Importance of Stretching before Exercise

Benefits of Stretching

The body is flexible. It is supposed to be flexible. You must be able to bend and reach that something you dropped on the floor. You must be able to zip the back of your favorite dress on your own. You must be able to reach that book you need to read at the top shelf.

These are simple activities. Nothing grand about them, you merely stretched out a bit. However, if there are difficulties in doing such simple motions, then you have to stretch your limits. You already need a stretching program.

What Is Stretching?

Stretching is simply the act of extending to full length the body or simply a part of it. This activity involves straightening or stretching the structure or the limbs.

How Does One Do the Stretching?

Stretching is fairly easy. As mentioned in the introduction, it is involved in the normal activities. It can be done by any people, regardless of age.

However the extent of stretching and flexing differs. The muscles tighten as a person ages. The range of joint movements can be minimized. This can very well obstruct an on-the-go lifestyle. That is why as the person grows older, bending or flexing becomes more limited. This is why stretching regularly, as part of a routine is very important.

Simple stretches can be done everyday. It can be incorporated in the lifestyle and the daily activities. It does not require much of your time.

Stretching exercises can also be done while training. Actually, stretching is an essential part of any training or sport. It must be done first before anything else. Stretching the body and the limbs is a good preparation for a more rigorous activity.

Most athletes would do the sit and reach, wherein they position on the floor, extend their legs and reach the tip of their foot with the tip of their hand. Actually, most trainers actually require their athletes to really do the stretching before playing.

There is actually an ideal length of time in stretching. It is best to do it in 10 minutes. This will give the body enough opportunity to move and flex the muscles, thus preparing it for more complicated and strenuous movements.

Experts however would frown upon going way beyond 10 minutes. Stretching the exercise to 30 minutes or more will already wear out the body. This will not be favorable if one is preparing for a game.

What Are the Benefits of Stretching?

1. Increase the Range of Movement
As one constantly do the stretching exercises, the length of the muscles and the tendons are also increased. This will help in increasing the range of your movement. Thus, the limbs and joints will be able to move, way before an injury can take place. You are definitely physically fit.

2. Increased Ability to Perform Skills
When you have a wide range of movement, the more you will be able to do more things. For example, you can jump high without feeling any pain when you land back on the floor. This will also help you start a new sport or improve more if you are in one. Stretching in this aspect also allows you to have a more active lifestyle.

3. Injury Prevention
One can prevent injury to joints, tendons and muscles with stretching. When the muscles and tendons are well-flexed, they are considered in good working order. This will help in a faster recovery and decreased soreness. The muscles of the body will be able to take more exhausting and rigorous movements with less probability of being injured.

4. Reduce Muscle Tension
If the muscles are given their regular exercises and stretching, it is less likely that they will contract. This will definitely relieve you of any muscle pain or problems.

5. Enhance Energy
Being able to move more will also give you more energy. Stretching will also help enhance your awareness, like knowing that you have a body that is capable of doing many things. As such, you are going to be more driven to move rather than sulk in the corner.

6. Reduces Cholesterol
Research also shows that doing prolonged stretching exercises, like yoga, will help reduce the cholesterol in the body. This of course must be done with a healthy diet at hand. This could prevent and even reverse the hardening of the arteries, allowing you to avoid coronary diseases.

Incorporate stretching in your everyday lifestyle. It has benefits you can not say no to. It also does not require much. It can be your usual activities, bending and flexing every now and then. After all, your fitness is everything so do what it takes to keep the body healthy.

Cross Training for Fitness and Fat Loss

Cross Training for Fitness and Fatloss

The numbers on your scale do not indicate whether you are fit or fat. Far more significant than your total body weight is the composition of your body tissue. If a man’s fatty tissue is bigger than 14% up to 15% of his body mass, or if a woman’s is more than 20% to 22%, he or she is overweight, or more precisely, overfat.

A small amount of fat is needed for padding the internal organs and as insulation under the skin. Excess fat leads to such diseases as diabetes, gout, high blood pressure, coronary artery disease, and gallbladder problems. There are very few, very fat persons. The reason is that the fittest, not the fattest survive.

The problem now is focused on how to resolve the problem. The problem with most people who want to lose weight is that they have the propensity to concentrate more on getting those numbers lower than what they are seeing now. What happens next is that they strive harder to achieve a lower weight, according to the “ever reliable” result of the weighing scale.

It would be more important to think of the human body as a heat-exchange engine that works on the basic principles of energy physics. The caloric balance equals the total calorie intake minus the total calorie expenditure.

Some of the calories people ingest are used for basal metabolism. As people get old, their bodies require fewer calories for this basic upkeep. Some calories are excreted as waste products. Some go into “work metabolism,” the energy expenditure required for any physical activity.

Hence, if people take in more calories than are used by these functions, there is a definite caloric excess. By the laws of physics, energy is transformed rather than destroyed. In this case, each excess of 3,500 calories is changed into a pound of fat. If people want to reverse this process, they have to burn up 3,500 calories to lose a single pound.

