You don't have to succumb to the stress mode of modern life. You can use breathing to help you to relax your mind and body. Yoga can help you to relearn the natural state that your body and mind want to be in: relaxation.
Deep breathing is both calming and energizing. The energy you feel from a few minutes of careful breathe is not nervous or hyper, but that calm, steady energy we all need. Slow, steady, and quiet breathing gives a message to your nervous system: Be calm.
Whole books have been written on yoga breathing. Here is one 5-minute Breath Break. (Read through the instructions several times before you try the practice.)
1. Sit with your spine as straight as possible. Use a chair if necessary but don't slump into it. Feet flat on the floor with knees directly over the center of your feet. Use a book or cushion under your feet if they do not rest comfortably on the floor. Hands are on the tops of your legs.
2. Close your eyes gently and let them rest behind closed lids.
3. Think about your ribs, at the front, back, and at the sides of your body. Your lungs are behind those ribs.
4. Feel your lungs filling up, your ribs expanding out and up. Feel your lungs emptying, your ribs coming back down and in. Don't push the breath.
5. The first few times you do this, do it for 2 to 3 minutes, then do it for up to 5 to 10 minutes. At first, set aside a time at least once a day to do this. When you learn how good it makes you feel, you'll want to do it at other times as well.
Relaxing for a few minutes every day gradually carries over into the rest of your daily life and activities and improves your health and view of life.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
Breathing and Relaxing For Better Health
Posted by Armchair Traveler at 6:06 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Crucial Strategies for Eliminating Undesirable Fat
Fat is essential in anyone's body. Then again, having too much of it may make your body both unappealing and unhealthy. Retaining a fat equilibrium in your body is a must.
If you are currently in an overweight situation, you might be interested to learn recommendations to eliminate some of that unwanted fat to enjoy that healthier and better looking body.
Health Requires More Than Workouts Only
Popular opinion is that physical exercise is the best strategy to get rid of excess weight. While this is legitimate, you have to keep in mind that exercising alone cannot rid you of weight rapidly. Integrating a good diet is also important.
You can find countless diet program fads, such as excluding carbs or high protein diets. Even so, such diets aren't just ineffective over the long term, but can also be detrimental for your health and fitness.
Instead, follow approaches which have passed the test of experience over the decades to lose fat and grow muscle tissue.
Powerful Feeding Strategies
First, you need to consume food that has complex carbs for your morning meal. Carbs help supply you with energy throughout the day and throughout your physical exercises.
Your muscles also require their specific nutrients. That includes proteins that help to develop your muscle groups as well as aid in their restoration following a vigorous exercise session.
Protein serves up an additional superb benefit. It raises and sustains your metabolism to help diminish your perception of being hungry.
While it may sound contrary to logic, consuming fat is essential to help you eliminate fat. Even so, the fats you take in need to be through essential fatty acid sources like olive oil, salmon, and nuts.
Adding Workouts to the Mix
For those in more of a rush to get rid of undesirable weight, it'll require additional effort. Do daily aerobic workouts since it speeds up fat consumption and keeps your metabolism rate high.
Cardiovascular workouts - or aerobic sessions - that accelerate your heart rate for several minutes during an extended period of time are great for your health. For instance, you might try riding a bicycle, running, aquatic activities that keep your arms and legs moving, or perhaps a round of racquetball as your choices for physical exercises.
Needless to say, the fitness center is littered with memberships which are dropped given that people begin with great determination yet lose it shortly afterward. Frequently, this is out of basic disappointment because either the mirror doesn't reflect a "new" person quickly enough, or perhaps a drop in weight is not seen on the scale.
To circumvent this, keep track of your body weight each week and take a picture of yourself leading up to the beginning of your workout program. Armed with this, you will be able to observe the favorable improvements in your physique as time passes and gain reassurance for your effort.
For tips on valuable and realistic muscle creating ideas, stop by www.musclebuildingkeys.com - a hot site wherever you are able to request our weekly Muscle Mass Building newsletter and downloadable ebook entitled, "Exercise and Body Types", all positively FREE simply for signing up.
Posted by Armchair Traveler at 11:55 AM 0 comments
Labels: Weight Loss
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
How To Increase Your Vertical Jump
Developing a huge vertical jump in essence comes down to 4 key qualities.
* A high degree of relative strength
* Being able to employ that strength fairly quickly
* Adequate efficiency of movement
* Minimal amounts of body fat and mass
When you can achieve these Four factors then it is fairly safe to assume you will jumping high. The first piece of vertical jump training theory to understand is that your jumping potential is basically a product of your power to weight ratio. In other words you want to become as light and powerful as possible.
By getting light we mean reducing your body fat percentage and any excessive muscle mass. Carrying a spare tyre of fat around your stomach or large slab of meat pectorals won't allow you to jump high.
The other half of the power to weight ratio equation is power. Muscular power is the level of force one can apply divided by the time it takes to apply it. The primary variables of muscular power we are able to make improvements to are therefore speed and strength. Speed can be developed by increasing your co-ordination and also by training your central nervous system to respond faster.
This is where the plyometrics aspect of vertical jump training comes into play. If your main sports activity consists of a whole lot of jumping type movements already, you might not actually have to do much more actual jump training to enhance your current vertical.
