Fitness: The importance of regular exercise for better health.

Countless studies have underlined the importance of regular exercise for better health. Benefits include reduced likelihood of chronic health problems, better flexibility, less anxiety, stress and insomnia and even sharper cognitive skills. Even though we know how much exercise can improve quality of life we don’t always know how we will find time to take advantage of its benefits. If a crowded calendar has you thinking there’s no time left to exercise, think again. These five tips will help you find time to get fit in as little as 25 minutes a day.

•Add Intervals to Your Workout:

Intervals, adding a few short periods of intense exertion to your workout, help you get a better workout in less time. If you have 25 minutes you can get a workout that yields as much benefit as working out for twice as long. For example, try adding some running to your walking or jogging workout to burn more calories and fat, improve your aerobic capacity and build endurance.

•Go the Extra Mile:

Exercise doesn’t have to mean suiting up and heading for the gym, just move more all day. If you think you don’t have time to exercise stop thinking of exercise as an activity separate from your regular daily activities. Instead, aim to add steps to your day. Wear a pedometer and increase your total daily steps by ten percent each week. If your goal is weight loss, try to get up to 12,000 to 15,000 steps daily. Just 10,000 steps per day (5 miles) can help you avoid chronic illness. Every step counts so park the car farther, take the stairs; walk at lunchtime and to talk with co-workers rather than sending email.

•Add a Spoon Full of Sugar:

When it comes right down to it exercise is just movement. Sweeten the deal by making exercise of activities you like and are already doing. Walk your dog a little longer or faster, jog on the treadmill while you watch your favorite show or bike to work.

•Break it Down:

Look for 10 free morning minutes you can devote to exercise. Start with 30 seconds of stretching, add a few minutes of cardio such as jogging in place, jumping rope or doing jumping jacks, add some lunges, squats, abs work and weight lifting. Take a few weeks to comfortably incorporate this time into your schedule three times each week. Once that has been accomplished, add 5 minutes to your morning routine or add a 10 minute evening workout to your day.

•Make it a Date:

Turn fun with family and friends into fitness opportunities. Get together over a game of flag football instead of high calorie grub. Gather the kids for a swim instead of settling in for another movie night. When you combine social connections with cardio you create a win-win.

Even the busiest person can find time to workout – including you. With a little creativity the possibilities are endless.

What Excessive Sweating Says About You Health.

Are you an excessive sweater? Do you leave a trail of sweat comparable to Niagara Falls on each piece of equipment you use at the gym? Hopefully not! It’s always kosher to clean up and wipe up after yourself. Perhaps you sweat very little and have always wondered why others sweat more than you. So what does your sweat say about you?

For starters sweat is not a bad thing, especially at the gym. If you are self-conscious or embarrassed for sweating a lot when you workout, try not be. Just wipe up your sweat and continue working hard. Sweating a lot at the gym is actually a sign of good conditioning. You may think the opposite is true: that the more in shape you become, the less you sweat, because the workout is “not hard anymore”. You may think sweating during workouts shows you are out of shape due to the strain the exercise is putting on your body. It’s just not true.

A conditioned body sweats more due to the higher blood volume and excess of fluid available to be sweated out. More conditioned athletes usually drink more water, which also creates more fluid available for sweating. You may also start sweating sooner in a workout, not later, as your body can tell when it’s time to cool off. And that’s exactly what sweat does: cools the body. Sweat is very vital.

Often the newer exerciser may not sweat as quickly or as much because they either haven’t been drinking enough water or their body doesn’t recognize how to cool itself off yet. This can lead to shorter workouts, because the new exerciser gets so hot they don’t want to continue.

A condition does exist known as hyperhidrosis. This refers to excess sweating on the entire body, but can be localized to more specific areas like the hands and feet that seem to always be sweating. Hyperhidrosis is a genetic condition that can be treated with prescription-strength antiperspirants or other various therapies. If you feel you have hyperhidrosis, consult your doctor.

Your sweat can say a lot about you. One thing it’s not saying is, “You sweat too much.” Whether you sweat from drinking a lot of water or being more conditioned and presenting a higher blood volume, it’s ok. If you don’t sweat enough, you should pay close attention to the amount of water you are drinking.

