The Key to a Strong Body

No one can argue that exercise is an important factor in not only the weight loss battle but also the larger war on a healthy body. Regular exercise ensures a person will suffer from fewer ailments, feel stronger, and in many cases live longer.

Exercise isn’t all about running a mile, or doing one-hundred sit-ups to obtain a toned and trimmed stomach. It’s also about overall fitness. Conditioning the body as a whole including the muscles and most importantly the heart muscle is a key piece in the healthy body puzzle.

Regular aerobic exercise is fundamental in keeping our hearts working exactly the way nature intended. This could include jogging, running, walking, cycling, or even swimming. Keeping the heart rate elevated for a prescribed amount of time is vital in building up the muscle of the heart. Doing this daily or even several times per week is an important first step in the journey to overall fitness.

Many younger people find fitness as a great fringe benefit behind enjoyment when they are participating in their favorite activity. Snowboarding and skateboarding have become extremely popular and the fitness benefits are substantial. Many muscles of the body are worked while these sports are enjoyed and the participants are not only having fun but also working out at the same time.

For those less adventurous a walk is a perfect alternative. Even a daily trip around the local park with the family dog is doing your body good. It’s working out your thighs, your buttocks and of course your heart. Many physically fit people depend on walking as their core daily exercise activity. Normally starting slow, it’s not unusual for people to find such enjoyment in getting out into the fresh air to stretch their legs, that the walks become longer and longer until they realize that it’s turned from a short stint to a few mile hike.

Swimming is one activity that almost everyone enjoys. It’s a great way to get fit for people of all ages. Youngsters can be enrolled in swimming classes, which are not only educational, but also a wonderful way for them to exercise in a fun environment. For older children, hanging out at the swimming pool with friends gives them the exercise that they otherwise might not be getting. For adults swimming can be an important factor in their overall fitness. The water can be soothing for those who suffer from knee or joint pains. For older folks it affords them the chance to stretch and strengthen their bodies without the stress of some of the more strenuous exercise regimens.

Ten Ways to Exercise at Work

Here are ten natural ways to burn some calories while you're at work in your health care job.These exercises won't make you as buff as a Spartan, but they're better than no exercise at all.

read more | digg story

Exercise for Harder Erections

Most men realize that they have to exercise to keep their muscles from getting soft as they get older. Yet, many men just accept as inevitable that their erections will soften with age, or turn to drugs like Viagra or Levitra to compensate. However, there is no need to either accept the "inevitable," or to turn to drugs. Just as exercise can harden the muscles of your body, exercise can also harden your erection.

Though there are several different factors that can affect the hardness of your erection, one of the most important is the strength of your Pubococcygeus muscle or PC muscle. The stronger your PC muscle is the harder your penis will be, and, when your penis is at its hardest, it will also be at its biggest.

If you are not already aware of your PC muscle, the best way to locate it is to urinate, and then to stop the flow of urine. When the flow stops, you have found your PC muscle. Now flex your PC muscle a few times to make sure you have found it. As with any muscle, the PC muscle will atrophy if it's not exercised regularly. Below are three exercises to get your PC muscle back into shape.

1) Quick squeeze: Squeeze your PC Muscle as tightly as you can and hold it for 2 seconds, and then completely relax the muscle. That is one repetition. Rest 1 second between reps.

2) Slow Squeeze: Squeeze your PC muscle as tightly as you can and hold it for 15 seconds, and then release slowly, completely relaxing the muscle. That is one repetition. Rest 5 seconds between reps.

3) Long Squeeze: Squeeze your PC muscle as tightly as you can and hold it for a minimum of 60 seconds, and then release. That is one repetition. Rest 60 seconds between reps.

Daily PC Muscle Workout

Do one set of each exercise

Quick Squeeze: 20-100 repetitions (add 10 reps per week)

Slow Squeeze: 10-25 repetitions (add 3 reps per week)

Long Squeeze: 2-10 repetitions (add 1 rep per week)

Just as with any exercise program, you should start out slowly and build up over time. Start with the lowest number of repetitions and increase the number of reps weekly as suggested. You do not have to do the entire workout at one session. It is just as beneficial to do each exercise in a separate session. However, it is important to do each exercise daily in order to make progress.

