Archive for the ‘Fitness’ Category

Consume healthy snacks for weight loss
by Michelle Bosmier

(NaturalNews) Snacking is almost universally viewed as bad for health, primarily because snacks are associated with convenience foods like chips, popcorn and soda. The last thing many of us imagine is that snacks can not only be healthy, but also supportive of weight loss regimes. In fact, some scientists now believe that healthy snacking may actually help dieters regulate their eating habits by learning to consume lighter meals.
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Calories count, but source doesn’t matter, study says

People trying to lose weight may swear by specific diet plans calling for strict proportions of fat, carbs and protein, but where the calories come from may not matter as much as simply cutting back on them, according to a study.
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Intermittent fasting and high intensity fitness boost HGH
by Dr. David Jockers

(NaturalNews) The human body was designed very efficiently for times of scarcity and stress. Food scarcity was a common reality and the body has developed specific pathways to be very efficient in times of fasting. In times of stress, for survival purposes we adapted a fight or flight mode that forces us to work our bodies at a very high-intensity for a relatively short period of time. The combination of intermittent fasting and high intensity exercise promotes hormones that improve tissue healing and metabolic processes.
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Endurance Exercise Linked to Damage in Right Ventricle of Heart

ScienceDaily — Researchers have found the first evidence that some athletes who take part in extreme endurance exercise such as marathons, endurance triathlons, alpine cycling or ultra triathlons may incur damage to the right ventricles of their hearts — one of the four chambers in the heart involved in pumping blood around the body.
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Animal study: Fat in childhood? Weak muscles for life, says animal study

Doctors are concerned about the growing numbers of men and women that will need medical care during old age. We are all living longer, and as a result Alzheimer’s, sarcopenia, diabetes and osteoporosis are taking on epidemic proportions. Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center in the US published an animal study which suggests that the numbers of elderly people with weak muscles are likely to grow more than we had expected.
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Still Counting Calories? Your Weight-Loss Plan May Be Outdated
By JANE E. BRODY

It’s no secret that Americans are fatter today than ever before, and not just those unlucky people who are genetically inclined to gain weight or have been overweight all their lives. Many who were lean as young adults have put on lots of unhealthy pounds as they pass into middle age and beyond.
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How Muscle Fatigue Originates in the Head

ScienceDaily — Researchers from the University of Zurich have now studied in detail what sportsmen and women know from experience: The head plays a key role in tiring endurance performances. They have discovered a mechanism in the brain that triggers a reduction in muscle performance during tiring activities and ensures that one’s own physiological limits are not exceeded. For the first time, the study demonstrates empirically that muscle fatigue and changes in the interaction between neuronal structures are linked.
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Some Exercise Is Better Than None: More Is Better to Reduce Heart Disease Risk

ScienceDaily – Even small amounts of physical activity will help reduce heart disease risk, and the benefit increases as the amount of activity increases, according to a quantitative review reported in Circulation, journal of the American Heart Association.

People who engaged in 150 minutes of moderate-intensity leisure activity had a 14 percent lower risk of coronary heart disease (CHD) compared to those who reported no exercise or physical activity. At higher levels of activity, the relative risk of CHD was progressively lower. Researchers found that even people who got below the United States guidelines for physical activity, which recommends 2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate exercise per week, had a lower risk of CHD than those who had no activity.
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Exercise Has Numerous Beneficial Effects On Brain Health and Cognition, Review Suggests

ScienceDaily – It’s no secret that exercise has numerous beneficial effects on the body. However, a bevy of recent research suggests that these positive effects also extend to the brain, influencing cognition. In a new review article highlighting the results of more than a hundred recent human and animal studies on this topic, Michelle W. Voss, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and her colleagues show that both aerobic exercise and strength training play a vital role in maintaining brain and cognitive health throughout life. However, they also suggest that many unanswered questions remain in the field of exercise neuroscience — including how various aspects of exercise influence brain physiology and function and how human and animal studies relate to each other — and issue the call for further research to fill in these gaps.
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Mountain Climbing Raises Testosterone Levels

Mountain climbers returning from an expedition have a higher testosterone level than when they depart. Italian andrologists from the University of L’Aquila studied seven experienced climbers on an expedition in the Himalayas. They made a discovery that may be of interest to strength athletes.

