How to Recover From An Injury faster & Stay Fit.

Nobody enjoys getting injured. For athletes, injuries are a part of the game. You give it your all when you play. Your competitive spirit drives you to be the best you can be and go for gold every time. For exercisers, injuries also creep up at inconvenient times. Overuse injuries like tendonitis can pop up. Sore, tight muscles can lead to strains and sprains. And improper form is probably the number one reason for injuries in exercisers.

With the reason for injuries aside, if you become the unfortunate victim of an injury that sidelines you for a number of weeks or even months, your doctor may prescribe rest or physical therapy. Either way you’re going to be recovering from an injury. But how can you stay fit as you heal?

You don’t have to throw in the towel and give up exercise! Obviously it depends on the nature of your injury, and physical therapy will focus on the specific injured area. You will be getting some exercise with physical therapy, but for the most part, the attention will be spent on retraining your neural pathways and teaching the muscles to get strong again. If rest is prescribed for your injury, ask your doctor what you can do, so you have a clear idea of your limitations or freedoms. The worst thing you can do when injured is try to come back too fast or too soon. You risk re-injury or bring the possibility of disallowing the injury to heal properly.

If you have a foot injury and have to wear a boot for a month, don’t stop lifting weights with your upper body. Keep that same mentality if your shoulder is in a sling. Find a recumbent or stationary bicycle and keep those legs moving! The point is, recovering from an injury is zero fun. You want to be back to normal. You’re sick of the pain. It’s completely understandable, but you can stay fit as you heal. Just be careful. Your doctor will tell you what you are allowed to do, but don’t be afraid to ask, for he or she may not just come out and tell you it’s OK to keep exercising the other areas of your body.

Pay attention to your diet as well. Some injuries need a lot of rest, and this rest is going to lead to a more sedentary lifestyle. When you stop moving, it’s going to get tougher for your body to burn calories. Don’t overeat. If at all possible, focus on your core muscles to maintain proper posture and strength.

When you recover from an injury, you can stay fit as you heal. Don’t let the injury get you down or make you feel like you shouldn’t workout. The endorphins released from the exercise can definitely help your mood and help you stay positive as you heal.

Fitness Tips : Sensoria – Smart Socks to Track Your Running.

Fitness Tips : Sensoria – Smart Socks to Track Your Running

Sensoria Smart Socks deliver what other trackers on the market can’t: real-time updates based on dynamic data and statistics. Data is gathered from an electronic anklet that attaches to the special socks with built-in sensors. Going beyond the typical tracking parameters of distance, calories, steps, and the like, Sensoria Smart Socks also analyze your foot landing technique and cadence. Real-time data collection, made possible with Bluetooth, is uploaded directly to the Sensoria phone app. From there, the app will give you real-time audio notifications of how to improve, such as breathing on a certain foot to better utilize energy. You can also use the app after your run to examine your running style in order to improve time, identify injury-prone habits, and even to set and break goals. The Sensoria Smart Socks bring running to the 21st

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5 BEST WAYS TO RECOVER AFTER A TOUGH WORKOUT.

Let's face it, hard workouts equal results. It takes lots of sets and reps to get a great body. All that hard work means nothing if you cant recover from your brutal workouts. The faster you can recover the faster you can get back in the gym.

If you are looking to speed up your recovery so you can get bigger and stronger much faster, then follow these 5 tricks.


1- EMBRACE CARBS:

Eighty percent of what you see in the mirror is based off your nutritional habits. Working out will trigger anabolic responses in your body responsible for muscle growth. Proper post-workout nutrition can accelerate muscle recovery and new muscle growth. After your workout you should be consuming a meal with around 20 to 30 percent of your total carbohydrate intake. Our bodies are primed to absorb carbohydrates after a workout. In addition to having a good amount of carbohydrates, you want to consume 25-50 grams of protein. I prefer this source of protein to come from a whey isolate to help ensure adequate leucine content and faster protein uptake. Your post-workout meal should be under 10 grams of fat. The higher the fat content of a meal the slower the absorption. Keeping this meal under 10 grams will ensure quick uptake by your body.