After being on this program for 4-8 weeks you should have a super strong PC muscle and a harder erection. Once you've reached the maximum number of reps for each exercise, you could, though I don't recommend it, just do one of the exercises each day on a rotating basis. For example, Quick Squeeze on day 1, Slow Squeeze on day 2, Long Squeeze on day 3, Quick Squeeze on day 4, and so on.

Among the added benefits of PC muscle exercise are more powerful ejaculations, more intense orgasms, and the ability to have multiple orgasms. PC muscle exercises also promote good prostate health by massaging the prostate gland with the contractions of the PC muscle.

If you are not happy with the size of your penis, I highly recommend you check out PenisAdvantage. PenisAdvantage provides unique natural penis enlargement exercises that you can try at home to enlarge your penis by 1 to 4 inches naturally without the need for any medication or drugs.

Fitness and Exercise For Children

Fitness and exercise are important. We all know that, and had that lesson drummed into our heads in school. But, how much attention do we pay to our children when it comes to fitness and exercise? In our modern day, too many children spend the majority of their time either on the couch in front of the television, or in their rooms on a computer or playing a video game. Fitness and exercise, a natural part of childhood in past generations, is something that the modern child and the modern parent have to work at on a daily basis.

If your child is lacking in fitness and exercise think about enrolling your child in an after school sports program of some sort. Soccer is a popular fitness and exercise method, and in the proper season so is hockey, softball, baseball, lacrosse, football, tennis, and even golf. Many parents find that their children enjoy swimming and as one of the best methods of fitness and exercise in the world, swimming should be encouraged. This can be simple playing or exercising in the water, or formal swimming laps in an Olympic sized pool. Both methods of fitness and exercise are great.

Those who live in rural areas may find fitness and exercise to be easier to come by than those who live in urban areas or in the suburbs. In a rural area, a child has fields to play in, woods to explore, and sports like fishing, as well as chores like feeding livestock. For the rural lifestyle fitness and exercise is more ingrained. For children living in the city, fitness and exercise can be explored at the nature center, at the Y or health club, and with after school activities. Even simple games like four squares and playing with a jump rope can be good forms of fitness and exercise.

Wintertime seems to be a time when many people, both children and adult, forsake their fitness and exercise programs. That is too bad because that makes it all that much harder to get back into shape when spring comes around. Fitness and exercise is something that should be pursued all year long. During the winter sports that keep a person indoors, like bowling, are good choices. Also indoor health clubs and activities like mall walking in groups are good choices for fitness and exercise. Whether a person is a child or an adult, fitness and exercise should not be overlooked.

Deer Velvet Boost to Strength and Recovery

The New Zealand Game Industry Board and AgResearch are working hard to prove scientifically that New Zealand deer velvet may have a positive effect on athletic performance.

Although requiring further examination, the latest human clinical trials (conducted by the Otago University Human Performance Cente on behalf of NZGIB and AgResearch) do indicate a possible link between New Zealand deer velvet and improved athletic performance on two fronts; improved strength and endurance in response to training, and improved recovery from muscle tissue damage associated with exercise.

In the first study, scientists at Otago University Human Performance Centre compared the development of muscle strength and endurance in groups of males taking different forms of New Zealand deer velvet to a control group taking a placebo. In the study, 51 male athletes undertook a 12 week period of supervised training during which strength and endurance were monitored. The group taking a powdered form of New Zealand deer velvet antler showed greater improvements in isokinetic strength and muscular endurance as a result of training than the control group.

The second study was designed to determine what role New Zealand deer velvet antler has in athletic performance by affecting recovery from muscle injury. A substance found in the bloodstream called creatine kinase, was used as an indicator of muscle tissue damage. more.

The thirty athletes in the trial ran downhill on a treadmill to induce muscle tissue damage in the muscles at the front of their thighs. Muscle biopsies and blood samples were then taken.

Those athletes who had been on a course of New Zealand deer velvet powder for two weeks previously showed significantly reduced elevation of creatine kinase levels in their bloodstream, possibly indicating less muscle damage.

