31 Days To A Much Improved You – Tip #26 Add These Four Stretches To Your Daily Routine

October 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Lateral Bend - Start Position

Lateral Bend - Finish Position

Lateral Bend

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

Lying 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

Quadriceps 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

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]

Filed Under: Blog, Exercise and Fitness Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Fitness Tip #24 of #31 Avoid Dairy Products

October 24, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Now the fun begins. To really feel your best you should avoid consuming dairy products. Here’s why…

Lactose intolerance happens when the small intestine does not make enough of the enzyme lactase. Babies’ bodies make this enzyme so they can digest milk, including breast milk. Before humans became dairy farmers, most people did not continue to drink milk beyond nursing in infancy, so their bodies did not make lactase after early childhood.
Dairy products contain a naturally occurring sugar called lactose. Most people are allergic to it, albeit with varying degrees. Some minor symptoms could be as simple as increased mucus production, such as a runny nose or phlegm in your throat. In many of these cases the person who is lactose intolerant may not even be aware that they are experiencing these symptoms. But once you eliminate dairy from your diet you’ll notice how much better you feel. Here is a list of the symptoms of lactose intolerance.

1. Abdominal bloating
2. Abdominal cramps
3. Diarrhea
4. Floating stools
5. Foul-smelling stools
6. Gas (flatulence)
7. Malnutrition
8. Nausea
9. Slow growth
10. Weight loss

These symptoms will occur after you eat or drink milk products, and are often relieved by not eating or drinking milk products. Large doses of milk products may cause worse symptoms.

Treatment

Removing milk products from the diet usually improves the symptoms. However, not having milk in the diet can lead to a shortage of calcium, vitamin D, riboflavin, and protein. So you should add other sources of calcium to the diet if you remove milk products.

Here is a list of calcium rich alternatives

Leafy green vegetables
Broccoli
Kale
Spinach
 
Fruits
Oranges
Orange Juice
 
Beans and peas
Peanuts
Peas
Black beans
Baked beans
 
Fish
Salmon
Sardines
Oysters
Shrimp
 
Miscellaneous
Sesame seeds
Corn tortillas
Almonds 
 
Or take calcium supplements

These milk products may be easier to digest:
Fermented milk products, such as yogurt
Aged or hard cheeses

OK here’s the deal. No species, including humans, needs to nurse past maturity. Cow’s milk is designed to make a calf a cow. We don’t need to drink the milk of another species to become or stay an adult human. It isn’t physiologically necessary for good health. We aren’t designed to drink milk as adults for good health. We don’t need the nutrients in cow’s milk to be healthy. In fact our digestive system is intolerant to it. Yes we need calcium, but we can get it from other sources. Stop drinking milk.
Replace milk with either almond or rice milk.

Filed Under: Blog, Nutrition Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Fitness Tip #21 of #31 Set A Stretch Goal

October 21, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Congratulation we are completing week three of “31 Days To A Much Improved You”. If you remember the very first day I asked you to set some goals for this 31 day program. I would like for you to revisit those goals one last time and really commit to them for the next 10 days. And last week I asked you to set some goals for beyond this month. Delve a little deeper into those and really start to break down all the smaller, achievable steps along your path to success.

Now it’s time to sit down and really decide what it is you want to do or accomplish during your life now that you are equipped with all this new found knowledge (don’t worry I’m still going to drop 10 more days of info on you). This is a “bucket list” of sorts, with the difference being that these stretch goals will be about living, not dying!

I really don’t want to put any ideas in your head or limitations, but if you want it go for it.

Here are some general ideas to help you get started:

1. Career changes
2. Major trips
3. Finish college, grad school, another degree, take a class
4. Physical challenges (marathons, that English Channel thing I mentioned day 1, Kilmanjaro, etc)
5. Use your imagination

Here are a couple of mine
1. I want to raft the Colorado River through Grand Canyon
2. I want to change the fitness industry forever

I started that process by starting this website and you can help me. Please post your Strecth Goals below in the comments. I’d like to know how I’m impacting the world by helping you…..