It should be noted, too, that all exercisers are made differently. It is possible to be in great shape and not sweat profusely and vice versa. Don’t be alarmed or panicked by your sweat, whether it’s very little or in great amounts. Try to take note of how you actually feel. Are you sweating a lot, but still feeling very hot? Chances are you’re either outside or still in a killer workout, and it’s ok. If you are outside in the heat and you’ve ceased sweating, it’s time to head indoors and replenish your water and sodium reserves! If you are indoors working out at your gym and sweating very little, ask yourself how long you’ve been exercising, how hot you feel, and how much water you’ve been consuming.

Muscle & Fitness : Best ways to train Traps.

Don’t get lulled into a shrug-induced coma. Here are some tips on how to spice up your trap training.

In a confrontation on the street, big traps are much more intimidating than big biceps,” says Josh Bryant, MFS, CSCS, owner of JoshStrength.com and co-author of the e-book Metroflex Gym Powerbuilding Basics. But defending your date’s honor, while admirable, shouldn’t be your sole motivation for training traps. According to Bryant, effective training of these fan-shaped muscles on your upper back helps keep the shoulder girdle in alignment, provides postural strength on heavy squats and deadlifts, and offers a boost when benching massive weight. Shrugs are great, but they’re not the only way to build your traps. Bryant explains.

1. SHRUG IN TENS

Shrugs are still the most fundamental exercise you can do for traps, but Bryant likes to add spice to his workouts. With dumbbell shrugs, Bryant says he likes a 10-10-10 approach. “Stand holding a dumbbell in each hand, arms at your sides,” he says. “Do 10 shrugs with the right side, then 10 with the left and finish with 10 bilateral shrugs. This greatly increases the time under tension.”

 2. SHRUG LIKE ATLAS

One of the reasons people skip shrugs or relegate them to the end of their workout is because the movement seems too slight or subtle to matter. These people haven’t tried power shrugs. “Power shrugs use the same hip drive that you would do a clean with, but the weight is heavy, so you just violently shrug it up,” Bryant says. “You want to try to make your traps hit your ears. Bill Starr stated in The Strongest Shall Survive that if your traps aren’t sore after a day of power shrugging, you didn’t do it right.  You should eventually try to use more than your deadlift max with this movement for multiple repetitions. This is a great trap builder.”

3. CHANGE PLANES

The standing shrug is great for building trapezius height, but to increase overall thickness, you need to add variety to your angle of pull with scapular retraction. “On a seated row, grasp a narrow-grip handle with your arms fully extended,” Bryant says. “Pull your shoulder blades together. This will build the middle traps and give a denser look. This is one of my favorite prehab movements for big benchers.”

4. PULL. PUSH.

The functional opposite of scapular retraction is scapular protraction. Bryant likes performing protraction to work the traps in a different way while building his strength chain on the bench. “Hand spacing should be the same as your regular bench-press grip,” he says. “Lower the bar with straight arms by dropping the shoulders down toward the bench and crunching the shoulder blades together. Then force the bar upward by spreading the shoulder blades out, as in a lat spread, while raising the shoulders off the bench. The bar will travel only three or four inches either way. This is a great way to add thickness to the midtraps and directly benefit your bench numbers.”

5. ROW

Shrugs for the traps are, by nature, isolation moves — movement is only occurring at the shoulder and without the benefit of other muscle groups. The upright row, however, is a multi-joint movement that provides “a high level of activation in the traps,” Bryant says. This move, which also uses your biceps, forearms, middle and rear delts, is a great move for building total upper-body mass.

Why Alcohol is More Worse For You Than Your Men.

Alcohol in any amount can be dangerous to anyone but it affects women more than men, with increased health risks like liver and heart diseases and infertility for them, according to experts.

According to Monika Jain, a senior hepatologist with Fortis Hospital, "the female physiology is such that it allows for greater toxicity with lesser amounts of alcohol and in lesser time, as compared to males."

"A woman's body doesn't break down the alcohol as quickly as a man's body does. This results in greater levels of alcohol in blood, resulting in greater toxicity," Jain said.

 "The enzyme, alcohol dehydrogenase (ADH) which breaks down the alcohol in stomach is produced in smaller quantities in women resulting in slower action as compared to men," Jain added.

According to a publication by the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism(NIAAA), women who drink heavily face greater health risks than men who drink heavily, with women alcoholics being more prone to liver disease, heart damage and brain damage.

Amongst the other problems, the report claims, chronic heavy drinking can lead to menstrual problems, infertility, and early menopause while drinking during adolescence can interfere with puberty, growth, and bone health.