Strength on the other hand is developed primarily by weight training, normally with heavy loads. Becoming strong is very important for increasing your vertical jump.
You Can't Fire Cannons From a Row Boat!
It is additionally crucial with regards to vertical jump exercises to know what muscles you need to concentrate on. Many people believe that it is mainly quadriceps, but in fact your major movers include your glutes, hamstrings, core, hips as well as the rest of the posterior chain. To a lessor extent your calves, shoulders and lats also play a role, but the vast majority of your jumping power comes from the bigger muscles situated around the top of the leg.
Accordingly the bulk of your vertical jump training should deal with the development of these parts. Inside the gym by far the two best exercises for the development of these parts, especially from a pure strength point of view, are the variety of styles of squat and deadlift. Becoming more powerful on these two exercises is among the easiest tactics for the regular athlete to generate improvements in their vertical jump.
What Sort of Jumping Do You Need?
A further key concept associated with vertical jump development is specificity. From a technical standpoint your vertical jump is actually how high you are able to leap from a stand still position. Even though this in itself is a good indicator of muscular power, in reality not many athletes will be training only for that. Most people want to enhance his or her vertical to improve a sporting relevant activity particularly basketball or volleyball.
Due to the function of specificity, just performing standing vertical jumps will help your standing vertical test result, however it sure isn't the best training for your needs for anybody who is endeavouring to slam a basketball.
As one example I know a runner who applies a form of specificity in his training involving solely using single legged versions of every exercise. The person does this simply because sprinting is really a unilateral movement and therefore he feels that unilateral training shows a considerably better carry over for him. I probably would not suggest everyone pursue his strategy but his plan is made with regard to his requirements and he has gotten good improvements with both his sprint performances as well as his vertical jump from following it.
The take home learning from this is that prior to beginning your jump training, ask yourself precisely what your real desired final outcomes are and tailor your training accordingly.
The Quickest Way To Make Gains
Now listen up, because the following point will prevent possibly many months of discouragement. The quickest and therefore most effective way to boost your vertical jump is undoubtedly by focusing on your weaknesses. Should you be really strong but your jumps are generally slow then there is not much need for you to do additional weight training work, you will end up a lot better served simply by getting out and performing jumping and plyometrics.
Training is Only A Small Part of Your Success
It is additionally extremely important to understand that performing vertical jump training is without question incredibly demanding to your body. It's very easy to over train and hurt yourself as a result of the high impact nature as well as CNS intensiveness related to the endeavor.
What you do in the Twenty three hours each day you aren't in the gym or on the court is able to make a huge impact on how well you progress. Looking after your body away from the training track will result in quicker and higher gains, not to mention reduce the likelihood of personal injury.
Summary
So that is the basic vertical jump training principles. If you want to jump high you'll want to improve your muscular power. Special focus need to be paid towards the quadriceps, hamstrings, glutes and also most of the posterior chain. The actual exercises and training you need to do will depend on your specific strengths and weakness and also the demands of one's preferred activity.
Vertical jump training isn't just about the proper training though. You should also take additional effort to make sure you stimulate your recovery since this can greatly help your vertical along with minimizing injuries. If you get those ideas correct you could soon be soaring above the rivals.
Posted by Armchair Traveler at 11:39 AM 0 comments
Labels: Vertical Jump
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
The Positive Aspects of Popular Kinds of Herbal Tea
Herbal teas are age-old home remedies dating back to ancient times that have been used to treat everything from the common cold to hypertension. Even though most herbal treatments have never been researched thoroughly enough to state for sure that they can provide a particular benefit, there are many years of informal accounts to suggest that at least quite a few of the benefits may very well be legitimate. Let's look at a few common teas made from herbs and see what symptoms they are used for.
Echinacea teas are made from a certain kind of flower that is also known as a purple coneflower. Echinacea tea is believed to help reduce the likelihood of catching the common cold as well as the duration of the illness if you do happen to become ill even though you are using Echinacea tea. However, research on the benefits of echinacea tea has been inconclusive.
Chamomile is typically used to treat nausea and vomiting and also as a mild tranquilizer to assist you in sleeping. There has been some early groundwork to study the effects of chamomile tea on animals like rats, and there's been substantiation to indicate that chamomile tea might aid in reducing high cholesterol, speed up healing, and avert surges in the blood glucose levels of diabetics following a large meal.
Lemongrass tea incorporates a substance called citral, which research has revealed is able to cause the cells of specific types of cancer to kill themselves. The amount of citral that was used in conducting the research was equal to what you would get in a single cup of lemongrass tea made with approximately one-third of an ounce of lemongrass.
Stinging nettle may aid in alleviating the symptoms of prostate enlargement and urinary disorders. Stinging nettle also acts as an antihistamine to treat seasonal allergies. Assertions have been made indicating that nettle can help reduce swelling and pain, especially for patients suffering from rheumatic disease. Nettle could also aid in the prevention of the common cold as well as lowering blood pressure levels.
Before taking herbal teas or other nutritional supplements to treat a medical condition, it is best to speak to your physician. Natural remedies can have an interaction with prescribed or over-the-counter medicines or produce unwanted side effects, especially in individuals with health conditions that contraindicate taking that variety of herb.
Visit this site for more information and news about health and wellness.
Posted by Armchair Traveler at 2:50 PM 0 comments
Labels: Herbal Tea, Tea