Filed Under: Blog, WTF (Miscellaneous) Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Fitness Tip #20 of #31 Increase Your Fruit Intake

October 20, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Like fitness Tip #16, where your mom was right (remember the veggies), with this tip your doctor was right “an apple a day”.

 
 If you want to be as healthy as possible, and to be able to enjoy life without the constraints of illness and disease, eat more fruit. If you want to live a long, and active life, eating fruit every day as part of a balanced diet is just one of the ways you can improve your health, and give your body a helping hand in living to a healthy old age. Fruit has plenty of health benefits. People who eat more fruit as part of a healthy diet are less likely to develop diseases such as diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and cancer, and they provide your body with all the nutrients it needs to fight other infections and repair cells, too.

Fruit is also packed with dietary fiber, which helps to keep your digestive system running properly. Not only will this help eliminate waste products more efficiently, but it can also help prevent colon and rectal cancers as well, because there will be fewer toxins exposed to that area for a shorter period of time.

These days our bodies need more vitamins and minerals than ever before. This is because we work longer hours, are exposed to more toxic fumes from pollution and are under more stress than we used to be. Eating fruit every day is a simple way of providing your body with these nutrients to ensure you are well equipped to deal with the stresses of daily life, and possibly protect you from illnesses in the future.
Below is a list of the health benefits of eating five servings of fruit each day

1. Reduced risk of a stroke and other cardiovascular diseases
2. Reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes
3. Reduced risk of developing certain cancers, including mouth, stomach and colon or rectal cancers
4. Reduced risk of developing coronary heart disease
5. Reduced risk of developing kidney stones and osteoporosis

Also a  diet involving regular intake of fruit will provide your body with antioxidants to help prevent free radicals from attacking the body. Free radicals are molecules that are produced when our bodies react with oxygen. They react with other molecules within cells and can damage their proteins, membranes and genes. The damage caused can lead to the onset of disease, in particular Alzheimer’s, heart disease and cancer. It also contributes to the ageing of our bodies.

The following external factors also trigger the production of free radicals in the body:

1. Pollution
2. Sunlight
3. Smoking
4. Alcohol

It always best to eat whole fresh fruit. Fruit that is in season will always be best and the freshest. We’re back to the farmer’s market with this one, plus if you buy in season you’ll eat a larger variety of fruit which is better for you anyway. Support your local community and your health. But fruit in any form will offer benefits for you try dried, frozen or even canned (if it’s in its own juices)

The fruit can be consumed in a number of ways – in smoothies, on its own as a snack, on pizza or dried on breakfast cereal. Eat fruit instead of chocolate or as a snack instead of chips, any fruit will do. Eating fruit as part of your daily diet will make you feel better, look better, and be more active and healthy.  It’s easy to enjoy fruit as part of your diet, and much healthier too.

Enjoy, I’ll be back tomorrow with Tip #21

Filed Under: Blog, Nutrition Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Fitness Tip #19 of #31 Get Your Cardiovascular Exercise

October 19, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Ok I know you’ve been walking for an hour each and every day. And that definitely counts as cardio. But we’re going to ramp things up a bit and develop a more structured cardio program for you. The goal with this structured, intentional cardiovascular program is to begin to increase the amount of time spent with an elevated heart rate. By increasing the intensity of your program you’ll really begin to realize the benefits of being aerobically fit. Here’s how we are going to do it.

You’ll still go for one hour walks every other day. On the day that you don’t go on the walk you’ll add and shorter (20-30 minute) workout at an increased intensity. So how are we going to measure intensity?

Easy, with your heart rate.

This can get a little bit technical but I’ll keep it very simple for you.

Here are some general guideline for you to follow.

Moderate intensity = 50%-65% of your max heart rate
Medium Intensity = 65%-75% of your max heart rate
High Intensity = 75%-85% of your max heart rate

How do you figure your exercise heart rate? Use this formula;

220 – (Your age) X (% of Max heart rate) = Target Heart Rate (THR)

Follow this Example, A 42 year old who wants to exercise at 65% of Max

(220 – 42) X .65 (65%) = THR
178 X .65 = 115

So a 42 year old should exercise  with a heart rate (THR) of 115 beats/minute if the goal is to workout at 65% of maximum.

