Enhance Your Flexibility

When it comes to the Big Three of exercise - cardiovascular, strength and flexibility training - it's pretty clear which one can get overlooked. After all, while we prize cardiovascular and strength training for their role in helping us lose weight, build muscle and get fit, the benefits of flexibility training are less immediately alluring.

However, as the population ages, more of us are learning to appreciate the rewards of stretching. Staying limber can offset age-related stiffness, improve athletic performance, and optimize functional movement in daily life. Research shows that flexibility training can develop and maintain range of motion and may help prevent and treat injury. In fact, the American College of Sports Medicine has added flexibility training to its general exercise recommendations, advising that stretching exercises for the major muscle groups be performed two to three days per week.

How can you include an effective flexibility workout in your fitness program? Here are some guidelines:

Think in Terms of Serious Flexibility Training, Not Just Brief Stretching. Squeezing in one or two quick stretches before or after a workout is better that nothing, but this approach will yield limited results. What's more, generic stretches may not be effective for your particular body. The more time and attention you give to your flexibility training, the more benefits you'll experience. A qualified personal trainer, physical therapist or health professional can design a functional flexibility program specifically for you.

Consider Your Activities. Are you a golfer? Do you ski, run or play tennis? Do your daily home or work routines include bending, lifting or sitting for long periods? Functional flexibility improves the stability and mobility of the whole person in his or her specific environment. An individualized stretching program is best to improve both stability (the ability to maintain ideal body alignment during all activities) and mobility (the ability to use full, normal range of motion).

Pay Special Attention to Tight Areas. Often the shoulder, chest, hamstrings and hips are particularly tight, but you may hold tension in other areas, depending on your history of injuries and the existing imbalances in your muscle groups. Unless you tailor your flexibility training to your strengths and weaknesses, you may stretch already overstretched muscles and miss areas that need training.

Listen to Your Body. Stretching is an individual thing. Pay attention to your body's signals and don't push too far. Avoid bouncing or jerking movements to gain momentum; this approach can be dangerous.

Instead, slowly stretch your muscles to the end point of movement and hold the stretch for about 10 to 30 seconds. Older adults, pregnant women and people with injuries will need to take special precautions.

Get Creative. Varying your flexibility training can help you stick with it. You can use towels, resistance balls and other accessories to add diversity and effectiveness to your stretching.

Warm Up First. Don't forget to warm up your muscles before you begin. Walking briskly for 10 to15 minutes is a simple way to do this.

Find a Flexibility Class That Works for You. Classes that include stretching are becoming more popular and more diverse. Some combine cardiovascular and strength components with the flexibility training; others focus exclusively on stretching.

Stretch Your Mind and Body. Did you know that your emotional state may affect your flexibility? If your body is relaxed, it will be more responsive to flexibility training. Listening to music and focusing on your breath can help you relax as you stretch. You may also want to explore yoga or Pilates. In addition to stretching, classes in these disciplines may include relaxation, visualization and other mind-body techniques designed to reduce stress and increase mindfulness.

It's Not Just for Wimps. Forget the idea that stretching is just for elderly, injured or unconditioned people. Many Olympic and professional athletes rely on flexibility training for peak performance.

Do It Consistently. It doesn't help to stretch for a few weeks and then forget about it. Integrate regular stretching into your permanent fitness program. For inspiration, look to cats and dogs - they're dedicated practitioners of regular stretching and you rarely see them getting the kind of joint or muscular injuries that humans get!

Shoulder and Trapezius Stretch

** Stand upright with shoulders back, chest out, and feet hip-width apart.

** Clasp your hands behind your buttocks.

** Slowly lift your hands up and away from your body until they have reached the furthest comfortable position.

** Keep your chest out and your chin in without hunching over.

** Once you feel a comfortable stretch in your chest and anterior shoulders, hold this position for at least 15-30 seconds.

