Honest, Accurate and Useful Heath & Fintness Information
Let me know what you think and feel free to ask any questions that you have below. Enjoy!
I’ve been a member of The National Business Experts for less than a month now. I haven’t totally figured out the culture of this group and how to give and get the most out of it. What I like about the group is that it seems the focus is on building real and genuine relationships. Once that happens, then real and qualified referrals will take place. And those referrals come from each member’s own network of contacts. This is different than other networking events and groups that I’ve attended in the past. In those groups it feels like everyone in attendance is trying to convince the other networkers to become their customers.
But I know this much, the word “Experts” is right there in the group name. And we can’t be experts in every field or industry. We have to trust when we are making a referral to another member of the group, that our contact will receive incredible service. But beyond that as members we have an additional benefit. We have direct access to top professionals from a huge variety of industries. None of us should ever experience a bad real estate transaction, have a website that doesn’t look and function the way we want, have too much or too little insurance, have to represent ourselves in legal matters, etc. I think it is our responsibility to each other, as members of The National Business Experts, to ensure that every member is provided with accurate information and advice in our respective areas of expertise.
And on that note I let a member down last week at The Five Families Mafia Style Networking event. Not because of any bad intentions on my part, but because I was so totally caught off guard by what she was telling me. I was shocked at what she was saying, that I was basically speechless for a few minutes. Want to know what it is? Ready for it? OK
Once she found out that I was a fitness professional she immediately told me that she gets all of the cardio that she needs because she wears 6 pound shoes. Here’s a quote, she said, “That’s all I have to do.” She was wearing them that night and she even showed them to me. I’m sure she is a wonderful lady. In fact, she seemed like it. But she has no idea what she is talking about. She is wrong.
The truth is there have been thousands of studies done at accredited universities around the world. These studies are peer reviewed, double blind and follow accepted scientific methodologies. The result of these studies (and I’ve read a ton of them), is that we know exactly how the body responds and adapts to cardiovascular exercise.
Well at least no harm can come from wearing the six pound shoes, right? Wrong!
Here is the deal. This really nice lady thinks that she is deriving the benefits of cardiovascular exercise by wearing these 6 pound shoes, when she isn’t. She thinks that she is;
Reducing her risk of heart disease
Reducing her risk of stroke
Reducing her risk of some cancers
Reducing her risk of Adult Onset Diabetes
Increasing her lifespan
Improving her quality of life
Increasing her chances of maintaining an ideal body weight
Because she thinks that all of these great things are happening to her, she’s not really doing the things she should be doing. And her health is obviously important to her or she wouldn’t have bought the shoes in the first place. She is wasting both her time and money by wearing these shoes.
To make matters worse, wearing six pound shoes is going to distract (pull) her ankles, knees and hips. The result of this constant pulling on the joints of her lower body is that the ligaments that stabilize those joints will be stretched. When you stretch ligaments the joints become less stable. This increases the likelihood of injury to those joints.
The only person benefiting by her wearing these shoes is the person that sold them to her. And that person is running a scam.
There is so much misinformation in the fitness and weight loss (diet) industry. There is no way for you to know with certainty what is true and what is misleading. The good news is, that I’m now a member of The National Business Experts. So you don’t have to guess and hope that you’re doing the right things when it comes to fitness anymore.
Before you start an exercise or weight loss program, or if you have any questions about the things that you’re currently doing please call me or email me. Or just send a message on Facebook.
I’m here to help.
Cell – 602.999.4593
email – john@fitnessknowhowhq.com
John Preston
Your Fitness Tutor
1. Know yourself – Want to stick to your exercise program? Choose a schedule that works for you. If you’re a morning person, heard for the gym first thing. All of your good intentions could be gone by the end of the day. If your not a morning person, don’t force yourself to the gym at dawn.
2. Have a ball – Exercise balls are one of the best trends for a good reason. They are versatile, can be used at home or the fitness center. They help to improve balance, stability and coordination. Plus they can be fun and relaxing. They are accessible and not threatening.
3. Hit the weights – There’s no substitute for strength training to improve your body’s ability and appearance. You may not see the scale move right away, but as you gain muscle mass and lose fat, you’ll notice that you look slimmer and leaner.
4. Cut yourself some slack – If you get discouraged about your fitness progress, think back to your first week. Give yourself credit for what you’ve accomplished already and for overcoming the biggest obstacle; getting started.
5. Beat the six-month barrier – Half of all people who join an exercise program drop out in the first 6 months. And half of those drop out before they even attempt a single workout. If you break the 6 month barrier, you’re likely to make exercise a lifelong habit.
6. Get it on Disc – Can’t make it to the gym? Have a stash of workout videos at home. You can work out at home any hour that you choose.