To calculate your heart beat, simply take your pulse for 15 seconds and multiply by 4. It’s actually easier to double that number twice. So if you take your pulse for 15 seconds and you double it twice you want to end up with a heart rate of 140 beats per minute (in our example, your THR will vary).

So here is the goal for you for this tip. Increase your cardiovascular fitness so that you can maintain a THR of 65% for 30 full minutes. If you can’t do that then I want you to do intervals until you can.

Here is the interval plan

Week 1 Four minutes at your normal walking pace one minute at 65%
Week 2 Three minutes at your normal walking pace 2 minutes at 65%
Week 3 two minutes at normal waking pace 3 minutes at 65%
Week 4 one minute at normal walking pace four minutes at 65%
Week 5 30 minutes at 65%

Ok here the disclaimer

Always warm up for 5-10 minutes prior to the increased intensity exercise. You can stick with the same exercise just perform it at a lower intensity. The above schedule is just a general guideline it may be to conservative for some people and to aggressive for others. Use this strategy to know when it is time to move on. You’re heart rate should return to your normal walking level prior to the next bout of intense exercise. If it doesn’t keep working at that level before moving on.

What type of exercises should you be doing. The simple answer is anything you want.. If you’re walking you may find that you’ll need to jog or run to get your heart rate up to 65%. If you’re fine with running stick with it, just make sure you get a great pair of running shoes. If you want to avoid running then you should probably find a fitness center for your cardiovascular workouts. It’s easy to increase the resistance or elevation on cardio machine to increase your heart rate without running.

You can choose any type of exercise that you like. We’re training heart rate here not movement pattern so you can even do something different each time.

Here is a list of great CV exercises

1. Walking
2. Jogging/Running
3. Swimming
4. Cycling
5. Stair Climbing
6. Elliptical Trainer
7. Aerobic classes (will be tougher to regulate THR)

So pick an activity that you like and every other day you’ll replace your 1 hour walk with more intense cardiovascular exercise.

You’ll experience

1. Increased energy
2. Increase metabolism
3. improved lung function
4. Greater aerobic capacity
5. Decrease resting heart rate
6. All sorts of other really cool physiologically things!

Lets admit one thing here, this tip is awesome. And don’t worry, once you can walk every other day for one hour and do 30 minutes of cardio at 65% of your max you’ll still need to keep progressing. I’ll have a ton of info for you on the site to teach you how….

And I’ll be back tomorrow with fitness tip #20

Filed Under: Blog, Cardiovascular Exercise, Exercise and Fitness Tagged With: , , , ,

Fitness Tip #18 of #31 Proper Technique And Injury Prevention

October 18, 2010 by Leave a Comment

In my humble (OK, expert) opinion I would rank proper exercise form as the second most important factor in having success with your fitness goals. What’s the most important you ask? I’ll never tell! Ok, just kidding. The most important component to being successful is consistency. If you follow all my advice to the letter and have perfect form on every rep of every set on every exercise, but you only do it once or twice each month, you won’t see any results. Hopefully this is so obvious to you that you’ll understand why I didn’t even include it as a tip.

Anyway back to proper technique. When you perform an exercise incorrectly you end up emphasizing muscles other than were originally intended to be emphasized. The end result of this is that you’ll either develop strength and flexibility imbalances or you will exacerbate the imbalances you already have. When you have flexibility and or muscle imbalances you typically will have some pain, stiffness or muscle discomfort (think low back pain). Plus you put yourself at greater risk of injury when you engage in physical activities prior to addressing these imbalances.

Here’s the beauty of exercise. When done correctly it will fix your strength and flexibility imbalances. This will decrease your pain and also decrease the likelihood of experiencing an injury.

