Video - Myths About Strength Training for Women

Although some people think of weight or strength training as being a fitness method for men, women need strong bodies too! Strong muscles is something that we, as humans, all need in order to live healthy and pain-free lives. This video discusses some of the common myths surrounding strength training, and the reasons why this can be an important part of your fitness routine, whether you are male or female. If you're a woman and haven't tried weight training or strength training, you will want to watch this, as it covers a lot of interesting stuff in a short amount of time.

Strength Training for Women - Myths
Many women think that strength training with weights is something only men should be doing, but in reality it holds as many benefits for them as it does for men. In this video we are going to have a look at the most common myths that surround the top...

Related articles on Strength Training for Women:

• Why Women Must Do Weight Training (sportales.com)
• 6 Reasons to Add Strength Training to Your Workout Plan (everydayhealth.com)
• Boost Your Metabolism: Learn the ABC's of Strength Training (self.com)
• The Best Weight Training Routines for Women (brighthub.com)

The Strong Way to Women's Health

 Fitness, muscle-building and gym work-outs have gone beyond the traditional all-male club. With all the recent talk about fitness and health and a healthy lifestyle, women have joined the club as well. However, men and women have different fitness needs.

Image via WikipediaWomen’s fitness and exercise needs are focused on the muscles of the upper back. Most of their exercise work-outs are also designed for the stomach muscles, especially those who have just given birth. At the same time, exercises for women are usually designed for weight loss.

And while men tend to focus on muscle building whereas women work on toning their muscles, strength training is important for both.

Here are a few things to inspire us women to get busy and start building up our muscle strength:

• Make the performance of your usual tasks easier with a physically strong body. Chores will be easier, lifting your kids, the grocery or the laundry will be a piece of cake. Consequently, it will reduce possible strain on the muscles and injury. Regular training can increase a woman’s strength by 30 to 50 percent. 
• Lose fat at the same time. A strength training routine done 2 to 3 times a week for a span of two months can result to two pounds of muscles and would mean a reduction of 3.5 pounds of fat. The more muscles and less fat, the faster is your metabolism, which ultimately means your body burns calories faster than before. 
• Fight osteoporosis. Weight training increases spinal bone mineral density which means a lesser risk of osteoporosis. 
• Fight heart disease and diabetes. Weight improvement improves cardiovascular health by lowering the bad cholesterol and blood pressure. It also improves glucose use in the body by 23 percent which reduces the risk of diabetes.

Strong, flexible muscles are the road to a healthier you. Not only does strength promote a healthier body, but it also develops a healthier attitude and a healthier heart. Women who engage in regular strength training are more confident, with a more positive outlook in life.

Image via WikipediaSo how do you get started?

For those who lead very busy lifestyles, hitting the gym and starting on a regular fitness plan may seem the perfect way to keep fit. But for those starting at a low fitness level, starting out on a regular walking exercise is the way to go. Start at a manageable rate. A 10 to 15 minute walk is a good way to start. Prior to a workout, make sure to stretch your major muscles. Work your muscles on the front of your thighs. Stretch your shoulder muscles by standing straight and rolling the shoulders backward in a circular motion. And of course, don’t forget to observe proper nutrition. Load up on water to prevent dehydration. Consume carbohydrates before starting on your work-out.

For those with joint and bone diseases, swimming may prove to be a less stressful activity for your muscles.

But the most important is, make time for your exercise. If you can’t hit the gym or start on a regular work-out plan, make sure that your day is filled with enough physical activity that keeps you going and always on the go. Women’s fitness is the key to your beauty!

(Be sure to check back in a couple of days  - we'll be featuring a very interesting video about the myths surrounding strength training for women!)

Some Strength-Training Tools:
    

Fitness Tips for Women- Stay Fit and Healthy!

Here are 10 tips for women to stay fit and healthy:

1. Staying fit and healthy starts with a balanced diet. Know and monitor the right weight for your age. Consult your doctor to learn what food you should avoid and follow your eating discipline routines. If you are trying to lose some weight, foods with high calories should be omitted from your meals. Fresh foods with high fiber and a small amount of healthy fats should be included a priority in your grocery list instead of red meat, sugars and processed foods (avoid artificial fats and hydrogenated oils like the plague!).

2. Drink plenty of water. Drinking at least eight glasses of water every day cleanses the body from impurities. It is also advised for lactating women to increase water intake to keep the body hydrated.

Image via Wikipedia3. Take Vitamins and Supplements. Do not forget your Calcium supplement.  Sufficient Calcium intake is beneficial for women of all ages. This has been proven to prevent having cramps and Pre-Menstrual Period (PMS) Symptoms. It also prevents Osteoporosis especially for menopausal women. Make sure your Calcium is accompanied by Vitamin D-3 for the best absorption, and a stronger immune system! Vitamin E can also boost the  immune system. Women who undergo menopausal period should take Vitamin E-400 as it stops night sweats and hot flashes. Also, Vitamin E is said to help in avoiding wrinkles when aging. (For recommendations of some pure, high-quality, very absorbable vitamins, visit http://www.newholisticliving.com/toxicload.html.)