2-  TAKE BCAAS:

Proper recovery does not just happen after a workout, it needs to occur for hours before and after. Consuming BCAAs in between meals will help your muscles recover. Five grams of BCAAs in between meals will ensure protein synthesis is spiked through out the day. When choosing a BCAA product, make sure it is properly dosed. Your BCAA product should contain around two grams of leucine, one gram of isoleucine and one gram of valine.

3-  TAKE MULTIVITAMINS:

Vitamin C, D, E and ALA are all important for the recovery process. These vitamins help to prevent damage done by free radicals and help strengthen up your immune system. After a workout free radical levels are higher in our muscle cells. These vitamins help to break these free radicals apart. Multivitamins are looked at as an "insurance plan" for your body. Taking a multivitamin will help to prevent any nutritional deficiencies as well.


4- HYDRATE:

Muscle soreness occurs from lactic acid build up in a muscle. Drinking adequate amounts of water will help to flush out toxins from your muscles. Our bodies need water to function; a one percent dehydration will result in a 10 percent reduction in strength.  Proper hydration also helps to keep our joints lubricated. Drinking water will lead to improved gym performance and fuller muscles.

5- BALANCE YOUR DIET:

A properly balanced diet is extremely important to your goals. Whether you want to lose body fat or gain muscle, it wont happen with training alone. Consuming a well-balanced diet will help give your body the nutrients it needs to recover from training. If your diet is lacking even one macronutrient it will hinder your recovery ability. Try to keep your carbs, protein and fats all balanced. Avoid diets that are extreme, you will find yourself smaller and weaker.

The Best Workout to Build a Bigger, Stronger Chest .

Many people think that the chest has zero role in performance, unless you’re a football player.

Why’s that important? Because a lot of people don’t understand how to exercise perhaps the most popular, yet most poorly trained, area of the body: the chest. And the mistakes you’re making can hurt your development of a Hulk-like upper body.

They say the pecs, like the biceps, are all about vanity. While having a big chest and a strong bench press doesn’t mean you’ll be an unstoppable athlete, building “pressing strength” can help you in just about any game you play – and also improve upper-body muscle mass (and by extension, your looks).
But even though so many gym goers dedicate so much exercise time to the chest (does “Monday-Thursday-chest-day” sound familiar?), it often doesn’t translate to better performance—and that makes your pecs an area of the body that can be improved. The program below will change that game, giving you more results in less time.


But for it to work, follow these 5 principles.


÷Balance Push and Pull:

For a balanced look (and to reduce the risk of injury), you need to do as many pulling exercises as you do pushing ones. Not only will increasing your pulling strength lead to more muscle mass, but it will help your pressing strength as well. Use a similar number of reps for both directions. You’ll also want to balance angles of movement - i.e. the vertical pull of a chin-up is not the opposite of a horizontal bench press. So if you’re pushing up, balance by pulling down. Push forward, pull back.


1- Work the Cuff:

Without a strong rotator cuff, your pressing movements will suffer because your cuff helps stabilize your shoulder joint. And you need those strong pressing movements to develop your chest completely. Include cuff exercises in your training.

2- Ring Them Bells – All Of ‘Em:

Besides barbells, use dumbbells and even kettlebells, which change the stability and demand of chest exercises. By varying the equipment you use, your muscles are forced to adapt to constant change.


3-  Vary Your Grips:

By changing the width of your grips, you’re essentially changing the exercise (a wide grip targets different muscles than close grip). When using dumbbells, turn your hands in or out to change the angle of the press and stimulate your chest differently.

4- Stay with the Tempo:

Most people count the reps they perform, but they pay little attention to the speed of those reps. To maximize results, pay attention to the tempo of each repetition. For this workout, the lowering phase of each rep should take two full seconds, then pause for one second at the bottom of a rep, and then press each rep as quickly as possible. By slowing the rep, the muscles spend more time under contraction and ultimately, do more work.

Weight Training: 5 Reasons Why You Should Lift Weights.

