Very Easy Exercise

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What are the 5 best exercises for your body? There is an ongoing debate about this in the health community. What the best exercises are may depend on who you talk to. There are many sports enthusiasts that may debate this.

Fortunately, there is some agreement among health care providers, both mainstream and alternative-minded or those enjoying Eastern philosophy, about what types of exercises to promote total body health and wellness (without destroying the joints necessarily). Let’s talk about these fantastic exercises, and why they are so great for your body.

Swimming

Why is swimming at the top of the list? It is among the only cardiovascular exercises that can work every muscle in your bodyâ?¦ AND it is easy on your joints. There is almost no person in the world that can’t benefit from swimming.

Swimming is great for the seasoned athlete and for individuals that are frail. Are you in rehabilitation? No problem. Often therapists recommend swimming for individuals that have been injured or are suffering from chronic ailments including arthritis because swimming is gentle on the joints. You can start out slowly and work your way up to a vigorous workout.

You can choose to pull yourself along and work your upper body alone, or you can kick with a kick board and work your lower body. You don’t have to be a professional swimmer to enjoy the health benefits either. You can do a freestyle stroke, the breast stroke, you can doggy paddle. You can even walk in water.

Water provides natural resistance, so when you exercise in it; it is almost as if you were lifting weights. Not bad for even the professional athlete. So, if you want to get fit in the best way possible, why not try swimming? It’s fun for everyone, and it is an excellent total body workout. You can enjoy it whether young or old.

Walking

Next to swimming, walking is the next greatest exercise. It almost works every muscle in the body. It is also gentle on the joints, especially if you pick a surface to walk on besides concrete (like dirt paths or grass). Make sure you have proper walking shoes to absorb impact and your knees and ankles will thank you.

To improve your upper body strength, make sure you swing your arms widely. You can complement your walking with some of the exercises below to ensure you get a total body workout.

Push-Ups

Push-ups are old fashioned but they work and you don’t need any fancy equipment to enjoy them. Pushups work all the muscles in your body (almost). You may not even realize this. If you do them correctly however, you will see. When you have your feet extended in back of you and you push up, you work your back, arms, chest and abdomen.

Here is how you do it right. Make sure you lie facedown when starting. Now, place your hands a bit wider than your shoulders at your sides, bent. Breathe out and push up, breath in and lower. Make sure you are streamlined and not holding your butt up too high.

You probably should have someone watch you at first to make sure you have the right form.

Squats

If you plan to work your upper body you should work your lower body. Squats are the best exercise for making your butt look shapely and for toning your legs. Like pushups they are old-fashioned but they do work.

All you have to do is this. Stand with your feet a bit apart, just past your hips. Have your toes pointing slightly out, and make sure you are standing straight. Make sure your abdomen is pulled in with your pelvis down. Squat down to about a 90 degree angle with your legs, not your torso and then push back up again. You don’t have to use a barbell on your back to do squats. In fact, until you master your form you should not use any weight at all.

When you do graduate to weights, you should have someone monitor your form. This will help prevent injury. A machine rather than free weights will help prevent early injury as well.

Lat Pull-Downs

This is another form of exercise that will require a machine, but helps balance your back out. If you do push ups you should consider this exercise because it will balance out the chest exercise that comes from basic pushups.

What you do is hold the bar with your palms facing the front of the bar. Then pull down the bar toward the front of your chest, and slowly let back up again. Start with a small weight, and gradually increase the weight. You should always begin slowly and work your way up to a greater weight. If you can’t lift the weight slowly then it is too much weight, because if you must work fast you are really using momentum to move that weight and not your muscles.

As you can see exercising doesn’t have to be expensive and you don’t even need to join the gym. All you need is a little discipline.

Sincerely yours,

Omid

Omid Jaffari
http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/5-best-exercises-for-your-body-710668.html

with Renata Marcinkowska, World-ranked Tennis Pro & Instructor Renata Marcinkowska, a two-time All-American at Oklahoma State University, shares 33 dynamic exercises and tips for self-improvement in tennis. Marcinkowska has designed this program specifically for aspiring players (high school & college) who want to take their game to the next level. It is a program that will teach you the touch and feel necessary to become a great player. The beauty and uniqueness of Marcinkowska’s program is that these exercises and drills are designed for individual workouts. She shares individual drills covering power with touch, poaching, overheads, the passing shot, approach shot, lob returns and the serve. In addition, she teaches conditioning and cross-training drills to develop your quickness and mobility. This DVD encourages and challenges you to be self-motivated, “think outside the box” and will help propel you to become an extraordinary player! 40 minutes. 2004.