7. Do something different – Try an exercise activity that is very different form what you do at work. If your job is demanding and time-pressured, get outside and hike. If your job is task-oriented and full of details, you might like a cardio machine. Which allows you to zone out and concentrate on anything.
8. Split it up – Aim for 60 minutes of exercise a day, and break it up into 20-minute chucks to make it more doable.
9. Engage your brain – Lots of people give up exercise because it involves your body and leaves out the mind. Look for way to get fit that also ask you to learn something. Like belly dancing, ballet, hatha yoga or Tai Chi.
10. Believe in yourself – Numerous studies show that exercisers who believe in their abilities perform at a higher level, and are more likely to stick with a regular routine.
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This is a great exercise because the squat helps to strengthen all the major muscles of the lower body, and the BOSU is excellent for providing an unstable surface.
BOSU is short for “Both Sides Up”. This piece of equipment is designed to be used with either side up (or down, depending on how you want to look at it). The BOSU is essentially 1/2 of a stability ball with a solid, flat base.
For this exercise you want to place the BOSU upside down (the ball side down/and flat base up). You want to stand on the BOSU with your feet about shoulder width apart and your toes pointing straight forward.
Start Position – The easiest way to get on the BOSU is to place one foot on the base near the edge. If you look at the BOSU as a clock, place your foot in either the 3 or 9 o’clock position (depending on which foot you choose to place first). Slowly place all of your weight on that foot until the edge of the BOSU is touching the ground. Then carefully place your other foot on the opposite side of the BOSU. Slowly transfer your weight toward the foot you placed on the BOSU second, until you are standing with even weight on each foot.
NOTE: The BOSU can be extremely unstable until you learn how stand on it properly. The good news is the learning curve is steep, so you’ll figure it out quickly. If you have difficulty standing on the BOSU, don’t attempt to perform the squat. Instead the exercise for you is to simply stand on the BOSU until you establish balance, stability and confidence. Once you do then add the Squat.
As you lower yourself to the finish position there are several things you should focus on to perform a squat correctly. One your hips (butt) should begin the decent toward the ground by moving backwards. Imagine that there is a chair behind you. If you lower your hips straight down you will never find the chair with your butt. Second you should counter balance your hips moving backwards by leaning forward at the waist (if you don’t you’ll fall backwards). Third your knees should stay over your feet. It’s OK if they move forward a little but they should not move in front of your toes. And your chest should remain upright facing forward (not toward the ground).
You should inhale as you lower your body.
Finish Position – The goal at the finish position is to lower your body until your thighs are parallel with the ground.
As you stand up and return to the start position, you should exhale. Your knees, hips, and back should all return to the start position simultaneously.
Perform 2 sets of this exercise with a tempo of 1/1/1
The goal of Cardiovascular Training or Aerobic Exercise is to elevate your heart for a specific period of time. The extent to which you elevate your heart rate and the total time you keep your heart rate elevated depends entirely on your own personal goals.
There are a variety of activities that you can choose from to develop cardiovascular fitness. The most common are walking, jogging, running, swimming and cycling.
When you exercise at an appropriate level, you place stresses on the body beyond what your body is accustomed to. The great thing about our bodies is that they are so adaptable. When you place stress on your body, it begins to adapt. It does this so that the next time you ask your body to perform that task, your body is prepared for it and can accomplish the task without being stressed. That is how improvements in fitness occur.
When you perform cardiovascular exercise, all sorts of really cool physiological things occur. It can get really technical, but it’s important for you to understand, so I’ll explain the essential functions in basic terminology.
First of all, there are two terms that you should understand. The first is “Cardiovascular”. “Cardio” refers to your heart and “Vascular” refers to your veins and arteries (your circulatory system). The second is “Cardio Respiratory”, which is the relationship between your heart (cardio) and your lungs (respiratory). So when you perform aerobic exercise you are improving your heart, lungs and circulatory system.
Your veins and arteries carry blood. Arteries carry oxygen rich blood to the muscles (cells) that are working and need oxygen to be able to continue. Veins carry oxygen depleted blood from the muscles back to the heart then to the lungs to be re-oxygenated.
Regular aerobic exercise will result in an increase of red blood cells, which carry oxygen to the cells. It also results in an increase of capillaries (the tiny blood vessels that deliver the blood to the tissues and cells). Therefore allowing more nutrients to be delivered to working muscles.
With exercise, your lungs will increase their capacity, and they will be able to hold more air. The more air that you can breathe in, the more oxygen that is available to your cells. Your lungs will also increase the ability to pull oxygen from the air and deliver it to the blood. This occurs because more alveoli (tiny sacks in your lungs that transfer the oxygen from the air and deliver it to the red blood cells) are exposed to the increased volume of air/oxygen in your lungs.