Lying Quadriceps Stretch

** Lie face down on a mat.

** Lift your right leg up towards your buttocks.

** Reach around with your right hand and grasp your foot. -Slowly pull downwards, stretching your quadriceps to the furthest comfortable position.

** Hold this position for at least 15-30 seconds.

Shin Stretch

** Using a wall or chair as support, place your left foot behind your right foot, with the top of your left on the ground.

** Extend the bottom of your left shin as far forwards as possible. Slowly lower yourself by bending both legs.

** Once you have stretched your anterior tibialis to the furthest comfortable position, hold for at least 15-30 seconds.

** Switch legs and repeat.

Hip, Gluteus and Back Stretch

** Sit on the floor with both of your legs extended in front of you.

** Bend your right leg over your left leg, keeping your right foot flat on the floor outside the left knee.

** Place your left elbow on the outside of your right knee, and extend your right arm behind you with your palm flat on the floor for support.

** Slowly twist your upper body to the right while looking over your right shoulder.

** Lightly apply pressure with your left elbow on the outside of your right knee as you twist. Be sure to keep your upper body straight.

** Once you feel a comfortable stretch in your hips, buttocks, and lower back, hold this position for at least 15-30 seconds.

** Switch sides and repeat.

Calf Stretch

** Put the sole of the top half of your right foot against the wall. Slide your right heel as close towards the wall as possible.

** Slowly lean forward towards the wall stretching your calves. Once you have stretched your calf to the furthest comfortable position, hold for at least 15-30 seconds.

How to Lose the Most Fat and Gain the Most Strength in 30 Days

The dream of everyone who trains is to lose maximum fat and gain maximum muscle strength in the shortest period of time. While it is definitely possible to lose fat and gain muscle at the same time, in my experience, the best results come from concentrating on one major goal at a time.
Let me put it this way: to lose fat, you need a caloric deficit. To build strength, you need a caloric surplus. If you try to do both at the same time, you may just remain exactly where you are!
So the question before us is - how do we maximize both fat loss and strength gains, in only 30 days?
It's simple - we focus on both goals in the same program --- but not at the exact same time!
By alternating rapidly back and forth between reduced-calorie fat loss training and a slightly higher-calorie strength-oriented training, you can accomplish both goals at the same time. You can actually use the two opposing goals to feed on each other and send your results through the roof!
How quickly do you lose weight each time you start a diet after several months (or more) of not dieting at all? I'll bet it's pretty fast! That's your body rapidly adapting to a stress - the stress of rapidly switching diet and/or exercise routines.
What's the result of this switching back and forth? Extremely rapid fat loss and extremely rapid strength gain.
To maximize the effects of this switching, you must tailor your training, diet and supplementation towards your specific goal during that particular time. Proper manipulation of these factors will greatly enhance the body's hormonal response to this program, which is the real key to maximizing your results.
Here's an example...
For 5 days straight, you would target everything about your training and nutrition towards fat loss...
1. You would reduce your caloric intake below maintenance levels to promote fat burning.
2. You would reduce the rest periods between sets in your weight training to increase the intensity of the workload and boost your metabolism.
3. You would increase your training volume, performing more sets for each body part.
4. You would not push your body to muscular failure - pushing to failure can be too stressful to the muscles when on a reduced-calorie diet. Stop one rep short of this point.
5. You would include cardio training, preferably High Intensity Interval Training for best results, to burn calories and further boost your metabolism.
6. It is best to follow a low-carb diet during this time for maximum effectiveness. Eating this way will be especially powerful when you switch to the next phase of the program.
After five days, your metabolism would be just starting to get used to this new training and nutritional program. Now you would throw it a curveball and change everything!
For the next five days, you would be focusing your training, nutrition and supplementation completely on strength training.
1. You would increase your caloric and protein intake to promote strength gains.
2. You would increase your rest periods in between sets to allow for more recovery and increased strength in your sets.
3. You would decrease your training volume, doing fewer sets but with greater intensity. This is the time to really push your muscles to the edge! You're feeding them now, so don't be shy about training them hard.
4. You would eliminate all cardio training in order to maximize strength gains.
5. You would NOT follow a low-carb diet during this time. We want a few extra healthy carbs in you to provide energy and promote insulin release (the body's primary storage hormone). This insulin release will help shuttle protein and other nutrients into the muscles to help with building.
The body's hormonal response to this huge change in training, nutrition and supplementation is tremendous.
After 5 days of this training, your metabolism will be cranking along, happily building strength. Now we'll pull the rug out and go right back into fat-loss training for 5 days. Since your body is used to getting more food and your metabolism is still moving fast, switching to fat-loss training at this time will immediately result in your body burning far more fat than if you were using a conventional fat loss program.
In 30 days, you'll complete three rounds of this rapid-adaptation training. As you will soon experience, this switching back and forth between a short, targeted fat loss program and a short, targeted strength-building program can have a tremendous and rapid impact on your appearance.
Think this program sounds good? You ain't seen nothing yet...