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with Al Murdoch, Iowa State University Head Hockey Coach, Andrew Moser, ISU Strength Coach; and Stephanie Eichler, ISU Fitness Coordinator In this DVD, Coach Murdoch shares a three-phase strength-training program that affords a hockey player specific strength, endurance, and explosiveness benefits that are easily transferred from dry land onto the ice. In Phase 1, Cycling & Spinning, ISU Fitness Coordinator Stephanie Eichler leads the team through a rigorous cycling & spinning workout that includes jumps, climbs, and interval work. In Phase 2, Slide Board Training, Eichler leads the players through a rigorous slide board workout containing over 50 moves. In Part 3, Weight Training, ISU Strength Coach Andrew Moser demonstrates over 20 specific exercise workouts into the following areas: Lower body, Upper body, Injury Prevention, Back Strength, Biceps, Triceps, and Grip Strength and includes an explanation of the specifics of the weight training system along with weekly and daily plans for implementing and coordinating all three phases of the strength and conditioning program. An excellent resource for any team! 73 minutes. 2005. DVD.

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with Eric Valenzuela, University of San Diego Pitching Coach The components of Coach Valenzuela’s effective long toss and arm conditioning program feature stick drills for mechanics, tube exercises, leg work, leg stretches, agility work and a throwing program. Using elastic tubing, players prepare for practice by demonstrating six stretching exercises. Running, individual stretching and agility exercises are other important parts of practice preparation. Valenzuela goes through his top eight individual stretches and seven agility exercises for you to incorporate into your practice. The first step in the throwing program is the Free Throw Tosses drill with a four-seam grip. Chest to chest, three position, walking into throws (40-60 feet), long toss with arc (80-90 feet), fastball/change-up catch (90 feet), working into 60 feet and feel pens from the mound (70%) comprise the drills that make up the long toss program. Six stick drill mechanics help players maintain fundamentals and proper throwing mechanics. This is the same program that, in 2007, helped propel the San Diego staff to the 7th best earned run average in the nation (3.37) while rising to 16th in the country for strikeouts per nine innings. 60 minutes. 2007. DVD.

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with Greg Strobel, Lehigh University Head Coach; 2000 US Olympic Coach; 2004 NWCA Coach of the Year Coach Strobel follows up his best selling Practice to Peak DVD with this collection of practice routines and drills you can use to form championship caliber practices. Strobel begins with a discussion on his practice philosophy hitting on such topics as cross training, as well as his ideas on pre-practice, early season and late season practice routines. The bulk of his presentation is dedicated to the daily practice routine, which he divides into three parts: Pre-Combat, Combat and Post Combat. In Pre-Combat, Strobel presents five options that will get your wrestlers prepared for live wrestling. The Combat section features 11 workouts that are highly structured and very intense. He includes his famous 30 x 30, 15’s and Grind Match routines. The Post-Combat options are warm down routines that double as team building exercises. These routines can be mixed and matched to work on areas your squad needs to focus on. This is an excellent template for coaches to use for practice organization that will mix up the daily practice grind, while keeping the wrestlers enthusiastic about practice to be the best they can be. 69 minutes. 2007. DVD.

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with Brian Fitzgerald, Rio Mesa HS (CA) Head Track Coach This excellent program covers speed, sprint mechanics, warm-up and drills, starts, acceleration mechanics, training and seasonal planning. Speed is defined as the product of stride length and stride frequency; Fitzgerald works to improve both variables in his program. He demonstrates bounding exercises that can increase strength through plyometrics. Sprint mechanics include posture, arm action, stretch reflex and leg action. Warming up, important to sprinters, is presented via drills and aerobic conditioning exercises. Many excellent start and acceleration drills are also included. Sprint training is the heart of this presentation and begins with repetition training. Key components are specific distance in specified time, recovery time and distance. Various examples of repetition training are illustrated. Also included are high lactate training and peak speed training. The seasonal plan includes designing a calendar, which is divided into four phases: pre-competition, early competition, competitive and championship. 58 minutes. 2007. DVD.