The Italians wanted to find out more about the effect of high altitude on male fertility and hormone balance. Studies and anecdotes suggest that the effects are negative. One theory often cited is that climbers are affected by radiation.
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Eccentric exercise – slower might not be more productive
by Anthony Roberts

If I were to grab a bunch of bodybuilding magazines off the shelf this month, no doubt I’d see countless articles that talk about the importance of the eccentric (lowering) portion of various exercises. “Slowly lower the weight” has been part of bodybuilding dogma for decades, with recommendations ranging from a 4 second lowering phase and upwards. This, they tell us, is where muscle is built – the Holy Grail of hypertrophy. Some bodybuilders even take it to the next level by doing “negative reps” at the end of their sets, where they slowly -agonizingly slowly – lower the weight while a spotter helps them lift it. However, although lowering a weight doesn’t make you much stronger, it does happen to cause more damage to your muscle than actually lifting the weight. Because of this increased damage it is thought that prolonging the eccentric portion of the lift will result in substantially more hypertrophy.
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Exercise is most effective in late afternoon
by Anthony Roberts

Throughout my athletic career I’ve trained at various times – morning, afternoon, evening, etc…and besides waking up earlier (or later), I’ve noticed that I’m generally stronger in the late afternoon. And of course, there are people who will swear that they’re stronger late at night or early in the morning. But according to a 2010 study, it appears that (on average) resistance training ought to be most effective in the late afternoon. Remember, we’re talking about the average person here, and this study was based on the levels of beneficial circulating hormones versus detrimental ones. However, if your schedule only allows for early training, don’t worry – the researchers note that although the late afternoon seems to have the lion’s share of benefits in terms of ideal training adaptations (joint suppleness, blood flow, glycolysis, etc…), repeated morning bouts can ultimately train your body to produce adaptations with the same results.
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Aerobic exercise helps body on multiple levels
by Joe Elrod

Typically, when we think of aerobic exercise, we think trim bodies, burning calories, looking healthier and having more energy. These are certainly great benefits.

However, the good news is that there are many other underlying positive benefits happening that are not only increasing the length of your life, but impacting the quality of your life as well.

Just having more knowledge of the benefits of running, walking, elliptical machines, treadmills and aerobic classes may in fact motivate you to be more prudent with your aerobic activity and lifestyle.

Let’s take a look at two important health factors that aerobic activity impacts in significantly positive ways: the body’s pH balance and the body’s production of Human Growth Hormone (HGH).
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Belly Fat – Not BMI – is a Killer for Patients with Clogged Arteries
By Melissa Healy, Los Angeles Times

For people with coronary artery disease, including those with a “normal, healthy” body-mass index (or BMI), having even a little flubber around the middle is a bad omen, increasing the risk of death as much as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day or having very high cholesterol. But having a BMI in the “overweight” or “obese” category does not, by itself, imply a grim prognosis, says a new study.

The new research, published Monday in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, makes clear that when it comes to body composition, it is better to be pear-shaped–carrying fat deposits in the hips, buttocks and thighs–than to be shaped like an apple, carrying excess fat around the middle. And it makes clear that for a patient with clogged or obstructed coronary arteries, a large waist circumference and high waist-to-hip ratio are better prognosticators of death than is his or her BMI, which is a poor measure.
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Frequently Asked Questions about Full-BODY-LICIOUS

Q: What exactly is FULL-BODY-LICIOUS and why is it so effective?

FULL-BODY-LICIOUS is the same workout I used to drop my body fat from 18% to 13.4% in 10 weeks while working out in Powerhouse Gym in downtown Tampa, Florida. It’s the same workout I used to get ready for the pictures you’ll see on my website…from my first ever photo shoot (something way outside my comfort zone)!

FULL-BODY-LICIOUS consists of intelligently designed 60-minute fat loss workouts to slim down or shape up. Each week cycles through five different full body workouts and each workout gives extra attention to key body parts that contribute to a flawless figure. By the end of the week you will have hit all your major muscle groups five times with multiple angles, exercises and “advanced” fat burning techniques and tricks.
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