A trend also emerged in which athletes taking powdered New Zealand deer velvet reported a recovery from muscle soreness 24 hours earlier than the subjects receiving a placebo. The benefit of this is that they could return to training more quickly. While not yet being a complete picture, the statistically significant results bode well for further research.

Deer velvet is one of the few products where New Zealand accounts for the majority of world trade and any significant advances in the uses of deer velvet will be excellent news for the industry and the New Zealand economy as a whole.

Awareness of New Zealand deer velvet antler and its benefits is already high among New Zealand athletes. Hamish Carter, currently number one ranked triathlete in the World, is a firm advocate.

For further information and to find out how velvet deer antler has been used in oriental medicine for centuries to increase sexual desire and improve sexual performance, click here.

Cardio or Strength Training First?

Many people need to do their cardio and strength training in the same exercise session because of their schedule or need to use fitness center facilities and/or equipment. Even experienced exercisers sometimes ask the question: should I do cardio or strength training first? Unfortunately, no one answer applies to everybody. It all depends on what your goals are. Once you've set your goals, though, it's easy to decide which to do first.

If you're a runner, swimmer, or cyclist (or all three) and strength training is intended to improve your sports performance and prevent injuries, do your cardio before your strength training. If you do strength training first, you will deplete the tremendous amount of energy you need to do hard endurance training. Training for endurance sports is so taxing, in fact, that many athletes don't feel like doing strength training afterwards. Don't go to that extreme, but you do have to be realistic. Your weights and reps are going to be less than what they would be if you hadn't done cardio exercise first. As long as you're putting forth your best effort and making progress, just relax and accept it.

If you're a strength athlete, such as a weightlifter, football player, or thrower, and cardio is intended to give you more endurance for your lifting or throwing and control your weight, do your cardio after your strength training. Your goal is to lift the most weight, the most times that you can, so you need to save the cardio for after your strength training. Doing cardio before will sap your strength.

If you're preparing for a military or law enforcement physical fitness, you need to find out the order of events in the test. Are the strength exercises done before the run and/or swim, or after? Whichever it is, do your workout in exactly the same order as the test is given. If for some reason you can't find out the order of the test, do your cardio after strength training. That's the typical order.

What if you're training for all-around fitness? In that case, alternate doing cardio before strength training and doing cardio after strength training. That will ensure equal development of both cardiovascular fitness and strength; plus, it's more realistic. Primitive humans, who were always in excellent physical conition, usually walked and jogged to the hunt or battle. Then they sprinted and did strength work (spear throwing, fighting, wrestling, etc.). However, often they would have to chase game or enemies (or run from them) afterwards too. On the other hand, sometimes they were surprised by an animal or ambushed by enemies and had to do their strength work first to defend themselves, and then do some cardio afterwards to get away. To be fit the way humans were meant to be, you need to be able to do either cardio and strength training when you're partially fatigued.

I hate it when authors say you have to decide for yourself and won't give a definitive answer, but you can see that this is a question that you really do have to answer for yourself. To put it simply, decide which activity is most important to your goals: cardio or strength training. Do that one first. If it's neither, then alternate doing one before the other. Is that definitive enough?

For a free mini course on how to simultaneously improve strength and conditioning while burning fat, click here. Read my review of the two best bodyweight exercise courses you can choose.

"300" Spartan Training Indoor Workout

Discover how to use 12 of the exercises featured in the Spartan Training Yahoo video clip with actor Gerard Butler for your own personal indoor workout.

Fitness and Exercise and the Older Adult

Fitness and exercise are not just for children and young people. Older adults can reap mountains of benefits from becoming engaged in a regular program promoting fitness and exercise, and many older adults are doing so. In fact more older adults are taking fitness and exercise seriously now than in recent decades.

Mall walking is a popular fitness and exercise activity for older adults. Brisk walking is one of the best forms of exercise people can do for themselves. Shopping malls offer consistent temperature and protection from the elements. If it is snowing or sleeting outside, you can still walk in the mall, getting all the benefits of a fitness and exercise program without having to brave inclement weather.

