Category: Fitness Articles

Swimming is one of the most commonplace forms of moderate exercise available along with running and cycling. They all offer great benefits to your lifestyle should you commit to doing them 3 or more times a week. Here are five of the many reasons why you should get yourself to the local swimming pool as soon as possible:

1. Full Body Workout – Unlike gym training, swimming is an overall body workout that works practically every muscle group in your body. It tones your arms and legs as well as working your shoulders, your back and your abs. Not only this, but swimming is a cardio-intensive form of exercise, so it will improve your overall fitness and stamina.

2. Low risk of injury – Due to the buoyancy of water, swimming is easy on your joints and bones. Road running can add strain to your joints – especially your knees – so being able to swim regularly means you can still get your cardio exercise fix without increasing the risk of injury.  So you can swim every day without pushing your body too far.

3. Speed up your metabolism – Like any cardio exercise you burn calories when swimming, but not only this, your body has to work harder to fuel the muscles you’ve been using (and with swimming that’s almost all of them!). Your body’s metabolism speeds up which means you’ll be burning more calories even after your workout, and even while you sleep. So maybe you only swim for 30 minutes, but your body will work for a hours afterwards, meaning you will burn more than the estimated 500 calories per hour.

4. Affordable – Unlike an expensive gym membership, you can pay-as-you-go at many swimming pools, so you can go regularly without worrying about it being too expensive. Not only this, but you don’t need much in the means of expensive equipment either. A quality bike could cost upwards of £1,000, whereas you can pick up a pair of goggles and a swimsuit (and maybe a swimming hat) for a few dollars.

5. You won’t ‘bulk up’ – Those trying to gain body mass might not see it as an advantage, but many people want to keep fit and get lean without becoming the next body building champion. Swimming is one of the best forms of exercise for burning fat and toning your muscles. Too much resistance training can put strain on muscles and reduce flexibility, whereas swimming requires a range of movements and ensures your muscles stay nice and flexible.

Check out this female body building contest contestant number two doesn’t look very happy at being placed second.

6. It’s not exclusive – Swimming is available to all. You can sign up your new born child to swimming classes from as young as three months, and you can swim for as long as your physically able to exercise, or even after that. Those with injuries that prevent them from running, cycling or going to the gym may still be able to swim thanks to the buoyancy of the water as it reduces the stress that gravity would otherwise create.

7. A healthy body and mind – the health benefits of swimming are vast. Due to the aerobic nature of swimming, the most important muscle in the body gets a proper work out every time you’re in the pool. The exercise helps improve the efficiency of the heart, meaning it pumps more effectively (not to mention the increase in size and strength). With the reduction in body fat that comes with swimming regularly helps reduce the risk of diabetes as well as improving levels of cholesterol.

Then there is the benefits to the mind to consider too. Swimming (like many exercises) releases our ‘feel-good’ chemicals known as endorphins. These chemicals reduce our stress levels and make us feel more upbeat and content. Not only this, but the rhythmical breathing patterns combined with the regular muscle relaxation/contraction needed when swimming makes swimming a calming experience.

So that’s it, there’s nothing left to other than grab your swimsuit, get down to your local swimming pool and start racking up some lengths. Fancy a challenge? See how many lengths you can do in one visit, and increase it by one extra length every few times you visit.

Running is one of the easiest ways to increase and maintain your cardiovascular fitness.  However, if you’ve never run for fitness, starting a routine can feel overwhelming.  This article will break the process of starting a running routine down into easy to complete steps.  Start today and you’ll be a veteran runner in no time!

Step One – Shoe Selection

Your running routine will start with one step and will require millions of steps from that point forward.  Before you start pounding the pavement, you’ll want to make sure to invest in a good pair of running shoes.  When purchasing your first pair of kicks, visit a specialty running shoe store where you can have your feet and running form assessed.  While this will be more expensive than going to a discount store or buying your shoes on-line, having proper running shoes will prevent needless injuries.

How will you know if the running shoe store salespeople know what they’re talking about?  Your salesperson should ask you questions about the type of terrain you will be running on and intended weekly mileage.  You can also expect to have the salesperson watch you run in a pair of shoes to check your form. If you have an old pair of walking shoes, wear these as the wear pattern of your old shoes can provide information on the type of shoe that will be best for your foot.