Your heart is a muscle, so it will become bigger and stronger. You will increase the amount of blood the heart can hold. And the heart will pump a higher percentage of its blood each time it beats. It will pump more blood with every beat. This will allow you to deliver more blood to the body via your arteries. Your heart is muscle tissue and it will also benefit from an increase in capillaries, more oxygen rich red blood cells, just as your skeletal muscles will. As a result, it will become more efficient.
More air in your lungs
More oxygen delivered to the red blood cells
More red blood cells
A more efficient heart pumping more blood
More capillaries delivering oxygen to the cells
More efficient cells utilizing the oxygen
A More Awesome YOU!
Moderate physical (aerobic) activities will yield tremendous physical benefits. Those benefits include decreased risk of heart disease and certain cancers and improvement in blood pressure and cholesterol levels. The increase in physical activity will result in increased energy (caloric) expenditure which will help to decrease your body fat percentage. Your metabolism will improve not only during exercise but also for a short period after activity. Improvements in aerobic capacity will help to make all of your activities of daily living easier, resulting in more energy throughout the day.
1. Instant feel-good. You will feel invigorated for hours after training
2. Train your heart. The heart is a muscle and cardio is its strength training
3. Increased endurance and stamina. Get through your day without a cat-nap.
4. Increased confidence right away!
5. Healthy lungs
6. Increases metabolism for up to 24 hours
7. Improves immune system. Being sick less equals more days to work out!
8. Reduces stress
9. Improves circulation. You will be less sore after weight training
10. Sleep better
11. Relief from depression and anxiety
12. Reduced risk of some cancers
13. Reduced risk of heart disease
14. Lower blood pressure
15. Lowers cholesterol
16. Live longer
17. It’s something great you can do for yourself to improve your health!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my “31 Tips To A Much Improved You”. You received the last Tip about a week ago and I’m sure you’re applying all the information to your daily routine and you’re feeling awesome. Anyway I wanted to follow up with a review of the most important changes that you can make so that you continue to live a much healthier life. Here are the Top Ten Things you should be doing everyday…enjoy!
1. Drink a gallon of water every day
Staying hydrated is essential if you want to lose weight, or maintain a healthy body weight. It also helps to reduce your hunger, aid in digestion, increase your metabolism, reduce pain and headaches, and reduces the risk of digestive system cancers.
2. Engage in Cardio 3-6 days each week
Cardio increases the risk of heart disease and stroke. Helps to control risk factors such as blood pressure and cholesterol. It also burns calories and increases yourmetabolism; which helps to maintain a healthy body weight.
3. Eat your fruits and veggies
Fruits Provide: Fiber, Antioxidants, Vitamins and Minerals
Vegetable Provide: Fiber, Antioxidants, Vitamins and Minerals
Here’s the thing Fiber, Antioxidant, and Vitamins and Minerals, all fight off diseases, especially many cancers
4. Resistance Training 3-6 Day a week
Resistance Training increases your strength, bone density, and your metabolism. It’s the only way to ramp up your metabolism 24 hours a day. And it helps to make everything you do in life a lot easier.
5. Eat 5-7 small meals each day
Eating 5-7 small meals a day will regulate blood sugar and hormone levels, and increase your metabolism. This will make it super easy to either lose excess body weight, or maintain a healthy body weight.
6. Stretch Every Day
Stretching every day will help to reduce aches and pains. Plus it will make all of your daily activities easier
7. Eat lean sources of Protein
Protein is essential to your health. Focusing on lean proteins will help to ensure you keep your calories under control and maintain a healthy body weight.
8. Do your Core and Ab exercises
Having strong and healthy core and abdominal muscles is the foundation for being fit. A strong core will minimize back pain and optimize your ability to perform physical activities
9. Eat. Oatmeal, Yams, and Brown rice
You’ve got to have Carbs, they are your body’s (and your brain’s fuel of choice). Plus you can’t utilize fat without having carbs in your system. Eating Oats, Yams, and Brown Rice will ensure that the carbs you are eating are healthy and gluten free.
10. Eat your healthy fats, get your omegas.
Eating Fat is essential to your health. To be healthy make sure to eat mono- and polyunsaturated fats (and avoid saturated and trans fats). Also get plenty of Omega-3 andOmega-9. Dietary fat has a ton of health benefits, but the most important might be maintaining healthy cholesterol levels.
If you’ve found this information to be interesting, helpful, and useful, please share it with your friends.
And remember to visit www.fitnessknowhowhq.com regularly. I’ll be updating the site with new health, fitness and exercise information frequently.
Thanks for trusting me with your health
In Good Health,
John Preston.
Wow this is the final tip of the month! Funny how time flies when you’re getting healthy.
