the 6 weeks leading up to our departure.

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