Fitness Archives - Page 41 of 42

September 1, 2014 By Parwage Alam 1 Comment

One-Stop Shop Workout – Swimming

Swimming is a sport or activity of propelling oneself through water using the limbs. Swimming is an activity that burns lots of calories, is easy on the joints, supports your weight, builds muscular strength and endurance, improves cardiovascular fitness, cools you off and refreshes you in summer, and one that you can do safely into old age.

Some people who enjoy swimming want to take it to a competitive level. This can provide the health benefits of a vigorous workout as well as the fun and thrill of competition. The main strokes used in competitive swimming are breaststroke, freestyle, backstroke and butterfly. The distances swum in competition swimming can vary from 50 meters in a pool to much further distances in open water such as the sea.

Swimming can offer people of all ages a huge range of health benefits. You might just feel and look younger, have stronger muscles, and (according to a long time swimmer) better hair. Although you might not have awesome, shiny and chlorine enriched hair, you can find at least ten other reasons to swim.

Swimming gives your body the workout minus the harsh impacts. Another benefit is the living longer factor. You prolong your life and have higher brain activity with a regular swimming program. Control your weight and have a healthier heart plus lower your risk of diabetes, stop asthma symptoms and have a higher quality of life.

Swimming is a great workout because you need to move your whole body against the resistance of the water. There are plenty of reasons to swim! Swimming is a good all-round activity because it:

Keeps your heart rate up but takes some of the impact stress off your body
Builds endurance, muscle strength and cardiovascular fitness
Helps maintain a healthy weight, healthy heart and lungs
Tones muscles and builds strength
Provides an all-over body workout, as nearly all of your muscles are used during swimming.

Swimming has many other benefits including:

Being a relaxing and peaceful form of exercise
Alleviating stress
Improving coordination, balance and posture
Improving flexibility
Providing good low-impact therapy for some injuries and conditions
Providing a pleasant way to cool down on a hot day
Being available in many places – you can swim in swimming pools, beaches, lakes, dams and rivers. Make sure that the environment you choose to swim in is safe.

Before you dive in, Make sure you know how to swim, choose a safe environment, warm up and stretch your muscles and joints before entering the water and don’t overdo it if you’re just starting out.

There you have it. Swimming is an activity that builds strength, endurance, and tones muscles. It’s an activity that you can do all year long, inside or outside, it burns lots of calories, you can share it with your family, it’s low-impact (just in case your bones are creaky), and you can do it until you’re 100! It’s not too late to start if you never learned how (learning new stuff is cool even when you’re adult!). All in all, swimming is a winner, and if you have the inclination, I suggest that you go for it!

August 19, 2014 By Shimpli Patil 4 Comments

No time for exercise? You need not FIND TIME for it!

Given the fast paced life that we all lead, we seldom pay attention to our health. Our health is definitely not on our priority list. It’s an irony of life that we get so busy earning money throughout our early years of life that our health is neglected, and then we spend the rest of the life spending the well earned money on bettering our health.

What can we do about it? Of course the direct answer to it is to ‘Eat right and Exercise Regularly’.

Now when I talk about exercise, the immediate answer to this would be “I hardly find time to do it”. Some people even shell out loads of money and join a gym but invariably end up being irregular.

The question is… do we really need to spend hours on exercise every day to get fit? Not at all! Even if you extract 1 % of your day i.e. about 15 minutes and get into some quick exercises, it will do wonders to your body! Believe me, it will!

An ideal exercise schedule should include a combination of cardio and strengthening exercises. Cardio exercises are the ones which pump up your heart rate and enhance your blood circulation. Strengthening exercises are the ones which work on your muscles, breaking them down and then recuperating them at a faster rate. It’s very essential to have a mix of both to have great fitness levels and a good body. Only cardio exercises might make you lose your muscles thus making your body flabby. Toning up is very important which is why strengthening plays an equally important role.

A simple brisk walk or a jog is a cardio exercise. You can use “walk-n-talk” method and get your 15 minute brisk walk done. If travelling by vehicle, you can park your car 15 minutes away from office and walk it up. The cab/bus travelers can get down 2 stops prior and walk it up to office. If that’s not all, you can avoid using the elevators and walk up the floors.

That’s about cardio exercises which could be done in no time and could be well adjusted in your working hours.

Now let me list down some strengthening exercises which could be done anywhere and wouldn’t consume much of your time

1) Squats:

It’s a lower body workout and helps strengthening your core (abs and trunk from the belly all around to the back), gluteus (butt and upper back thigh) and quadriceps (front thighs)

2) Pushups:

It’s an upper body workout that works on your chest, triceps and shoulders.

3) Plank:

It supports both, lower and upper body and works on gluteus and core

4) Burpees:

It’s actually a full body workout. It works on chest, shoulders, triceps, hip flexors (side hips) and core

5) Lunges:

It’s a lower body workout and strengthens your lower back, quadriceps and core.

These are the exercises which have worked quite miraculously for many. Make sure you have no knee pain or back pain before you start with these. Moreover, it’s quite crucial to have the right posture while performing these.

So get started, get active. I am sure it’s not as difficult as it looks. And trust me, Excuses don’t burn calories… they really don’t!…..Exercises do!

August 18, 2014 By Parwage Alam Leave a Comment

Stretch at Work

In my last Blog we read about “Sitting Job leads to a shorter life” and how sitting jobs are harmful for our health and life. There are many ways we can reduce our sitting time, such as taking small breaks, going for a short walk after lunch, by doing some stretches, standing meetings, etc.