If you’re ready to pack on some serious natural muscle while staying lean you’re in the right place!

You might ask yourself :

Why should we lift weights?

Here are the top 5 Reasons:

   1- Strong muscles mean less chance of injury, degenerative disease, ageing, arthritis, and osteoporosis.

2-  Strong muscles mean a better quality of life, for much longer.
  
3- Muscles mean a faster metabolism, faster fat – burning and less chance of getting fat.
  
4- Muscles mean you burn more calories – which means you lose fat quicker.
  
5- A stronger body will help to make all other areas of your life more productive, easier to cope with and easier for you to be more successful!

And remember, always concentrate on form over how much weight you are lifting. If you lift too heavy with poor form it’s the fast track to injury so if you’re not sure and you want to check your form, ask one of your friendly trainers to guide you. Even if you’ve been working out for years it’s a good idea to check because we can fall into bad habits.

Men without children are more Depressed than Childless Women .

Despite traditional knowledge telling women that we’re supposed to feel unaccomplished and incomplete if we do not have children (by choice or by chance), new research is showing that childless men may actually be the ones who are more depressed and angry.

Robin Hadley, of Keele University, polled over 108 people who are not parents, asking them why they were childless and whether or not they wanted to have kids. 59% of men and 63% of men stated their desire to have children. Of those respondents, half the men had “experienced isolation” due to not having children, while only 27% of women felt the same. In fact, a higher percentage of men experienced depression, anger, jealousy and sadness than women with regard to not having kids.

This news may be surprising to some considering how society tends to see childless women as workaholic spinsters who will probably steal your baby if you leave them alone for too long. However, perhaps because of this outlook, only women responded to having experienced guilt due to not having any children (16%); no childless men felt the same.

While nearly all people should be able to make their own choices regarding their parenthood state, it’s important to recognize that women are still being chastised for not having children. We may be able to legally make our decisions just fine (again, most of the time), but that doesn’t mean there aren’t remnants of a time past when women were expected to bear children, raise them and that was about it.

Of course, we still need to offer support to men who are experiencing these emotional difficulties; since they’re typically characterized as “female problems,” many men may feel self-conscious or stressed out about expressing sadness over their childless state. In general, studies like this confirm to us what we already know: men and women are both fully capable of experiencing a wide range of emotions, and that neither are able to be perfectly captured by stereotypes regarding gender.

Fitness: Signs & Symptoms of Muscle Fatigue from Exercise.

Muscle fatigue may be caused by a variety of factors. Understanding a few such factors may help determine your overall physical condition, whether you're working out too hard or pushing yourself too far when you exercise.

Muscle fatigue may also be a symptom of illness. Signs are observable, while symptoms are those that you can feel or sense and relate to someone else. Know how your body feels so that you can tell if something doesn't seem right and discuss your concerns with your primary health care provider.


• Muscle Weakness

A common sign of muscle fatigue is weakness. Muscle weakness may make you feel like your legs are made out of spaghetti or that they can't support your weight.

•Leg Twitching

Weakness may cause the leg muscles to twitch in what are known as myoclonic jerks, as is common if someone has been diagnosed with a condition called fibromyalgia. Muscle twitches are caused by nerve impulse signals sent from the brain that instruct the muscle to contract and relax quickly, like the flickering of a light bulb.

•Reduced Activity Levels

You may feel a lack of energy or an inability to complete activities. This type of muscle weakness may be caused by inadequate blood flow to the extremities, especially for those experiencing cardiovascular issues such as high blood pressure or heart conditions, according to the "Merck Manual Home Health Handbook." For most people, such symptoms come on gradually, making it difficult to pinpoint the exact cause of the muscle weakness.

•Weak Grips

If you're in the middle of a weightlifting workout and suddenly feel you can't grip the barbell or dumbbell tightly enough, you may be experiencing muscle fatigue. Such weakness may also be experienced with signs of uncontrolled trembling. Such instances are known as exercise-induced muscle fatigue. A weak grip or trembling indicates that you are pushing or exceeding your limit -- your muscles are protecting themselves from injury.