4. Quit smoking. If you are smoking, stop. It is also a big “NO” for pregnant women, as this will affect the health of the baby. Pregnant women who smoke may pass the harmful content of cigarettes to babies through the bloodstream. Recent studies have shown that women smokers are more prone to diseases than men smokers. Women who smoke have a high risk of getting breast cancer. Also limit your alcohol intake.

5. Incorporate exercise into your daily routine! Take a walk after work, use stairs instead of elevator or play with your kids when you are at home. Home exercises are also effective especially when you do not have time to go to the gym and would like to lose some weight. Yoga and Pilates are only a few of the many effective exercises you can do at home. (For other ideas, browse the posts on this blog, or visit http://www.newholisticliving.com/exercise.html.) Exercising regularly helps limit the risk of cardiovascular diseases.

6. Avoid stress. Many women are prone to too much stress. Stress has been known to cause or contribute to many different illnesses and diseases. As much as possible take time to relax. Read a good book, hang out with friends and engage in sports. Pamper yourself with a hot bath or massage. And do not forget to get enough sleep to revive your energy.

7. Use sunscreen (but sparingly!) to protect your skin from the harmful rays of the sun. It is best to wear hats when in the sun to protect your skin. You need some sunshine for a strong immune system, and ironically many sunscreens can form cancer-causing compounds on your skin! But too much sun can be a problem. It also speeds up the aging of skin cells, which causes wrinkles.You should avoid sunburns, and Image via Wikipediatry to stay out of the sun during the middle of the day when the sun's rays are the strongest. If you must be in the sun, use an EWG-approved sunscreen - you can find a list of good ones at  http://www.ewg.org/2010sunscreen/.

8. Make sure to visit your dentist to keep that beautiful smile. Have your teeth cleaned regularly, and floss daily, to prevent cavities and bad breath.

9. Visit your Gynecologist. Women who are eighteen and above should have a Physical Examination annually especially for the Pap Smear test. Make a regular breast self-exam a part of your monthly routine.

10.  Safe sex is strongly recommended. Use condoms to prevent sexually transmitted diseases if you are sexually active.

Basic Yoga Postures and their Variations

Here are a couple of common yoga postures you may encounter, and the correct way to do them. (Please be sure to consult your trainer or healthcare practitioner before beginning a new exercise routine, especially if your fitness level is currently low.)

1. THE COBRA Image by myyogaonline via Flickr
Do this in easy stages. Lie down, face prone, legs tightly together and stretched back, forehead on the floor. Put your hands, palm down, just under your shoulders. Image by iwillnotsuccumb via FlickrInhale and raise your head, pressing your neck back, now use your hands to push your trunk up until you are bending in a beautiful arc from your lower spine to the back of your neck. You need go no further than this. However, if you are supple enough, you can now straighten your arms completely, bend the legs at the knees and drop your head back to touch your feet. Even if your head goes nowhere near your feet, drop it back as far as possible and hold the posture with deep breathing. Come out of the posture very slowly, returning to the face prone posture. Relax with your head to one side. Repeat.


2. THE BOW
Image by myyogaonline via FlickrThis is also an extreme version of the simple bow. It is surprising how many children can do it immediately. Take it, once again, in easy stages. Lie face prone on your mat. If you are very slim have a nice thick, padded mat for this one. Inhale and bend your knees up. Stretch back with your arms and catch hold of your ankles, keeping fingers and thumbs all together on the outside. Inhale and at the same time raise your head and chest, pulling at your ankles and lifting knees and thighs off the floor. Breathe normally, trying to kick up your legs higher and lifting your head up. You are now bent like a bow, balancing the weight of your body on your abdomen. You can stop right here but if you can still stretch further, then slide your hands down your legs, lift them higher, keep the knees together and pull back as much as you can. Hold for a few normal deep breaths, then relax back to the face-prone position, head to one side.


Image by myyogaonline via Flickr3. THE UPWARD BOAT (or just BOAT)
This strengthens your abs, improves your balancing ability, and also helps in digestion. First: Sit down on the floor. Bend your knees and place feet flat on the floor. Second: breathe in, bend back and raise heels off the ground, straightening your legs as possible as you can. Expand your arms with palms facing downward. If you find it difficult to perform, you can rest your hands beneath your knees for support. This may be a difficult yoga posture to perform but after a few practices, you will never have that difficulty again. Third:  while you hold the pose for thirty seconds, you should keep your back in a straight line, and make sure your abs are doing the work. Practice this yoga posture all over again when you have time and you will find it easy to execute after you have continuously repeated it.

For more yoga information and resources, check out our blog posts from earlier in the week, or visit http://www.newholisticliving.com/exercise.html.

Dynamic Yoga - Gain Energy & Vitality in 10 Minutes

Do you drag yourself out of bed on Monday mornings, exhausted before you've even begun the week? Or maybe you can't enjoy your evenings, because work drains you of every ounce of energy.