Not only will doing exercises incorrectly lead to imbalances: it can also create faulty movement patterns. Once faulty movement patters are established it can take a ton of work to correct. In fact you can develop a faulty movement pattern in as little as 300 repetitions. But it can take over 5000 repetitions to correct a faulty movement pattern.

So it’s always easier to learn proper technique when you are first starting to exercise. Trust me you’ll be rewarded for the rest of your life.

So how do you ensure that you’re doing things correctly. First of all listen and watch very closely to the videos I’ve included in this program. That is a great start. Second find a trained professional in your area and work with them for a short period of time. Tell them your goal up front. You are there to learn as much as you can about proper technique as fast as you can, then you plan to work out on your own.

Depending on your income level, personal trainers can be expensive. But the investment is well worth it.

Oh yeah! Check back periodically with Fitness Know How Headquarters, I’ll always be adding new information.

I’ll check back with you tomorrow with another tip…

Filed Under: Blog, Cardiovascular Exercise, Exercise and Fitness, Resistance Training Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Fitness Tip #16 of #31 Increase Your Vegetables

October 16, 2010 by Leave a Comment

We all hate to admit it, but Mom was right on this one! Eat more vegetables.

I want you to eat vegetables at least four times each day. You should be eating 5-7 meals each day and I highly encourage you to eat vegetables at each and every meal. Vegetables are super awesome. They are high in fiber, water, vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, as well as being low in salt and calories. In fact they are so low in calories that on my nutrition plan you are allowed unlimited vegetables. I can assure you of one thing. The increased obesity rates in the US have absolutely nothing to do with people over eating vegetables!

Now here is the challenge with this tip. Don’t mess up perfectly good vegetables with butter, bacon bits, cheese, salt…etc.

Eating vegetables regularly can have many health benefits. They are one of the most natural foods and contain different vitamins, minerals and thousands of other plant chemicals known to provide health benefits. Along with all the many disease-reducing benefits

Vegetables are low in fat and calories, a good source of dietary fiber and provide you with extra energy. All these features help control weight effectively. The presence of many vitamins and other chemicals in vegetables supply the body with nutrients necessary to boost energy production within the muscle cells. This will give you a natural feeling of vitality and the energy to become more active helping to burn more energy each day.

Now keep it fun, since fresh vegetable are the best, visit a farmer’s market whenever you can. Those will be the freshest available. Also you’ll get a greater variety as you’ll tend to be buying the vegetables that are in season. Plus you’ll be helping out your local economy….it’s win, win, win all the way around.

Don’t you just love being a winner?

Now, do as Mom said. And I be back with another tip tomorrow…

Filed Under: Blog, Nutrition Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

Fitness Tip #15 of #31 Take The Stairs (No elevators/escalators)

October 15, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Hope your goal setting was an awesome experience for you yesterday. So you should be totally fired up about getting going today. This tip you’ve heard before, take the stairs instead of escalators and elevators. This is right in line with an earlier fitness tip (Park in the furthest parking spot every place you park). By taking the stairs you are going to increase your daily energy expenditure.

Now I know the extent at which you increase activity levels will vary considerably based on how often you encounter elevators and escalators in your daily life. If you don’t today is like a “free pass” day. But if you do your energy expenditure could go through the roof (not literally) with this tip.

Stairs are awesome. You’ll increase you aerobic function and you’ll build considerable strength in your legs just by changing this one habit.

If your co-workers ask what you’re doing, tell them. This will show them you’re serious about making positive changes in your life.

Have fun with this one…see you tomorrow

Filed Under: Blog, Cardiovascular Exercise, Exercise and Fitness, Resistance Training Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Fitness Tip #14 of #31 Set Goals For Beyond The 31 Days

October 14, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Ok We’re nearing the half way mark of “31 Days to a Much Improved You”. If you remember on day one I asked you to list some individual goals for the month. How are you doing with your goals? Are you stuggling? Have you given up? Are you on track? Or are you somewhere in between?

Today I’d like for you to revisit those goals and assess how you’re doing. Based on your assessment do you just need to keep rocking it this month? Do you need to change or modify your initial intentions? Or do you need to do a little soul searching and start all over?

