Archive for the “Cardio Workouts” Category

Healthday News had this article on urban exercise based on a report by the The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention..

Your intentions may be good, but exercising outdoors in a city may be riskier than you think, one expert says.

Outdoor activity can cause serious damage to a person’s health because of elevated air pollution levels. Those especially at risk are those who exercise by running, bicycling or skating.

According to Dr. Joseph T. Cooke, associate professor of clinical medicine and patient safety officer at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center, the danger lies in the components of air pollution. The three main culprits are fine particulate matter, (the mixture of solid particles and liquid droplets in the air), ozone (a gas composed of three oxygen atoms) and carbon monoxide.

These components of air pollution irritate the lungs, making it harder to breathe and worsening problems initially caused by asthma, bronchitis, cardiopulmonary maladies, and emphysema.

“The pollutants affect the lungs by causing inflammation or irritation of the airway lining,” Cooke explained in a prepared statement. “More mucus and phlegm is produced, and small muscles surrounding the airway respond by squeezing down. The work of breathing increases, and it becomes more difficult to get oxygen into the body,” he said.

The three pollutants are located in cities around the world. Fine particulates are emitted from the diesel engines of buses and trucks. Carbon monoxide arises from cigarette smoke and automobile exhaust, and it has the ability to force oxygen out of a person’s circulatory system.

For those exercising, overexposure to carbon monoxide can lead to dizziness, confusion, headaches and dangerously high body temperatures. Ozone, which is the largest component of smog in cities, adversely affects breathing patterns and decreases the size of airways, making the lungs more resistant to oxygen.

For those determined to work out outdoors, Cooke offered the following tips:

Do not run on or near roads where there is heavy truck or bus traffic.
Work out in the early morning or later in the evening.
Exercise indoors if possible.
If you experience any difficulty breathing, stop exercising immediately and see a doctor.

In Edmonton at least one place, Alberta Milk, is helping it’s employees to get in better shape by offering fitness programs in the workplace. This is a trend that people are seeing in many places as companies realize that fit and healthy employees are more productive and and have less sick time.

Some employers are embracing the idea that a fit worker is a happy one that may, in the long run, take fewer sick days. After attending a workshop on bringing fitness into the workplace, Joanne Barwise of Alberta Milk in Edmonton talked to her employer and soon the office had various ways for folks to fit activity into their workday.

“The key to success is having management onside,” she said.

Since the spring, the 35 staff at the non-profit organization have had access to two bicycles to ride outside anytime during the work day, and to walking paths near the building.

When that took off, they bought a set of bocce balls. Now every Tuesday and Thursday the staff head to the back of the building and have a game after work.
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If you want to feel great, have more energy and improve your overall health, take a walk. Walking is one of the best forms of exercise and you can do it almost anywhere, anytime, and for free.

The generally recognized health benefits of walking regularly are far-reaching: reduced risk of coronary heart disease, stroke, and other chronic diseases, reduced stress, weight control, muscle tone, and cardio fitness.

Walking for exercise does not need to be strenuous to produce results. Even walking for 30 minutes a day, has been reported to produce measurable benefits, even among those who are least active.

Tips for walking for exercise:

• Wear loose, comfortable clothing.
• Protect yourself from the sun with clothes, sunglasses, a hat and sun block.
• Drink plenty of fluids before and after your walk.
• If you are taking a long walk, take water with you.
• Walk with a friend and combine exercise with a visit.
• Join a local walking club.
• If you have a medical condition, are overweight, over 40 years of age or haven’t exercised regularly for a long time, check with your doctor before you start any type of exercise program.

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I was watching Honey we are killing the kids just now and they talked about an exercise called rebounding. Rebounding is a type of exercise done on a mini trampoline at home indoors. I have always liked trampolines because they are so much fun. I looked around and found the following article about rebounding on the trampoline:

Rebounding Workout, Rebounder, Gym Rebounder, Mini Trampoline

Ever heard of rebounding? Rebounding is a fun way to get great exercise using small controlled movements on a mini trampoline. By using a small trampoline and following a rebounding video, people of all ages can exercise on a rebounder. Rebounding is safe because your feet barely leave the surface and a stabilizing bar can be added which will help if you feel unsteady.