Swimming is another popular fitness and exercise method many older adults enjoy. Swimming exercises every muscle in the body, but is easy on the knees and joints. While many older adults enjoy swimming laps, others have incorporated water-based calisthenics into their fitness and exercise programs, with great results.

The baby boom generation of Americans is getting older, with many baby boomers now reaching retirement age. This generation though is different from preceding generations. Baby boomers tend to live longer, and are more concerned about health. More baby boomers watch their diets, try to control their weight and make fitness and exercise a regular part of their lives than older Americans have in past generations. Add to that the advancements made in medical treatments and these baby boomers can expect to live for many years to come. Fitness and exercise will continue to play a major role in their lives.

Of course, fitness and exercise are not the only factor to be concerned with. Diet also plays a part. A high fiber diet, with most carbohydrates coming from whole grains and protein coming from more lean portions of meat to limit fat also contribute to health. When proper diet and fitness and exercise are linked the result more often than not is a healthy person, no matter what the age. Combining fitness and exercise with proper nutrition is a win win situation for everyone involved.

Bodyweight Exercise Cardio "Deck of Cards" Routine

Bodyweight exercises can be used to develop an almost ideal cardio routine. They can be done indoors or outdoors, are safe for most people to perform, and require little or no equipment. However, many people who have never wrestled competitively or served in the military are unsure of how to construct a bodyweight exercise routine. The "deck of cards" routine is the answer to this problem. The "deck of cards" routine can be adapted to almost any level of fitness, can be completed in 30 minutes or less, and, best of all, will increase your muscular endurance, and cardiovascular fitness in a relatively short amount of time. The only equipment needed is an ordinary deck of playing cards.

The most basic "deck of cards" workout consists of assigning black cards to push-ups and red cards to squats. Start by shuffling the deck and drawing a card. If, for example, you draw a black seven, do 7 push-ups. Similarly, drawing a red nine would mean doing 9 squats. All face cards are assigned a value of 10 and aces a value of 11. A well-conditioned athlete should be able to complete the deck in 20-30 minutes if little or no rest is taken between exercises. However, unless you've been doing bodyweight exercises regularly, you will probably not be able to get through the entire deck at first. That's okay. Start out with the 2's, 3's, 4's, 5's, and 6's (or as few or as many as you need to) and add an additional card every week or two until you are doing the entire deck. Since this is cardio, it's more important to keep the amount of rest between exercises to a minimum than to increase the number of repetitions.

Different variations of the basic workout can be constructed. For example, you can substitute sit-ups or leg raises for squats, or instead of two exercises, you can use four exercises--one each for diamonds, clubs, hearts, and spades. An example of such a workout would be squat thrusts, push-ups, squats, and sit-ups. Below are four sample routines you can try:

Routine 1
Push-ups
Squats

Routine 2
Squat thrusts
Push-ups
Squats
Sit-ups

Routine 3
Push-ups
Sit-ups

Routine 4
Mountain climbers
Push-ups
Front kicks (Kick your leg in front of you as high as you can.)
Leg raises

Making up your own routine is easy. For a two-exercise routine, choose an upper body exercise (push-ups, dips) and an abdominal exercise (sit-ups, leg raises, crunches) or a leg exercise (squats, lunges, front kicks). For a four-exercise routine, choose a calisthenic exercise (squat thrusts, mountain climbers, jumping jacks), an upper body exercise, a leg exercise, and an abdominal exercise. Squats are the most cardio intense of all these exercises, so be sure to include them regularly.

Though it's almost statistically impossible that you would ever repeat a routine exactly in lifetime of exercising, it's still important not to use just one "deck of cards" routine for all of your cardio. Instead, use at least two or three routines and rotate them. Alternately, rotate the "deck of cards" routine with another form of cardio. This helps keep your body from adapting completely to any exercise or routine and prevents reaching a plateau in your progress. That's how to consistently challenge your body and continually increase your fitness.

For a free mini course on how to simultaneously improve strength and conditioning while burning fat, click here. Read my review of the two best bodyweight exercise courses you can choose.