I’ve shared a lot of really important information with you this month. I’m confident that you’re probably already beginning to notice the positive effects of making these changes in your life. You can expect to see real, continued improvements in your health during the upcoming weeks and months.
The reason for making the decision to lead a healthy life is simple. If you are healthy, you feel good. When you are healthy and feel good you can choose to engage in activities that unhealthy people cannot. Now that you’ve taken the first steps to living a healthy life I want you to do something that you’ve never done before. This can be a very simple new activity.
When you participate in a new activity you’ll be challenged in ways that you’ve never experienced before. And all of these challenges and experiences will only impact you in a positive way. Each activity has unique skill set and movement patterns. The more you challenge yourself physically to learn new movement patterns the more efficient and balanced you’ll become physically. By introducing new movement patterns into your life you’ll not only challenge your body but also your mind. And like a good friend of mine always says, “The body follows the mind.”
So get out there and take advantage of your newly rediscovered health and learn and do something new. But make sure it’s something you’re interested in, here are some great examples:
1. Yoga
2. Pilates
3. Kick Boxing
4. Learn any Martial Art
5. Join a swim club
6. Join a rowing club
7. Tennis
8. Golf
9. Hiking Club
10. Dance Lessons (Swing, Ballroom, Belly, Two-Step)
11. You get the idea
Take Massive Action and sign up for something today…do it, right now!
OK now you’re equipped with a ton of information that will help you to live a much healthier life for the rest of your life. Enjoy!
And if you’ve found this information to be interesting, helpful, and useful, please share it with your friends.
And remember to visit www.fitnessknowhowhq.com regularly. I’ll be updating the site with new health, fitness and exercise information frequently.
Thanks for trusting me with your health
In Good Health,
John Preston.
Lateral Bend - Start Position
Lateral Bend - Finish Position
The Lateral Bend is a great stretch to open up your lats, low back, abdominal muscles, and depending on how tight you are, your inner thigh.
Start by holding a dowel, broom stick, golf club, what ever you may have. Your hands should be wide so that you form an “X” with your arms and legs. Your hands should be above your head. Your legs should be wide and your toes open about 45 degrees
Before you start to bend to the side notice the space between my upper arm and head. That space should remain constant throughout the stretch. Exhale as you bend to one side hold for 5 seconds, then bend to the other side and hold for 5 Seconds. Repeat 4 times on each side.
Spinal Rotation Stretch
This picture shows the end position of this stretch. To start lye on your left side. Your left leg should be straight. Bring your right leg across your body to a 90 degree angle. Your right leg should also be straight. Put your left hand on top of your right leg just above the knee. Raise your right hand to the ceiling then let it start to fall to the floor behind you. The goal is for your right shoulder to rotate around to the floor. If it doesn’t don’t worry about it for now, just know that’s the goal. Hold for 30- 60 seconds. Breath deeply and try to relax and get comfortable. Before your repeat on the other side. Lye on your back and pull both knees into your chest. Repeat 2-3 times on each side.
Kneeling Quadricep Stretch
Standing Quadricep Stretch
I’m showing two Quadriceps Stretches here. The one on the left requires that you have access to a gym or equipment and home, the one on the left doesn’t
Starting with the Quadriceps Stretch on the left. You’ll need a step and a pad for your knee. Place on of your feet on the step, you should be on the ball of your foot. Simply lower yourself down to the ground so that your back knee is on the pad. This position will stretch your quadriceps and possibly your hip flexor as well. To increase the stretch raise the hand that’s on the same side as the knee on the pad, overhead.
The Quadriceps Stretch on the right is pretty simple. Grab your ankle and pull it to your glutes (butt). If you have trouble standing on one foot. You can support yourself by holding onto a chair or counter. If your Quadriceps are too tight for you to grab your ankle, then wrap a towel around your ankle and use that to pull your ankle toward your glutes. Hold each Stretch for 30-6- second and repeat 2-3 times.
Downward Dog
The Downward Dog is rooted in Yoga. It’s a great full body stretch. It also helps to develop so strength and stability in the shoulders. This picture show the end position. To start you want to get onto you hands and knees, with your hands directly under your shoulders and your knees directly under your hips. This is the same start position I cover with Pointers in Tip #9
From that position lift your hips straight up to the ceiling. Keep your legs straight and press your heels into the ground. Now pretend that there is a string connecting your armpits to your ankles. Shorten that string. This will help to open up space in your shoulders.
Hold for 30 to 60 seconds and repeat 2-3 times.
Add these four stretches to the stretches I covered in Tip #5. Do all eight stretches ad least once everyday. Twice a day is optimal. Watch the video below to learn more about how to correctly perform these stretches, enjoy and I’ll be back tomorrow with Tip #27
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOngfJvAo_w[/youtube]