There are different types of rebounders on the market and some even fold for easy storage. Because of the size of these mini trampolines they can be used in your home or even easily transported to your office. Rebounding has been taking up in some of your most popular commercial gyms.

There are a vast selection of videos to keep your rebounding workout exciting and new. There are special routines for people of all ages to make it more enjoyable. Some examples of rebounding workouts include first timers, basic, seniors, sports specific, dance, ballet, hip hop, Latin, core, yoga, abdominal, stretch and many other routines. You will never get bored with so many videos to choose from.
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I am always looking for informative articles that can explain a bit better than me how to get things done. If you already know the importance about morning exercise and breakfast but don’t do it yet maybe this will be some help for you.

Start Exercising first thing in the morning.

As soon as you wake up in the morning workout for at least 30min to an hour. Studies show that working out in the morning has been shown to burn up to 3x as more fat as opposed to working out at any other time during the day. Here?s Why:

During the day your body’s main source of energy is the carbohydrates that you get from eating your meals. As you sleep at night for 6+ hours your body uses up all those carbohydrates as energy for various bodily functions that go on even while you sleep. When you wake up in the morning your body doesn’t have any carbohydrates as energy to use and it will look to burn body fat instead for energy. For you to take advantage of this morning fat burning opportunity you have to exercise first thing in the morning. Don?t eat breakfast because if you do you?ll just give your body some carbohydrates as a source of energy instead of the body fat that you want to burn for energy.
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I am never sure how many calories I am really burning when I do exercise. Quite often you will have a great workout and according to the numbers you only burned a couple of hundred calories. There is a lot more to calorie burning than what the numbers may say. Some question you should ask yourself are:

How long did you exercise?

How hard was the workout to you?

Did you gain any muscle in the workout?

How long where you tired for after your workout?

You have to remember when you workout that the exercise you did this morning will temporarily raise your metabolism for 12 hours after that workout. Also there is some muscle gain if you did weights or pushed yourself hard.

If you would like to see how much calorie buring you did during your actual workout you can consult a page that I found for this. Just remember to take these numbers with a grain of salt in the larger picture.

Over the years I have tried of and on to be a runner. As we all know running is great cardio exercise but, for me anyway, it is very hard on your hips and knees.

My favorite radio doctor, Dr. Gabe Mirkin has an article about “What causes runner’s knee?”

This is the time of new years exercise when the pain can become a bit unbearable. Make sure you are taking that aspirin and icing your sore spots!

Up here in Calgary the weather has been nice although only a little cold over the last couple weeks. I have been on holidays so have not really been on my bike getting exercise and instead have been trying to get weight workouts in and cardio done indoors. I am sure I will be kicking myself in a couple of weeks but the change of pace has been nice.

Work for me starts up again on Tuesday and I should be able to ride my bike to and from work which I believe is the exercise that has really made the difference in my life over the last year.

Now that we are into the new year everyone’s new years resolutions will kick in today. The gyms will be busy with lots of people signing up, talk at work will be about healthy eating and exercise and the will that things have changed for good but come the end of January most of the talkers will have become silent as the excitement of health, exercise, muscle soreness, and weight loss will have disappeared and forgotten.

The next few weeks will be critically important for you and the basis to me for continuing after things have lost their excitement is to not lose the excitement in the first place. Do the following and see if it changes your life for the better.

Technorati Tags: weightlifting, exercise, diet
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As we all know tennis is great exercise for brief periods of time. When I was younger I played a lot of tennis and really enjoyed the sport becase of the competition, skill, startegy and also because it was the funnest way that I knew of to get some good exercise. If you play tennis for an hour you could expect to burn 500 calories if you were running you would burn over 1100 calories so tennis is not the best workout from a caloric burning standpoint.

Enter Cardio Tennis.

I was listening to a interview on an online health radio station today and heard a great interview with on of the people involved with Cardio Tennis.
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I was reading the following article and laughing

Starling Fitness A Workout That Will Kick Your Butt

I know exactly how you feel. I have been riding my bike all spring and summer and now it is time to get indoors and ride the exercise bike for the winter. Winter just started this week and the exercise bike has been mocking me all vening. Tomorrow I will start getting tough workouts in indoors again. I am concerned though that if I use your method I may be picking myself up off the ground as my bike does not seem stable enough to be riding standing up…I will know soon enough