Whatever the case is sit down and take some time to evaluate how you’ve been doing and what you still want to accomplish in the next two weeks. Something that may help you over the next two weeks is to define some goals for yourself after this month.

Now that we’re nearing the half way point it’s time to begin preparing for long term success. So take some time today and figure out what your long term health, fitness and/or weight loss goals are. Sky’s the limit here so have fun. But remember if the goal is going to take some time to accomplish also set some short term attainable goals that will act assteps to your ultimate goals.

Here’s a reminder on good goal setting strategies;

Use the follow list to help you with your Goal Setting:

1. Decide what you want to accomplish
2. Set goals that are short, attainable and measureable
3. Create a deadline to accomplish your goal(s)
4. Develop and action plan for success
5. Visualize accomplishing your goals
6. Write your goals down
7. Review your goals daily
8. Take daily action toward your goals

Have fun, enjoy and I’ll be back tomorrow with your next Health and Fitness Tip!

Filed Under: Blog, WTF (Miscellaneous) Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Fitness Tip #13 of #31 Eat Yams/Sweet Potatoes (In place of regular potatoes)

October 13, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Carbs are awesome. I love them. They are essential to your health and fitness. The benefits are huge! Carbohydrates are an immediate source of energy for your body. When carbohydrates are available your body doesn’t need to resort to protein (muscle) to keep you alive. The more muscle you can maintain the higher your metabolism will be and the leaner and fitter and healthier you’ll be as well.

But do you want to know the 2 most important reasons to eat carbohydrates?

1. Your body can only use fat as an energy source if carbohydrates (glucose/glycogen) are present. Ok did you get that? You won’t lose body fat if you don’t eat carbs!

2. Your brain only functions on two things. Glucose (carbohydrates) and Ketone bodies. Ketone bodies are the result fatty acid breakdown in the liver when carbohydrates aren’t present. Remember Ketosis from the Adkin’s Diet? Here’s the deal. Ketosis is a step away from death. Your brain needs to function for you to breath and for your heart to beat! It needs carbs to do it. So when you eliminate carbohydrates you are literally killing yourself in the name of weight loss. Don’t ever do that again. Eat your carbs.

Now carbs have gotten a bad rap because all sorts of things that are bad for you fall into the “Carbohydrate” categories. Simple, refined sugars such as:

1. Sugar
2. Brown Sugar
3. Sugar in the Raw
4. Honey
5. Maple syrup
6. Corn syrup (it is in almost everything)
7. High Fructose Corn Syrup (worst than corn syrup)
8. Refined Grains, white flour, White bread, white rice
9. All deserts have some of these things in them

So how on earth can one eat carbs without getting fat? Simple, eat natural whole grain foods and Fruits and Vegetable (Fitness tip heads up…I get into fruit and vegetables in more detail in future tips).

Today I want you to start with eating either sweet potatoes or yams instead of regular potatoes. While all three are great sources of carbohydrates; sweet potatoes and yams are much more nutrient dense and will improve your health far more that regular potatoes. Yams provide a very good source of fiber, so they digest slower. This helps to keep your full longer and improve blood sugar regulation. They also offer a good source of potassium vitamins B1, B6, and C. They also contain a unique phytoestrogen called diosgenin that is used as a starting material for the synthesis of the hormones estrogen and progesterone.

Yams are a superfood especially since they possess phytoestrogen activity.  They contain large amounts of vitamin B6, which is required by the liver, and also contain folic acid and other B vitamins which help to detoxify excess estrogen. 

You’ll find sweet potatoes and yams in the produce section right by the potatoes. By my definition the sweet potato is white and the yam orange, but yams can come in many colors.  So go grab some Yams. Eat some healthy carbohydrates and start getting fit and healthier.

You know I’ll be back tomorrow!!!

Filed Under: Blog, Nutrition Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
«Older Posts
Newer Posts»
Copyright 2013 - Fintess Know How Headquarters