Fitness | GOQii

August 9, 2018 By Parwage Alam 33 Comments

Yoga for the beginners: Some myths and benefits

Couple of months ago I had written a blog on meditation.(http://goqii.com/blog/author/parwage/). I now follow this written piece with a blog on Yoga which is also one of the ways to get stress free in your life and relax. I have been practicing Yoga for the last 8 years and have full faith in this form of exercise. Yoga can bring about positive changes in your life if practiced well. I personally feel the ‘Power of Yoga’.

Yoga is a precious gift given to us by our elders and can be practiced to better our lives. Originated in India, almost 26,000 years ago, Yoga is believed to have evolved during the period of the ‘Sat Yuga’, also called the Golden age. The term yoga can be derived from either yujir yoga (to yoke) or yujsamadhau (to concentrate).

While Yoga originated in India today, many people across the world practice yoga. Yoga in a way is helping many to achieve their physical fitness goal. Through this blog post, I would like to talk about the myths that are attached with Yoga and the benefits of Yoga for one and all.

A strong and flexible body, glowing beautiful skin, peaceful mind, good health – whatever you may be looking for, yoga has it on offer. Yoga helps you to achieve your overall fitness level. If you do follow Yoga regularly you are not just physically fit but, also mentally and emotionally balanced.

Ten minutes of yoga during the day can be a great way to get rid of stress that accumulates daily – in body and in the mind. This will also help you to achieve your inner peace. Some of yoga asanas are effective techniques to release stress.

Some myths regarding yoga :

There is only one type of yoga:Vinyasa is the most popular type of yoga right now and involves using your breath with movement. Hatha yoga is slower with more static postures. Power yoga is more strengthening and cardiovascular. These are just a sampling of the many available styles today.
Yoga requires time-commitment:If you give 10 min in a day daily to yoga, you can change your life.
Yoga is only for women: This is not true. It has been proven by many schools of yoga that one and all can practice Yoga
You have to be extremely agile: Yes, it’s true that there are some difficult yoga positions but, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to be super agile to practice yoga. Most postures can be modified to fit all skill levels or you can choose a position that isn’t so hard on the body.

Benefits of Yoga:

Yoga has both physical and mental benefits to the body and mind.

Health Benefits:

Physical benefits: Yoga improves flexibility and muscle joint mobility (Moving and stretching in new ways will help you become more flexible,).

Tones, strengthens and builds muscles; corrects posture; strengthens the spine (Many yoga poses require you to support the weight of your own body in new ways, including balancing on one leg (such as in Tree Pose) or supporting yourself with your arms (such as in Downward Facing Dog). Holding poses over the course of several breaths also builds strength.

Eases back pain; improves muscular-skeletal conditions such as bad knees, tight shoulders and neck, swayback and scoliosis; increases stamina; boosts immune response; stimulates the glands of the endocrine system; creates balance and grace; improves digestion and elimination; increases circulation; improves heart conditions; improves breathing disorders; decreases cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

Mental benefits:

Mental Calmness, Stress Reduction, Body Awareness

Asanas are good for developing coordination and helps to improve your concentration levels and memory. Regular practice can enable young people to keep their natural flexibility for many years. There is no age bar for Yoga.Yoga allows each and everyone who is practicing it to retain mobility and relieve problems such as arthritis and poor circulation. During pregnancy, yoga promotes good health in both mother and the unborn child. Yoga asanas lessen the effects of problems such as overweight, backache, and depression.

Here are some Yoga Asanas for the Beginners:

Mountain Pose (Tadasana) :Stand tall with feet together, shoulders relaxed, weight evenly distributed between your soles, arms on the sides.Take a deep breath and raise your hands overhead, palms facing each other with arms straight. Reach up toward the sky with your fingertips.

Downward Facing Dog (Adhomukhasvanasana): Get on all fours with your hands and knees and shoulder-and-hips-width apart. Walk with your hands a few inches forward and spread the fingers wide, pressing the palms into mat. Curl toes under and slowly press hips toward ceiling, bringing your body into an inverted V, pressing shoulders away from ears. Feet should be hip-width apart, knees slightly bent. Hold for 3-4 full breaths.

Warrior Pose (Virabhadrasana): Stand with legs 3 to 4 feet apart, turning right foot out 90 degrees and left foot in slightly. Bring your hands to your hips and relax your shoulders, then extend arms out to the sides, palms down. Bend right knee 90 degrees, keeping the knee over the ankle; gaze out over right hand. Stay for 1 minute. Switch sides and repeat.

Tree Pose (Vriksasana): Take mountain pose. Then shift your weight onto your left leg. With your hips facing forward, place the sole of your right foot inside your left thigh and find your balance. When you’re there, take a prayer position with your hands. To kick it up a notch, reach your arms up as you would in a mountain pose. Be sure to repeat with the other side.