If you have time to do some extra work before your visit to the store, try to complete

a “wet test.” The wet test can help you identify the type of arch that you have.  To complete this test, wet your feet and walk on pavement.  If you can see your entire footprint after walking, you have what’s considered a “flat foot.” If your footprint barely shows any part of your arch and the wet impression has a large vertical indent, you have a “high arch.” If your footprint is somewhere between these two extremes, you have a “normal arch.”  Knowing your arch type before you go shopping will help your salesperson pull shoes appropriate for your feet from the beginning.

Still not keen on shopping at a specialty store? These specialty shop employees are usually runners themselves.  Shop at a store that is local to you and you can pick up some tips for running routes, road races, and even running clubs in your area.

Over 60,000 Pairs of running shoes at amazon click here

Check out the Reebok range

Step Two – Assessing Your Current Fitness Level

Once you have your running shoes ready, assessing your current fitness level is a great way to help you track progress and make sure you’re not over training.  While there are many fitness tests that you can complete, we’ll focus on two tests specific to your cardiovascular fitness: identifying your resting heart rate and completing a 1-mile fit test.

To calculate your resting heart rate, take your pulse for one minute right after you wake up in the morning.  Sit still and find your pulse to begin. The two most common pulses to find are the radial and carotid pulse.  The radial pulse is found on the side of your wrist near your thumb. Find it with the index and middle fingers of your opposite hand.  The carotid pulse is found on your neck between your windpipe and the hollow of your neck.  No matter which pulse you choose, find a stopwatch and let the time run for 1 minute while you count the beats. If you have a watch with an alarm, this will make the test a lot easier. Write down your resting heart rate and the date you tested it.  Check your heart rate daily. If your heart rate is increasing, this is a sign of over training.  With proper training, you can expect your resting heart rate to decrease by about 10 beats per minute (bpm)after 10-20 weeks of training.

In addition to identifying your resting heart rate, completing a 1-mile fit test is a great way to assess your current cardiovascular fitness level.  All you need to do is complete a 1-mile walk, time the walk, and take your pulse for 10 seconds at the end of the test.

During the test, try to keep an even pace. If you use a track or treadmill you can check in with yourself at segments throughout the walk. As you cross the 1-mile mark, stop your stopwatch so you can record your time. Take a 10-second heart rate and record this value.  Multiply your 10-second pulse by 6 to get your heart rate.  The time it took for you to complete the test and your heart rate can be compared against other test-takers. More importantly, the test is something you can complete in the future to observe improvement in your cardiovascular fitness over time.

Step Three – Get Ready, Get Set, Run!

Now that you have the proper running equipment and a way to monitor progress in your routine, you’re ready to start running.   All of your runs will have three parts: a warm-up, training segment, and a cool down.  Your warm-up and cool-down will consist of 5-10 minutes of lower intensity activity. When you’re starting out, walking is a great way to warm-up and cool-down.

As your fitness level improves, you can exchange your walking warm-up and cool-down for jogging ones.  Save static stretching for after your cool-down.  Current research shows that stretching before working out is not beneficial and likely to cause injury.

With the general outline of a running session taken care of, let’s look into the training part of your routine.  This segment will slowly increase in length and then speed as you work on your fitness level.  Start with a training segment of 10-20 minutes.  If you’re just starting out, you may need to jog one minute and walk one minute.  That’s fine! Listen to your body and adjust accordingly with the ultimate goal of running for the entire training segment.

Beginners should complete their running sessions every other day for an average of 3-5 days a week for the first 4-6 weeks of training to develop a base.  Record the details of your run so you can track progress and set goals.  To progress a running program, first increase the time you spend running.

For example, work up to 15 minutes of running without stopping. Next, increase the distance you cover during a given time.  Maybe your first 15-minute run covered 1.5 miles and your goal is to cover 1.75 miles in that time. Finally, add a resistance challenge. Instead of running on a track or treadmill with no incline, see if you can add some hill work to your run.