Fitness and Exercise Can Extend Life

Physical fitness and exercise can extend life, and perhaps fitness that is even more beneficial and exercise can ensure that a person’s years of life are more productive, more pleasant, and more enjoyable, and who would not want their years of life to be enjoyable? Fitness and exercise seem like a small price to pay for such great rewards.

The first step in a fitness and exercise program is in deciding what type of exercise you enjoy. Fitness and exercise needs to become a lifestyle and that are more likely to happen if you engage in activities you consider fun. Do you enjoy swimming, hiking, walking, running, racquetball, tennis, golf, or any other sports? Are you the type of person who enjoys lifting weights, or using the Stairmaster machine at the local gym? Everyone has different tastes when it comes to fitness and exercise. Deciding on the activity that is right for you is the first step.

Next, make sure that you don’t overdue it. Many people rush into a fitness and exercise program and over due it the first day, leading to sore muscles and aching backs. When that happens, they are much less likely to continue their fitness and exercise program. Moderation is important in a fitness and exercise program. Also, if you are extremely out of shape when you begin your activity, you need to start out at a slower place than you would if you were moderately in shape. If possible, get advice from your doctor or another healthcare professional or physical fitness instructor before beginning your fitness and exercise program, and find out what is right for you. For many people ten minutes of brisk walking every other day is enough to get started. This can gradually be advanced to fifteen minutes, and then twenty. The important thing with fitness and exercise is to stay with it. The more you do, over time, the more "in shape” you will become and the more you’ll be able to do. Right now six months seems like a long time, but if you begin a fitness and exercise program now, six months will come and go quickly and you’ll see a noticeable difference in your fitness level, your stamina and the way you feel.

Fitness and Exercise Gain Popularity

Fitness and exercise are gaining popularity in our culture for many reasons. Reactions against the sedentary lifestyles Americans have lived for decades, a rash of type two diabetes with people engaging in fitness and exercise to improve their conditions, parents encouraging youngsters to get up and away from the television and work out, and the baby boomers, pursuing fitness and exercise as they age, to allow them to enjoy their advanced years. Regardless of the reasons, many Americans take fitness and exercise very seriously.

Ways, in which Americans engage in fitness and exercise activities are varied and show the diversity of both the population and their interests. Many people go to gyms or athletic clubs. Others participate in sports events that they enjoy. Fitness and exercise activities can include bowling, racquet sports like squash, golf, summer softball leagues, horseshoes, hiking, horseback riding, and many other fun things to do. Fitness and exercise activities in American have many faces.

One of the most popular fitness and exercise activities is simply walking. Many people of all ages enjoy taking a brisk walk every day. This simple fitness and exercise activity can be done by almost anyone. So many Americans are walking these days that magazines are published devoted to the activity. Generally Americans are not as organized as their European cousins when in comes to walking. In Germany, one of the most popular weekend fitness and exercise activities is the volksmarch, or people’s march. When a volksmarch occurs, people of all ages gather together to take a day long, or half day long walk through a town or a country location, stopping to share a meal along the way. They combine fitness and exercise with social activity, and everyone has a great time.

Americans may not be ready for the volksmarch yet, but they find many other fitness and exercise options to their liking. Golf is more popular now than any time in history. Tennis is making a popularity comeback. Even martial arts are fitness and exercise choices for many. For Americans the important thing about fitness and exercise is to do something and make sure that the something you do is something you enjoy. Fitness and exercise will lead to a longer and healthier life, and give a great deal of fun to the participants along the way.

Bodyweight Exercise Cardio Intervals

Do you dread going outdoors to jog in bad weather? Is it getting to be too much time and trouble to drive across town and work out in a crowded gym? Would you rather do a 10-20 minute total body workout in the privacy of your home? Fitness expert Coach Eddie Lomax has developed a workout called Bodyweight Exercise Cardio Intervals that requires no weights, takes only 10-20 minutes, and works out virtually every muscle in your body.

Bodyweight Exercise Cardio Intervals turn the calisthenics and bodyweight exercises that you probably remember from gym class or boot camp into a cardio circuit. To set up your circuit, you select a calisthenic exercise (jumping jacks, mountain climbers, squat thrusts), an upper body exercise (dips, push-ups, pull-ups), a lower body exercise (squats, lunges), and an abdominal exercise (crunches, sit-ups, flutter kicks). Use a low number of repetitions for each exercise (probably 5-10) and do the circuit continuously until you complete the time you're aiming for. The continuous motion is what keeps your heart rate up and builds muscular endurance.