Bridge Pose (Setubhanda): Lie on the floor with your knees bent and directly over the heels. Place the arms on your sides, palms down. Exhale, then press feet onto the floor as you lift your hips. Clasp hands under lower back and press arms down, lifting hips until thighs are parallel to the floor, bringing chest toward chin. Hold for 1 minute.
Make it easier: Place a stack of pillows underneath your tailbone.

Triangle Pose (Trikonasana): Take warrior pose on your right side without lunging into your knee. Then touch the inside of your right foot with the outside of your right hand. Reach up to the ceiling with your left hand. Turn your gaze toward and pass your left hand to stretch your back. Don’t forget to repeat it on the other side.

Upward Facing Dog (Urdhvamukhasvanasana): Lie face down on the floor with your thumbs under shoulders, legs extended with the top of your feet on the floor. Tuck your hips downward as you squeeze your glutes. Keeping your shoulders down, push up and lift your chest off the ground. Relax and repeat.

Pigeon Pose (Ekapadarajakapotasana): Start in a push-up position, your palms under your shoulders. Place your left knee on the floor near your shoulders with your left heel by your right hip. Press your hands to the floor and sit back with your chest lifted. You can also lower your chest closer to the floor for a stretch. Try it on the other side.

Child’s Pose (Balasana): Sit up comfortably on your heels. Roll your torso forward, bringing your forehead to rest on the bed in front of you. Lower your chest as close to your knees as you comfortably can, extending your arms in front of you. Hold the pose and breathe.

What are you waiting for, get up, plan your day and bring Yoga into your lifestyle and stay stress-free lifelong.

August 3, 2018 By Anusha Subramanian Leave a Comment

GOQii Trail Challenge 2018: An Adventure Awaits!

Trekking as we all know is a fun activity. Spending multiple hours on the trail, climbing around boulders, rock hopping and ascending hills is a notion that is appealing to all of us. GOQii Trail Challenge 2018 (GTC) bestows upon you an opportunity to turn this notion into reality.

The scenic beauty of Mandangad, about 4 hours from Mumbai.

The trail challenge is all set to take place in Mandangad, about 4 hours from Mumbai, is scheduled to be held on the 24th of November. The course involves a 50-kilometer endurance walk, which must be completed within 18 hours, making the venture more exigent. GTC is an endurance walk exclusive for GOQii players. Non-GOQii players can download the app and register in order to participate. Every team should comprise of not more than two players, with each team having the freedom to walk for an NGO they resonate with. GOQii has teamed up with 6 NGO’s in order to put together this event, offering diverse tenets for you to choose from. The minimum amount to be raised by each team is Rs 5000, which excludes the registration fees of Rs 2500 per player.

Why should you choose to walk in GTC 2018?

GOQii has come up with such a property for the first time in its history. Accommodating over two hundred thousand GOQii players, we represent a vast diversity. GTC welcomes it’s player’s from all around the world, making you one of the many ‘citizens of the world’. Exciting stuff right? It’s not over yet.

We also present to you an exciting platform to meet and mingle with like-minded GOQii players. This fairly demanding adventure aims to push you towards a deeper sense of euphoria, which is attained, only when one breaks those physical and mental strictures they are bounded by. Here at GOQii, we focus on your logic as to why not and prove you wrong. Let me take a moment to quote a former U.S president, “The only limit to our realizations of tomorrow will be our doubts of today.” – Franklin D Roosevelt.

Breathtaking views all along the course.

For many of you, contemplating on making a difference to your lives, struggle to put a finger on where to begin. By walking this trail, you are supporting a cause, standing up for something you believe in and on the go promoting charities that do extensive groundwork. If you think this isn’t a good start for a new beginning, think again. Apart from the social causes, this event stands for, GTC provides you with a chance to stay healthy and fit in an unorthodox manner. If you are someone who is particular about achieving your goals more time-bound, GOQii Trail Challenge 2018 is definitely the trek for you. Let’s stop with the benefits now, are you really going to miss out on an opportunity to visit this rich reservoir of Bio- Diversity? This experience is surely going to provide you with that zest for life, you were looking for. Think no more. Pack your bags, put on those boots and remember to download the GOQii app.

August 2, 2018 By Mohammed Tufail Qureshi Leave a Comment

Role of Glutamine in our body

Many of us exercise in the gyms but, most of us are unaware of many things that are associated with workouts and our body. Glutamine is one such thing and many of us are unaware of what is its role in our body.

Glutamine is one of the 20 amino acids that are used to make protein. Glutamine can be found in muscle tissue, plasma, and in nearly every animal product you gulp down. It is found in animal-derived protein sources such as meats, dairy products, and eggs.

Glutamine is critically important to a wide range of bodily processes and our body can produce enough to meet its needs under normal circumstances but, not always. It is more essential for our body if we regularly work out.