I personally follow the same techniques at my work place. I prefer to have standing meetings. If you can take a break by getting up for at least five minutes after every 45 minutes, it will benefit you. There are stretches you can do at your desk that would also not bother co-workers.

Shoulder stretch: Place one hand under your elbow. Lift your elbow and stretch it across your chest. Don’t rotate your body as you stretch. Hold the stretch for 20 to 30 seconds. You’ll feel the pressure in the back of your shoulder. Relax and slowly return to the starting position. Repeat the stretch on the other side.

Arm stretch: Lift one arm and bend it behind your head. Place your other hand on the bent elbow to help stretch your upper arm and shoulder. Hold the stretch for 20 to 30 seconds. Relax and slowly return to the starting position. Repeat the stretch on the other side.

Chest stretch: Place your hands behind your head. Squeeze your shoulder blades together, bringing your elbows back as far as possible. Hold the stretch for 20 to 30 seconds. Relax and slowly return to the starting position.

The Half-Bear Hug: Hug one knee at a time, pulling it toward your chest. You don’t have to worry if your colleagues are watching you

Neck Stretch: Slowly begin to lower you neck down by lowering your chin down to your chest and hold for 10-15 seconds. Lower your head back as far as you can. Lower your right ear towards your right shoulder. Lower your left ear towards your left shoulder. Slowly turn your head to the right. Your chin will be close to your right shoulder. Slowly turn your head to the left. Your chin with be close to your left shoulder.

Stretch your scapulae: Extend your arms in front of you. Join both hands together and cross fingers. Push your arms further and try to push your scapulae in opposite directions.

Stretch your wrists: Hold your arm out. Slightly pull back your hand down with your opposite hand and try to hold 5-10 second. Repeat with other hand.

Stretch your quadriceps: Standing on one leg, raise the other foot behind you, bending the knee. You have to pull your foot as close to your buttocks as possible. Use the right hand to hold the right foot.

Hip stretch: Sit with one leg across the other. Place your arm or elbow on the outside of the crossed leg. Gently apply pressure, while looking the opposite way. Repeat with the other leg.

Standing stretch: When standing, keep knees slightly bent. Place your hands on your lower back and gently push your hands forward while leaning back slightly.

Ankle Flex and Stretch: Hold one foot off the floor with your leg straight. Alternately flex your ankle (point your toes up) and extend (point your toes down). Repeat with the other leg.

We all have jobs to do, and many of our jobs require staying seated for extended periods. But moving around is good for your physical and mental health. And it will help you perform better at your job. In the workplace, you’ve got to stand up for yourself.

August 14, 2014 By Ashwinkumar Rahate 3 Comments

Stay Fit Stay Healthy

All of us are keen on being fit. Most often we keep complaining about being overweight and therefore I need to do something about it. The most common thing said is, “I am going to go for a jog every morning, so I will lose weight”.

Other common assumptions that people have is that if they walk to office or home they do not have to do any other workout, yoga is the best way of keeping fit, I have brought dumbbells at home so I am doing workouts at home and so on…

Is this correct? As I mentioned in my previous blog (http://goqii.com/blog/benefits-of-physical-activities-part-2/) every person must invest minimum 3 days a week in physical activities as per American College of Sports &Medicine (ACSM) guidelines.

To improve Health we must focus on basic health related components of the fitness.

Focus on basic components of Fitness

Cardiovascular Endurance or cardiovascular fitness

It is the major component of fitness. The word Cardio means heart. It is also known as cardio respiratory fitness and aerobic fitness. It refers to the capacity of heart, lungs and the vascular system to supply oxygenated blood to the working muscles tissue and the muscle capacity to use that oxygen which helps in producing the movements. If we involve ourselves in cardiovascular fitness regularly, the heart becomes stronger and efficient to supply oxygenated blood to the body. Cardiovascular exercise should be done for prolong period of time. These include jogging, running, cycling, swimming, skipping, aerobics and lots of exercise.

Muscular Strength

Muscular strength refers to the ability or a capacity of lifting a weight. This activity is fall under anaerobic zone because in this workout oxygen is not used .To improve muscular strength we need to do weight training.

Muscular Endurance

Muscular endurance refers to the performance of the repetitive contraction for extended or prolonged period of time. The exercise may be for the single muscle or the group of muscles. Activity which is more than fifteen seconds but less than two minutes includes in the muscular endurance training. Weight training helps to improve muscular endurance.

Flexibility

Flexibility refers to a range of joint motions. Stretching can help improve flexibility. Dynamic stretches are done before we start our exercises. Static stretches are done after the workout during the cool down phase. During, static stretching we need to hold each stretch minimum fifteen seconds to get maximum benefits.

Body Composition

Body composition refers to the ratio between fat mass and fats free mass in the body More the muscle and less body fat is consider a great body composition. More fats and fewer muscles indicate poor body composition. Greater body composition can be achieved with following the above basic components of fitness such as muscular strength, muscular endurance, cardiovascular endurance and flexibility with the support of balance nutrition.

In as short if you are only jogging or brisk walking does not help. You have to look at the entire exercise components to achieve the necessary fitness and health goals. You can do alternates days of weight training and cardiovascular exercise. Following the above routine is one of the best examples of targeting all the components of the fitness.