Extreme Running

Some Final Thoughts

The biggest tip for beginning runners is to just get started!  Don’t feel bad about alternating minutes of running with minutes of jogging.  All runners start this way. Keep with your program and you’ll start to see results.

Are you an aspiring runner? Do you have some additional thoughts and concerns about running? Post a comment below to get some feedback.  Found this article helpful? Share it with your friends and inspire them to join you on a run today!

How To Get Into The Habit Of Exercising Everyday? For a lot of people, exercise is at the bottom of their to-do list, but you know that you have to do it at some point or at least try to fit it into your busy schedule.

It’s not only good for maintaining a healthy weight, it helps to prevent chronic diseases and also helps you feel better everyday, but with some changes, you can make exercise a daily habit that isn’t a chore. Here are some ways that you can start to make exercise a priority in your day to day life, it’s not too difficult to follow these basic rules and exercise is perfect for releasing stress.

Set A Specific Time

An unshaped belly is a problem of almost every working professional but the time is the biggest fitness obstacle for such people. You try to steal some minutes from your hectic schedule and after trying hard on machines to burn calories what do you get at the end? Efforts without training and guidance are just as useful as pushing the watt to move it.

Cross fit fitness is a not so easy but most effective way to gain your fitness back, yes; I used the word not so easy because it need your efforts and zeal to get in shape. Crossfit fitness uses the mix of aerobic exercise, Olympic weight lifting and body weight exercises for cardiovascular fitness in a hardcore yet accepting and encouraging environment. The technique of varying weights, intense functional movement is used to gain desired results.

Why it is so effective? Many people doubt about the crossfit fitness but the essence of the high success rate is in its personal touch, unlike the gym and yoga classes it focuses on individual’s efforts in a team. It is more wonderful to put your efforts when you are surrounded by other people cheering you and at last the sense of satisfaction and accomplishment when you finish a workout faster than last time.

What makes crossfit fitness best?
Building relations: – unlike the professional gym, in crossfit you actually get in touch with others. Most of the crossfit fitness academies will offer you outing programs which in itself are more than sufficient to get to know our society.

• Personal Coaching: – though it is not a one to one coaching still it comprises a personal feeling…
  Step by step: – You turn your own barometer. You know how much weight you are putting on shoulders and you know how many reps and sets you’re doing…you notice a constant improvement, you also have control on how much increase in weights and efforts you need. Slowly working your way you gradually develop your own way for mastering the prescribed workouts.

• Encouraging: – At the end of the day you might end your workout lying on your back on the ground, but you have a sense of accomplishment when you finish a workout efficiently and effectively.
• Hard competition: – it’s wonderful feeling when you push yourself more and more and gives an amazing feeling of being a part of something great when people around you cheer you up for you increasing efforts.

Only one day class of crossfit will change your life. It attracted so many people to weight lifting, especially women who would have never ever attempted to get off the treadmill and strength train.

What are the cons of Crossfit fitness?

• Not Becoming a Hamster: – Crossfit fitness is not designed to make you master of any particular domain like power lifting, or athlete. If you want to do so, search a professional coach for the specific field.
• Uneven programming: – sometimes you need to do some exercise which looks odd and also which is not suitable for amateurs. Many exercises need highly professional way and timing to perform it which is done recklessly in crossfit.
• Lack of Coherence: – it becomes very hard for you to track your own performance when you face no repetition of the past exercise which you mastered giving two weeks of your time.

Cost it may looks costumer when compared to other professional gym programs buy the price justifies the result.

Need a good “Guru” :- While doing advance moves it often require a month to [earn it perfectly and while doing so the heavy weights can lead you to painful injuries. so DO NOT rush to get a trainer, search a perfect coach which will save you from painful consequences.

Addiction: – last but not the least, you might get addicted of the crossfit fitness. This can go in pro or con depending on your own perception and the intensity of addiction. Many people who adopted crossfit fitness instead of traditional Aerobics, yoga or gym practices have found it more addictive but more effective as well. The madness about crossfit can be traced with the fact that people doing crossfit have developed their own language and own community where they are getting married only in the “Crossfit community”.