During intense workouts, the need for glutamine is higher than the body’s capability to produce it. Apart from workouts, during conditions of stress such as illness, burns, surgery or fasting, the body’s requirement of Glutamine is so high that it cannot be met by its slow rate of synthesis. Since we use it faster than we produce it, we must supplement it in our diet. It might thus become necessary to consume dietary sources of glutamine when our body is under tremendous pressure

Glutamine increases the amount of circulating plasma growth hormone. An increased amount of the growth hormone will help you stay leaner and stronger. Lack of Glutamine or Glutamine depletion can lead to an extreme drop in IMMUNE SYSTEM function making the body vulnerable to infections.

Glutamine is also helpful for reducing muscle soreness and faster muscle recovery post workouts. Glutamine is a strong ANTI-CATABOLIC, powerfully reducing muscle breakdown caused by workout related muscle stress.

Interestingly, for years high levels of glutamine have been used for patients involved in high trauma accidents to prevent muscle loss. The same theory applies when you exercise if you supplement Glutamine, your body won’t need to break muscle and pull Glutamine out of it

The dosage of glutamine can be 10 grams on your workout days and 5 grams on non-workout days. The best times to use glutamine is directly after exercise (5 gms) and right before bed (5 grams). On rest days, 5gms can be consumed before bed.

July 20, 2018 By Parwage Alam 10 Comments

No time for work out? Turn your daily household chores into your daily workout

Taking care of the house is a thankless job and is a never-ending job. I remember that my mom used to be always busy with her household chores and never gets the time to do any workout “There is no finish line.”. One day when I came back from my workout and saw my mom doing her regular housework, an idea struck me- an idea where I thought why we don’t transform the daily housework into a daily workout. Why not make the most of it? The next thing I did was to guide my Mom to correct the posture while doing her household work.

Most housewives struggle with the fact that due to lack of time they usually skip working out. Like any other physical activity, housework can tone muscles if you do it correctly and in the right posture. It’s already proved that short bouts of relatively mild exercise can help improve your fitness level—especially for those who do little or no physical activity or are just getting started.

Lunges (Vacuum Cleaning): When you are doing vacuum cleaning, you can walk in a Lunges posture. Remember to keep your knees directly above your ankles, your back straight and your abs engaged. You will know this is working by feeling the pressure in your thighs and glutes. Lunges are a good exercise for strengthening, sculpting and building several muscles/muscle groups, including the quadriceps (or thighs), the gluteus maximus (or buttocks) as well as the hamstrings

Squat: Pick up items on the floor or tables by squatting. Keep your back straight, squat deeply by bending your knees. Hold for 15 seconds before rising up again. Squats is full body exercise that trains primarily the muscles of the thighs, hips and buttocks, quadriceps (vastus lateral, vastus medialis, vastus intermedius and rectus femoris), hamstrings, as well as strengthening the bones, ligaments and insertion of the tendons throughout the lower body.

Make a circle. Instead of cleaning here and there when scrubbing the Glass doors or cleaning windows, make long, sweeping movements. For example, when you are cleaning the doors or windows, take long swipes from top to bottom, squatting (not bending!) to reach the lower spots. This will give you a fantastic shoulder workout and engage your entire lower body. If you want you can also hold a small bucket of water in your other hand to increase the strengthening of your arms.

Sweeping: While sweeping tuck your stomach and oblique muscles in, Back straight and bring the bristles of the broom as far as possible and pull in.

Dance on the beat! Turn on the music system while doing the household chores and dance to the music the way you want. Try to use some fast music so you’ll be encouraged to pick up your speed and break a sweat. To know more about Dance you can check this blog written by my fellow coach Shimpli Patil

– https://goqii.com/blog/lets-dance-for-a-better-health-and-a-better-you/

Step it up: Use a stepladder, stairs or step stool when you need to reach high areas. Try to repeat the same steps 8-10 times, believe me, this is a really great exercise for your hamstrings. Try to straighten your back. You can simulate your own step aerobics class this way!

Loading the Washing machine: When you are loading or unloading your washing machine just twist and move. This movement will help to strengthen your core.

Sculpt and Fold: Lifting laundry can be the toughest part of your routine. Tone your arms by holding them raised at 90° angle as you carry the laundry basket. Use the squats and lunges posture with your legs as your fold.

Take a swing. Instead of cleaning your rugs, carpets, sheet using a vacuum cleaner, take them outside, hang them up, pick up your broom and show your muscular talent- swing away to beat out the dust and dirt. In this activity, you will involve more muscles than vacuuming alone and help you get some fresh air.

Always prefer stairs: Instead of making one trip up and down, try to convert it into multiple trips with the clean or dirty clothes. Remember, we have a target to do more work as a workout, not less work with the help you machineries.