Winning the War Against Fat

When you think of fighting fat with exercise, you probably think of hours of hard, sweaty exertion. If this is the case, then, you will not get any farther. This is because people who are so much into losing more by exerting more effort tend to get bored easily.

Why? Because experts contend that when people exert more effort than what they are capable of doing creates a tendency to develop weariness and ennui. Hence, they give up, stop doing their routine exercises, and end up sulking in the corner with a bag of chips that seems to have all the bad calories in this world.

Now, you might ask, "What should be done instead?" The answer: cross training.

After some intensive studies and experimentations, health experts were able to come up with the concept of incorporating cross training in order to overcome or break the monotony or dullness in an exercise program.

Cross training refers to the integration of diverse movements or activities into a person’s conventional exercise routine. The main purpose of incorporating cross training into an exercise program is to avoid overdoing excess muscle damages and to put a stop to an imminent boredom.

Three of the most commonly used activities whenever a person decides to engage into cross training are swimming, running, and cycling.

In cross training, distance is one way to extend your activity as your condition improves. For this reason, you need to traverse a measured distance.

If possible, swim the course and measure the distance. If you will be using a running track, such courses usually are a quarter-mile per lap for a complete circuit.

Cross training offers a variety of benefits for fitness and fatloss. It builds up the strength and endurance of the heart, lungs, and blood vessels. It has also some tranquilizing effect on the nerves, and it burns up calories as much as it makes your “losing weight” more bearable.

Cross training has three basic components:

1. Endurance exercises to condition the heart, lungs, and blood vessels and to induce relaxation. These begin with a careful planned walking and jogging regimen, depending on fitness level.

2. Exercises to strengthen the muscles, particularly those important to good posture. These include some activities that are selected to encourage some people who are already burnt out with a particular routine.

3. Exercises to improve joint mobility and prevent or relieve aches and pains. These consist of a series of static stretching positions that are safe and effective for most of the people who wish to try to lose some fat.

Indeed, cross training is a great way to modify the concept of exercising and losing fat without having to endure monotonous activities. In fact, the idea of exercising is to like what you are doing, hence, if you engage into cross training, you will be aware of it that you have already achieve your desired weight.

Boiled down, cross training is, certainly, one way of having fun.

How to be Genuinely Happy?

"True Happiness Comes from Within"

Life isn’t the sweetest candy. Sometimes, when I feel like the world is just too heavy, I look around and find people who continued to live fascinating and wonderful lives. And then thoughts come popping into my mind like bubbles from nowhere – “How did their life become so adorably sweet? How come they still can manage to laugh and play around despite a busy stressful life?” Then I pause and observed for awhile… I figured out that maybe, they start to work on a place called ‘self’.

So, how does one become genuinely happy? Step 1 is to love yourself.

My theology professor once said that “loving means accepting.” To love oneself means to accept that you are not a perfect being, but behind the imperfections must lie a great ounce of courage to be able to discover ways on how to improve your repertoire to recover from our mistakes.

Genuine happiness also pertains to contentment. When you are contented with the job you have, the way you look, with your family, your friends, the place you live in, your car, and all the things you now have – truly, you know the answer to the question “how to be genuinely happy.”

When we discover a small start somewhere from within, that small start will eventually lead to something else, and to something else. But if you keep questioning life lit it has never done you any good, you will never be able to find genuine happiness.

I believe that life is about finding out about right and wrong, trying and failing, wining and losing. These are things that happen as often as you inhale and exhale. Failure, in a person’s life has become as abundant and necessary as air. But this should not hinder us from becoming happy.

How to be genuinely happy in spite all these? I tell you… every time you exert effort to improve the quality of life and your being, whether it is cleaning up your room, helping a friend, taking care of your sick dog, fail on board exams and trying again, life gives you equivalent points for that.

Imagine life as a big score board like those which are used in the NFLs. Every time you take a step forward, you make scoring points. Wouldn’t it be nice to look at that board at the end of each game and think to yourself “Whew! I got a point today. I’m glad I gave it a shot.”, instead of looking at it all blank and murmur “Geez, I didn’t even hit a score today. I wish I had the guts to try out. We could have won!” and then walk away.

Genuine happiness isn’t about driving the hottest Formula 1 car, nor getting the employee of the year award, earning the highest 13th month pay, or beating the sales quota. Sometimes, the most sought after prizes in life doesn’t always go to the fastest, the strongest, the bravest or not even the best. So, how do you become genuinely happy? Every one has his own definition of ‘happiness’. Happiness for a writer may mean launching as much best selling books as possible. Happiness for a basketball rookie may mean getting the rookie of the year award. Happiness for a beggar may mean a lot of money. Happiness for a business man may mean success. So, really now, how do we become genuinely happy? Simple. You don’t have to have the best things in this world. Its about doing and making the best out of every single thing. When you find yourself smiling at your own mistake and telling your self “Oh, I’ll do better next time”, you carry with you a flame of strong will power to persevere that may spread out like a brush fire. You possess a willingness to stand up again and try – that will make you a genuinely happy person.

When you learn to accept yourself and your own faults. You pass step 1 in the project “how to become genuinely happy”.For as long as you know how to accept others, you will also be accepted. For as long as you love and know how to love, you will receive love ten folds back.