But the most vulnerable are the pregnant women who drink because in their case, even the unborn child is at risk from alcohol, which is a teratogen, a substance that can harm a foetus.

"Alcohol consumption by pregnant women can induce problems like Fetal Alcohol Disorder(FAD) and Abruption," Shivani Gour, a gynecologist and director of Isis hospital, told IANS.

"FAD is a major problem with ill-effects ranging from mental retardation to delayed physical growth. Any amount of alcohol consumed by an expecting mother is enough to harm the unborn child. And then there is abruption, which means premature detachment of the placenta," she added.

"The women are more vulnerable to alcohol because of increased percentage of fat as well as estrogen, which delays alcohol breakdown and increases alcohol toxicity in women," said Gour.

However, the damage is not just physical.

Beyond the physiological ill-effects, the NIAAA report claims heavy drinking can make a woman more vulnerable to violence, including sexual assault and they are twice as likely as men to die from .

Men's Fitness: Supersets What Are They.

Supersets are exercise pairings performed without resting between. They can be planned to boost a single body part with two different exercises or for opposing muscles such as the chest and back. There are many good reasons to add supersets to your routine. They can help you improve calorie burn, save time in the gym and even speed muscle development. With so many reasons to include supersets in your exercise routine are there any reasons to pass on what seems like a short cut to fitness success?

•Supersets save time:

Do more for your body in less time with supersets. Eliminating time between exercises means fitness fits more easily into even the most time crunched schedule. Think you don’t have enough time to work out? Turns out you actually do. Work in a 25 minute superset routine three times each week.

• Boost Metabolism:

Supersets are heart smart. Less rest time means your heart gets more of a work out. Keeping your heart rate elevated helps burn more calories and boost metabolism. The good news is the burn continues even after your workout.

• Boost Muscle Production:

Supersets encourage the production of lactic acid, which fuels the muscles and helps them maintain strength and endurance. Another benefit of supersets is the greater challenge they place on the body compared with straight sets. That challenge can mean more muscle growth.

•Supersets Get Results:

Use them to zero in your focus on targeted muscles. For example a superset for your abs would pair exercise ball crunches (these are performed by lifting your body from the ball rather than from the floor) with V sit-ups (also called jack-knife sit ups are performed by extending arms and legs and raising them all so that your body comes to form a “V” shape). To work your back and biceps do bent over rows (stand with legs hip width apart and knees slightly bent, lean forward from the hips and bring the dumbbells toward your chest).

•Try Antagonistic Supersets to Burn Fat Faster

Add antagonistic supersets such as bicep curls and tricep pushdowns to your workout. The first exercise pulls the muscle and the second pushes the opposite muscle which helps you burn more calories.

So back to our original question – with so many entries in the win column for supersets is there any reason to be wary of them? Yes. Even when it comes to supersets there can be too much of a good thing. If not paired properly or performed with too much weight you risk injury.

Supersets can be your secret weapon for fast fitness results. Just be sure you stay on track by proceeding with caution. Do not work through pain and avoid using weights that are too heavy.

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Easiest Way Lose Weight Quickly For Women.

Eating less fat and doing more exercise is the simplest and the straightest way to slimming, says a new study that vindicates a common sense approach to weight loss.

Scientists at Harvard Medical School, Boston surveyed 4,000 obese adults and found those who followed the common sense advice were much more likely to lose weight than those who adopted fad slimming regimes, went on liquid diets or bought costly weight-loss supplements.

Christina Wee, who helped compile the study at Harvard, said: "There are lots of fad diets out there as well as expensive over-the-counter medications that have not necessarily been proven to be effective. So it's very encouraging to find that most of the weight-loss methods associated with success are accessible and inexpensive."

Researchers found 41 percent of those who cut their fat intake were more likely to have shed five percent of their body weight in under a year than those who went on liquid diets, used non-prescription dieting supplements or followed popular slimming regimes, the American Journal of Preventive Medicine reported.

 And if they exercised more than usual, they were almost 30 percent more likely to lose the weight. Although five percent weight loss may not sound significant, experts say it is enough to delay the onset of diabetes in an obese person, according to the Daily Mail.

And the 'Not Rocket Science' diet helped many volunteers shed more weight, with 37 percent of those who cut down on fat more likely to lose a tenth of their body weight, while exercising boosted their chances by 6 percent.