Let's set up a sample circuit of 10 reps of jumping jacks, 5 push-ups, 10 squats, and 10 crunches. You would start by doing the jumping jacks, and then go on to the push-ups, squats, and crunches. When you finish the crunches, go straight back to the jumping jacks and continue doing the circuit as many times as it takes to reach the time you're aiming for or until you can't do the exercises briskly with good form any longer.

Coach Lomax suggests 10 minutes of Bodyweight Exercise Cardio Intervals for beginners, 15 minutes for intermediates, and 20 minutes for advanced workout warriors. However, if you haven't been doing bodyweight exercises, you may find that you can't even complete the 10 minutes suggested for beginners. No problem. It just shows what you've been missing in your exercise program. Start where you're at and add about 10% to your exercise time every week or two. In other words, if you start at 5 minutes, add 30 seconds every week or two. If you start at 10 minutes, add 1 minute, and so on. If you keep at it, most people will eventually reach the intermediate or advanced level.

Do Bodyweight Exercise Cardio Intervals 1-3 times weekly to partially or completely replace your current cardio routine. Don't do Bodyweight Exercise Cardio Intervals more than 3 times weekly. Alternate Bodyweight Exercise Cardio Intervals with another cardio routine if you want to do cardio more than 3 times a week. No matter what exercise routine you do, if you do the same routine every day, you will eventually develop overuse injuries.

Another great thing about Bodyweight Exercise Cardio Intervals is that you can change routines as often as you wish, or you can do a different routine every day of the week that you work out. If you get bored with the program you've been using or have maxed out, change to a different or harder routine. Bodyweight Exercise Cardio Intervals put an end to the problem of boring, inconvenient, or expensive cardio routines. Try Bodyweight Exercise Cardio Intervals yourself and have fun getting into the best shape of your life.

For a free mini course on how to simultaneously improve strength and conditioning while burning fat, click here. Read my review of the two best bodyweight exercise courses you can choose.

Fitness and Exercise Prevent Disease

Fitness and exercise prevent disease. That is a proven fact, and yet more Americans than ever are suffering from obesity and type two diabetes is considered an epidemic in the United States. If you are overweight, and especially if you are obese, or if you’ve been diagnosed with diabetes, listen to your doctor and begin a regular fitness and exercise program. You’ll be glad you did.

One of the benefits of fitness and exercise, as any physician will tell you, it that fitness and exercise help control blood sugar. A diabetic who takes medication daily may find that less medication is needed with a regular fitness and exercise program. Many diabetics who stay with fitness and exercise programs find that they are able to quit the medication and get their diabetes under control in a totally natural way.

Triglycerides are also too high for most Americans. High triglycerides are linked to heart disease, including heart attacks and strokes. A great natural way to reduce your level of triglycerides is to simply begin and stick with a fitness and exercise program, while eating a sensible diet. Triglycerides at too high a level are also linked to high blood sugar, and it is common for diabetics to have high triglyceride levels. Therefore, in this case, fitness and exercise can take care of two potential health risks at the same time.

Many people have marveled at the way being over weight has become an American way of life, and wondered what caused it. Many point to sedentary lifestyles, working in front of computers, and watching too much television. In addition, many Americans eat diets high in fat and carbohydrates. Whatever the root causes, fitness and exercise can be a major part of the cure for this problem. Engaging in physical activity, increasing the heart rate, and just getting active can help a person loose weight, control triglyceride levels and improve diabetes and should not be ignored. Parents should restrict time spent by children with video games or watching television and encourage them to engage in fitness and exercise the way children in past generations have, playing games like baseball, basketball and jump rope. Children who learn the benefits of fitness and exercise at an early age will go into adults, who enjoy fitness and exercise, lead healthier lifestyles and tend to live longer, healthier and obviously happier lives.

For a free mini course on how to simultaneously improve strength and conditioning while burning fat, click here.