Don't worry, you can boost your energy levels and balance your body with a new form of yoga - dynamic yoga.

Its simplicity and almost instantaneous benefits have made it one of the most fashionable alternative exercises of the new Millennium. Normally known for its relaxation benefits, dynamic yoga can boost your energy levels in just 10 minutes.

It includes some of the most basic yoga postures. You can try each of them individually, or in succession, but none of them should be rushed. However, you should feel the benefits after just ten minutes.

The deep stretches and graceful movements help to unblock energy, improve muscle tone and increase your general stamina. When practiced regularly, say enthusiasts, you will experience improved energy levels, greater sexual vitality and better self-discipline. In the long-term, the breathing and body exercises will help detoxify your mind of tension and strain, creating calm and an inner peace.

Here are some good (and affordable) resources if you would like to try dynamic yoga for yourself:

   

Is Yoga The Perfect Exercise?

Is Yoga the perfect form of exercise and relaxation?  Let's make a list of what our ideal type of exercise would do.  Firstly it would be simple enough that anyone could do it, but have enough variations and different methods that it would maintain the interest of someone who had been practicing it for years.  It would need to be easy to learn so that people could pick up the basics quickly and stat seeing the benefits as soon as possible.

Image via WikipediaTo be a perfect form of exercise it would need to be capable of keep our body in good shape all by itself.  It would help with weight loss, circulation and increasing the strength of the muscles.  It would stimulate the lymphatic system as well as the blood flow and help the body dispose of waste products, improving the overall immune response system.  It would also have benefits that went beyond health - the sharpening of the mind and an increased sense of well being and contentment.  Ideally it would be an exercise form that required no expensive equipment and that could be practiced practically anywhere, alone or in a group.

This is quite a demanding set of prerequisites for a perfect form of exercise.  Let's see if Yoga measures up to these standards.

Yoga is a discipline that has it's routes in India.  The documents that modern Yoga is based on are hundreds of years old, and the principles behind these documents were practiced long before that.  It is a low impact form of exercise that has been tweaked and customized by literally thousands of different teachers and enthusiasts.  The are numerous resulting 'styles' of Yoga, but they all have the same core background and beliefs.  What we refer to as Yoga in the West is usually the physical component of an entire life philosophy that has it's own beliefs and code of ethics built in.

The physical focus of Yoga is on poses and slow movements that are low impact and usually use nothing more than our own body.  Sometimes props and supports are used to assist the body in achieving and holding a particular pose.  The poses can vary greatly in their degree of difficulty and even the same pose can have many different stages or levels.  The perfect example is a simple forward stretch.  One person may be able to stretch out past their knees, another may be able to reach their ankles and somebody else may be able to touch the floor.  This level of progression allows us to see a physical difference in our flexibility level as we practice Yoga more regularly.  And because Yoga does not require any special equipment we are not refined to set class times and can practice Yoga anywhere and any time the fancy takes us.  We can even do breathing exercises to clear the mind while sitting at a work desk.

Yoga has some incredible health benefits which stem from controlled breathing and increased blood flow.  Our bodies organs simply do not operate at peak efficiency unless they are receiving the oxygen and nutrients that they need.  The waste products from our muscles and organs are carried away by the lymphatic system.  Both systems can develop chokepoints and blockages that different Yoga poses will address and correct.  The result is a better more regular blood pressure, a more efficient immunity system and a optimal digestive process.

Image by VinothChandar via FlickrBecause Yoga movements are slow and simple, the focus on correct breathing has a pronounced mental affect on the body.   It provides us with an enhanced ability to focus, and to un-clutter our thoughts.  This is a valuable edge in modern life and its importance should not be under estimated.

Finally many regular Yoga enthusiasts will tell you that there is a spiritual side to Yoga, how far this affects an individual will probably depend on their beliefs before they begin practicing Yoga, but it can perhaps be thought of most accurately with a greater comfort and connection with your own body.  The increased acceptance of yourself, and comfort with your own being results directly in more happy people.

So, it looks like Yoga does indeed check all the boxes and can be thought of as a perfect exercise form. Plus, it's really fun!  Check out a class near you, or try some of the yoga DVDs we recommend here, or at http://www.newholisticliving.com/exercise.html. They're very affordable, and you can then practice your yoga at home anytime you like.

Good resources for practicing yoga:
 

Humor: Winter Workout Video

I thought we'd lighten up for a moment today, and share a funny one-minute video with you. Staying in shape doesn't have to be so serious all the time, as you can see from the video below. :-)

Enjoy a quick laugh, and then pick a fun exercise idea from this blog, and go enjoy yourself!

RMR: Winter Workout
Just grab a ball and get going with your winter workout. (originally aired: February 02, 2004)

Related articles on Winter Workouts:

• Snowed In? 3 Winter Workout Moves! (self.com)
• The 3 Best Cold Weather Workout Tips (self.com)
• Exercising in a Winter Wonderland: How to Be Fit and Frugal (wisebread.com)
• 5 Tips To Make Sure You Stick To Your Fitness Resolutions (chicagonow.com)