Fitness Archives - Page 36 of 42

April 20, 2015 By Nilakhi Nath 3 Comments

What do you know about doing crunches?

PRO’S AND CON’S OF CRUNCHES

Summer is here, and it’s the time to flaunt your perfect physique. Some of them have that perfect beach body already and many of them dream to have one all the time.

To have that perfect body, the one most common thing that a person resorts to is an exercise called ‘Crunches’. But, before one does hundreds of Crunches, is it not necessary to know its pro’s & con’s?

The answer is ‘Yes’, it is indeed extremely important to understand the advantages and disadvantages of an exercise.

Let’s have a look at some of them here,

Pro’s

It is an exercise which can be done anytime. You don’t have to go to a gym to perform crunches. You can do these at home.
Crunches help you tone and strengthen the muscles in the abdomen.
Helps build the core muscles. Hence, improves the stability of your body
Gives you a perfect ripped midsection.

Con’s

While regular crunches helps to build the abdominal muscles and strengthen our core, performing the same exercise in a wrong way or too many repetitions at once may potentially increase the risk of a back or a neck injury.
To have a perfect beach body, it is necessary to maintain a balance between the structures. This balance is disrupted when we over work or build only a section of our abdominal muscles. We tend to focus on our front abdominals more than our oblique’s and the back muscles, which are also a part of our core. This imbalance results in faulty posture and loss of balance.
Larger muscles burn more fat. Crunches use only a specific muscle group and don’t involve the larger group of muscles. Hence, the amount of fat burnt is less.

So, should we continue to do the Crunches or stop it completely? Well, I suggest that we do this exercise by following the proper technique and minimizing the repetitions to protect our spine.

April 13, 2015 By Parwage Alam 9 Comments

CRICKET and FOOT BALL—Your healthy path to fitness!

How often have you taken a cricket bat and ball or just a football and decided to go to an open ground and play with your group of friends? I am sure very often. Both these games that originated in England and is a world sport today is very popular and played both among children and adults across the world.

More so playing these games as a hobby is very cheap and also makes one healthy and fit. These sports help you develop muscles and burn calories while improving your coordination and stamina. Working on your coordination and stamina are important for this game.

Let’s take a look at some of the benefits that Cricket has to offer in terms of fitness:

Endurance and stamina – You need to have strong endurance and stamina as you have to concentrate and play for several hours.
2. Improved hand-eye coordination – Whether you are bowling, batting or Fielding, playing cricket will improve these skills.
3. Physical fitness – This involves short bursts of sprinting and throwing, no matter what your position, either between wickets when you’re batting, when you’re running up to bowl, or when you’re running after a ball in the field, which is good for cardio-vascular health..
4. With eleven players a side, you’ll make ten new friends and that’s healthy.

An interesting fact is that Cricketers for better performance play football to build their stamina and increase their fitness levels. Various international research papers indicate that men who played football for an hour-3 times a week had lower levels of blood fats, lower body fat, increased muscle mass and lower blood pressure than inactive men.

Benefits of Playing Football

Football has greater health benefits than jogging because it combines slow and fast movement with sprinting and this combination of fast, slow and sprint makes the heart work at different paces, which really helps one to control body fat and increases overall fitness. Playing football also releases a healthy level of endorphins, which act as mood stabilizers.

Playing football improves the coordination of your body, as the intensity and different range of movements involved in Football vary, including kicks, turns, twists and sprints, provide better overall exercise.

So forget the gadget games and keep aside your x-box. Gadget games will only reduce your life span and make you lead a sedentary lifestyle. Instead get your group together and shake your hands and legs playing cricket or Football in the outdoors. It will only increase your lifespan and make you more healthy and fit.

March 11, 2015 By Ashwinkumar Rahate 6 Comments

Are you wearing the right shoes to the Gym? Importance of Gym shoes

How important are shoes for any outdoor or indoor activity? Seldom do people realise that shoes –and that too and the right shoes are the mainstay in any sporting activity.

I have always seen when people go to work out in a gym, most of their focus is on getting the right attire. Their shorts, tights, track pants, t shirt etc.. but, to get the right shoes is the last priority or not a priority at all. This is absolutely wrong.

According to me the most important of all gears for a gym workout is the shoes. Let me explain to you why Gym Shoes are important for the workout.

Immunity

As a fitness professional, I insist gym goers to use separate pair of shoes for the workout. The basic reason for this is not only the hygiene factor but, also its related to our immunity! Shocked?

Now the big question that has probably cropped up in your mind after reading this is how is that I am relating a separate gym shoes to Immunity? What is the relation between immunity and shoes hygiene? The answer to your query is plain and simple. When we are working out, our immunity level drops and if wear the same shoe that we wear outdoors it’s unhygienic. This unhygienic shoes cause infection and there will be greater chances of falling sick.

Safety

One of the reasons for wearing shoes in fitness centres or gym is safety. We cannot possibly run on the treadmill without shoes. Secondly, we tend to roam in the gym fro one area to the other. In the area where free weights and dumbbells are there its safe to be wearing your shoes and entering here so as to avoid any kind of injury such as the weights falling on your feet etc..

Weight Training Exercises

The Specific shoes for weightlifting will help to perform the power training like squats and deadlight like exercises. It is not a good idea performing weight lifting exercises in other sport shoes like running which will result in muscles not only not getting trained correct but, there is a great possibility of injury to the knees as well as your ankles.

When you wear the right footwear for the activity, you will be confident and that confidence will boost your performance .The performance in the way of targeting your muscles core efficient, adding more weight in your exercise like squats and dead lift etc

I insists do your workout in proper Gym Shoes

March 2, 2015 By Ashwinkumar Rahate 1 Comment

TRADITIONAL FITNESS TRAINING VS FUNCTIONAL FITNESS TRAINING

Given today’s monotonous and fast paced life, if one is not thinking about being fit and healthy then there is something drastically wrong. Fitness and Health is essential for today’s life. Daily we should have a fitness regime to be healthy. Some prefer to go to the gym and exercise and some prefer the outdoors. Either way it’s a good thing

But, the bigger question I am always posed with is between traditional fitness training (TFT)and functional fitness training (FFT) , which is better?

Let me explain to you what the two methods of exercise are. In traditional fitness training we train to improve our muscular fitness as well as flexibility which brings about many positive changes in us such as muscles build up, improvement in bone density, lowering of fat percentage in the body and many more benefits.

But, this fitness regime will not help in our day to day activities such as standing walking, lifting etc. because TFT involves doing only one type of exercise at a time. Also in weight training you concentrate and target one major muscle at a time. In TFT we do not do the exercises that are used in day to day life- for example Dumbbells Curl is a great exercise for the Biceps but, it is not part of our daily routine.

Functional Fitness Training (FFT) involves the movements we use in our day to day life such as sitting, walking, lifting object etc. For example exercise like Squats, Lunges which are useful in day to day activities.

FFT is more effective as its benefits are many. For instance it focuses on body stabilisation because it consists of exercises like squats, lunges, push ups etc. At a time we can focus on multiple muscle groups, it helps to improve our body posture and finally also helps to prevent injury..

According to me we need to balance between TFT and FFT which will eventually give us the desired results of being fit and healthy.