Reducing Blood Pressure

Recent research underscores the importance of a healthful lifestyle including a fitness regimen for both the prevention and treatment of hypertension. Often, changes in diet and exercise habits are enough to control blood pressure without medication, especially for people with mild to moderate blood pressure levations. Sometimes diet and exercise can even reduce the need for medication, and thereby reduce side effects and lower costs.
If you are already taking medication for hypertension, it's important to discuss your lifestyle changes with your doctor, and continue taking your medication as prescribed. If lifestyle changes result in improved blood pressure, your doctor will want to work closely with you to reduce your dosage in a safe and effective manner. Following are some of the most important things you can do to prevent and control hypertension.
Reducing your sodium intake is a major factor. Many people with hypertension find that reducing sodium intake reduces blood pressure as well. Learn which foods are high in sodium, and avoid them as much as possible.
Regular exercise is the most important hypertension-prevention habit for three reasons:
First, it helps prevent and control hypertension. Formerly sedentary people who begin exercising regularly experience, on average, a drop of six or seven points in both systolic and diastolic blood pressure.
Second, active people have lower death rates than their sedentary friends, even when they have the same blood pressure. Research has shown that exercise reduces risk for cardiovascular and other disease. Exercise also helps prevent obesity, another hypertension risk factor.
Third, regular exercise provides the foundation for successful behavior change programs. Exercise makes you feel good and feel positive about yourself. Stress reduction is one of the greatest benefits of exercise. Stress not only raises blood pressure, but it makes you less inclined to stick to your positive eating plan, your
smoking cessation program or your decision to cut down on your alcohol intake.
Eating more fruits, vegetables and grains increases your intake of important minerals such as calcium and potassium, not to mention vitamins and fiber. One study found that volunteers consuming a diet high in these foods and low in fats (such as the diets created by our on-staff nutritionist) reduced systolic blood pressure by four points, and diastolic by three points. This small but significant reduction was accomplished with diet alone. Add exercise, stress management and weight loss for people who are overweight, and blood pressure reductions often improve much more.
Eating well and exercising regularly are the cornerstone.
Deprivation programs are out! Don't focus on weight loss; focus on a healthy lifestyle. A little weight loss may occur by cutting down on "junk food," eating more fruits, vegetables and grains, and increasing physical activity. Even a relatively small loss, such as 5 to 10 pounds, can reduce blood pressure. The most important goal is the development of healthful habits that stay with you for a
lifetime, so that the weight stays off. Weight cycling (repeatedly losing and regaining weight) may raise your blood pressure and be harmful to your health.
Reducing stress is another lifelong task. Take a stress management workshop, develop your sense of humor and read some good books. Develop coping techniques that increase your resistance to stress related illness. And don't forget the importance of exercise for stress reduction.
Limiting your alcohol and caffeine intake will make a profound difference in your health. You should strive to drink alcohol and caffeine in moderation, if at all.