Again, throw me that same question “how to become genuinely happy?”. I’ll refer you to a friend of mine who strongly quoted- “Most of us know that laughter is the best medicine to life’s aches and pain. But most of us don’t know that the best kind of laughter is laughter over self. Coz then you don’t just become happy… you become free.”

Guide in Taking Supplements

Throughout the world, a lot of people have problems with their digestive systems that make it hard to absorb nutrients and break down the food they eat. This is a common problem, one that is usually caused by a poor level of acid in the stomach, toxic in the gut, or a lack of production enzymes that assist with the breaking down process. There are other causes as well, although the above are the most common.

Problems with the digestive tract can be improved quite a bit if you slowly increase your intake of nutrients. A diet that is high in organic matter is the preferred way to improve your digestion, although you may need to use supplements as well. The best thing about supplements is the fact that you don’t need a prescription. You can select which ones you want on your own, and purchase them at your local nutrition store or online.

The ideal time to take supplements is with your meals. During this time, your body can absorb the nutrients better, as your digestive system will be stimulated with food. If you are using time released supplements, you should take them with food to ensure that they move through your body at the right pace and release the proper amount of nutrients and vitamins your body needs at the right time.

Vitamins that are water soluble are the easiest to use, as they will pass through the body easily and quickly, and should be taken three times a day. Vitamins that are fat soluble are best absorbed if they are taken with food that contains fat. You should always take vitamins with meals, as the minerals and nutrients found in food will work with the vitamin supplements.

There are some supplements that may interfere with others when you absorb them, so you should always make sure what you are taking is acceptable to take with other forms of vitamin supplements. Below, is a list of the most common vitamins and how you should go about taking them.

1. Vitamins A, D, and E - These vitamins should always be taken with meals that contain fat or oil.
2. Vitamin B - You should always take vitamin B supplements as soon as you wake up, to get the maximum benefit. You can also take them during the day with a whole grain meal.
3. Vitamin C - Supplements containing vitamin C should be taken with meals and never on an empty stomach.
4. Iron - Iron supplements should always be taken with food, as they are easy to absorb this way.
5. Multi-vitamins -You can take multi-vitamins at anytime, although you should always consume a small meal with the supplement.

Even though you may be on a healthy diet, you should still make sure that you are getting the proper vitamins and supplements as well. Supplements will help your body get the vitamins and minerals it needs, especially on days that you aren’t able to eat what you should. Life can get hectic at times, which is where supplements can really come in handy.

If you include supplements in your diet and take them correctly, you’ll find that your body will be much healthier. There are many different vitamins and supplements that you can take, although they will depend on what you are trying to achieve. You should always research a vitamin that you are interested in taking, and make sure it fits your needs before you decide to purchase it.

Green Tea Acne Cream Review

If you or someone you know suffers from acne and are wondering what your options are in terms of treatment for blemishes, then it may help you to know that one of the best and most effective forms of treatment is acne cream. There are quite a few different acne cream treatment products available on the market today that you can choose from, but there are a few in particular that are known for being worthwhile.

Green Tea Acne Cream

Many are familiar with the many positive benefits that green tea and green tea products have to offer, but surprisingly few people knew about the benefits for acne that they held. The Polyphenon Green Tea Acne Cream in particular is an affordable, incredibly effective acne cream treatment, and it is actually the only all natural acne remedy that also helps by providing purified green tea catechins.

Not only does it help by removing acne blemishes and scars, but as well protecting your skin against future breakouts and moisturizing your skin without leaving it feeling oily. If you are interested in this acne cream treatment but want to save even more money, then you should know that you can easily create your own green tea acne cream at home, just make sure that you speak to your doctor beforehand to make sure that you are not going to be putting yourself in any risk.

Proactive Acne Treatment Review

If you or someone you know suffers from acne and are wondering what your options are in terms of treatment for blemishes, then it may help you to know that one of the best and most effective forms of treatment is acne cream. There are quite a few different acne cream treatment products available on the market today that you can choose from, but there are a few in particular that are known for being worthwhile.

Proactive

Many claim that the most popular and effective acne cream treatment option available is a product called Proactive. It is a revolutionary new acne skin care system that has now been discovered by hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and which works by helping to banish breakouts and get rid of blemishes. Regardless of whether you have oily or dry skin, mild or severe acne, Proactive can be a helpful acne cream treatment for you.

The Proactive 3-step system was developed by dermatologists, which is important because you know that you are not putting yourself at risk and you can more than likely trust it to work. The first step involves utilizing a renewing cleanser, which has smooth, tiny grains that exfoliate dead skin cells and other impurities from off your skin.

Then you use the revitalizing toner, which is an alcohol-free toner that removes dead skin cells, unplugs pores and helps to general improve skin’s overall appearance. Finally there is the third step in the system, which involves the repairing lotion. This light, oil-free lotion works to heal blackheads and blemishes and prevent breakouts on your skin in the future.

Thu Hang sexy photos on Golf&Life

Vietnamese SuperModel Thu Hang on the Gofl&Life Magazine Sexy Photos.