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with Chris Doyle, University of Iowa Football Strength and Conditioning Coach, Certification: National Strength and Conditioning Association (NSCA), ‘99 NSCA Big 10 “Strength Coach of the Year”. Do you want to learn how to develop a dominating lineman? Coach Doyle shares 117 exercises that have contributed to the successful line play at the University of Iowa. Doyle’s training program begins with evaluation and progresses through the critical areas of developing linemen. Warm-up, flexibility, torso, posterior chain, posterior shoulder girdle, acceleration, plyometric, and position specific exercises are explained and demonstrated in this unique video. An outstanding video with an abundance of drills and exercises to prepare your linemen for competition! 35 minutes. 2005. DVD.

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How many times have you asked yourself this question – what exercises can I do to lose weight?  Most of us think of exercises in the traditional sense.  Exercising means walking or running, outside or on a treadmill.  It means aerobics classes, pilates, step classes, kickboxing classes, weightlifting or swimming.  It means buying expensive equipment that you’ll use for a week then watch it collect dust.  Exercising means joining an expensive health club that you’ll go to for 1 month then stop as you keep paying your monthly membership.  This is what most people think of when they hear the word exercise. 

There are alternatives to those things mentioned above.  Simple exercises to lose weight that you can do without taking any extra time out of your schedule.  You don’t have to purchase any fancy equipment or join a health club.  No need to go outside (unless you want to).  You won’t have to drive to the mall just to walk around inside of it either.  You can increase your heart rate, increase your metabolism and burn calories right in your own home simply by doing what you already do, only faster!

Here are some simple exercises that you can perform to lose weight:

1. Speed Vacuuming!  The basic act of vacuuming is a form of exercise.  Think about the components of this task – you are walking, pushing the vacuum against the resistance of the carpet, changing directions frequently and sometimes lifting the vacuum.  If you want to increase your heart rate then try to vacuum a more quickly than you normally would.  You’ll be surprised at the effect this will have on your heart rate and your breathing.

2.  Speed dusting!  You have to dust anyway, right?  Do it faster!  The quicker you move your arms the greater the workload on your heart and muscles. 

3.  Doing laundry today?  Take a few extra trips up or down the stairs (depending on where your machines are).  Separate your loads in one place then walk each load to the basement one at a time.  This is an easy way to incorporate more stairclimbing into your day and will easily increase your heart rate and burn more calories.

4.  More on laundry!  Before emptying the clothes into the machine to this – squat down (keeping your back straight and bending your knees), grab the laundry basket then stand up straight.  Repeat this 5 times with each load of laundry.  Adjust the amount of clothes if it’s too heavy.  You’ll feel it in your legs and it will be well worth it.

5.  You have a great piece of exercise equipment in your home already – the stairs!  The next time you go up the stairs perform this little technique – step up on the first stair with both feet.  Then step down one foot at a time to the floor.  Next step up to step one, then step two.  Then step down to step one.  Then step up to step one, two and three.  Next, step down to step two.  Continue this pattern until you reach the top of the stairs!

What exercises can I do to lose weight?  What you must remember is that in order to lose weight and bodyfat you have to increase your body’s metabolism.  You do this by increasing your body’s workload; meaning you have to do something that increases the workload on your muscles so that your heart rate will increase.  This will, in turn, increase your body’s metabolism and you will burn more calories.  Certainly traditional exercises (like those mentioned above) will do this.  But for those of us that aren’t ready for that level of commitment these 5 activities are a great alternative. 

Peter Harris
http://www.articlesbase.com/wellness-articles/what-exercises-can-i-do-to-lose-weight-594513.html

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The Lifecore Fitness 900UB Upright Exercise Bike has acompact walk-through design with 12 preset programs and 3 heart ratecontrol programs. The 5 inch pedal spacing on the Lifecore Fitness 900UB Upright Exercise Bike reduces joint stress. The Lifecore Fitness 900UB Upright Exercise Bikefeatures a comfortable saddle with micro-adjustable fore-aft seatadjustment, storage for up to 9 user profiles, adjustable handlebars, ascratch-resistant coating, and a toggle wheel for easy programscrolling/adjustment.

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