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The more you want to use it, the more we would recommend that you go for high quality treadmills.
When you understand the basics of a quality treadmill, then it will be easy to find one that is perfect for your home and budget.
Long or short workouts determine the quality of motor you need for your treadmill.
I usually end my treadmill routine with about 15 minutes of quality stretching.
Researches have shown, that during exercising most people forget to breath deeply or they are unable to integrate their breathing pattern with the exercises causing them muscle pain and fatigue after the workout.
Post-Holiday Recovery - Recommit to Your Workouts One sure way to feel better about things is to starve yourself for the next three days.
Okay, not really. The real trick is to get back to your workouts, renew your commitment to being healthy and vow you'll never stick your face into a big plate of pulled pork ever, ever again (although a small barbecue sandwich is just fine).
Sometimes, an overindulgent holiday is the perfect motivation to recommit and I have some workout ideas for you, depending on your mood:
What about you? What's your go-to post-holiday workout? Leave a comment and tell us how you get back to normal after a long holiday weekend. Post-Holiday Recovery - Recommit to Your Workouts originally appeared on About.com Exercise on Thursday, July 8th, 2010 at 05:00:05.
From Monday's poll, I can see that many of you spent the weekend doing what I did - snarfing down everything in sight. The worst part about a holiday like the 4th of July is the lingering post-holiday food hangover (or, perhaps, a hangover of another sort), which leaves you feeling out of sorts, lethargic and, maybe, a little guilty.
Exercise of the Week - Pushup, Plank and Row There are a few key form pointers for making this exercise safe and effective. First, start with light weights to get a feel for the exercise. It's tough to hold a plank position with just one hand and it's even harder when there's a weight in the other hand. Second, use hex weights or weights that won't roll around on you, which could end badly. Last, doing this move on an elevated platform (as shown) makes it a little easier. You can modify further by doing the move on your knees or you can do the move on the floor to make it harder. Or you can shake your head in disgust and skip it altogether...I'll never know.
Do it right: Get into a pushup position on a step or raised platform with hands gripping dumbbells about shoulder-width apart, palms facing each other. Lower into a pushup, press up and pull the right weight up into a row, keeping the hips down and working to keep the body from twisting. Lower and repeat the pushups, alternating rows on each side for 1-3 sets of 8-16 reps.
Exercise of the Week - Pushup, Plank and Row originally appeared on About.com Exercise on Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 at 05:00:28.
Pushups are already a challenging exercise, but if you're wondering how to make them even more intense, you're in luck. This pushup, plank and row variation takes you to a new level by incorporating more core strength and involving your lats, making this a whole body movement (or as one of my clients suggested, a 'whole body movement of pain').
Fit Fact: Women Have a Different Heart Rate Response to Exercise In a recent study experts decided to ask an important question - are the heart rate formulas we use, largely based on men, accurate for women?
The answer: Not really. After some study, they realized that the traditional formula used to calculate maximum heart rate, (220-age or the updated version, 206.9 - (0.67 x age)) actually overestimated maximum heart rate for women.
With this information, experts have come up with a new formula to calculate maximum heart rate for women. 206 - (.88 x age) = MHR
Now, the experts in this study were actually more interested in finding an accurate peak heart rate for women in order to predict future health and to make sure women recovering from heart problems were given the right exercise intensity to recuperate. If the numbers were too high (as the experts suggest in this study), they might be doing women more harm than good by trying to make them work too hard.
Now, I've always promised there would be no math on this blog, but I lied, so bear with me. Let's take a look at how target heart rate zones would be different using the new max heart rate formula along with the karvonen formula. Say you're a 49 year old woman with a resting heart rate (RHR) of 65:
Old Formula
206.9 - (0.67 x 49) = 174 New Formula
206 - (.88 x 49) = 163 You can see how different these numbers are and this suggests that some women may be struggling to get to a certain intensity, not because they're not in shape, but because their max heart rate has been overestimated.
So, what about you? How does this formula change your numbers and do you think it's more accurate? How heavily do you rely on calculations like this anyway? Leave a comment and tell us about it.
Source: RJ Gibbons, GJ Balady, J Timothy Bricker, at al. Heart Rate Response to Exercise Stress Testing in Asymptomatic Women. The St. James Women Take Heart Project. Circulation. 2002;106:1883. Fit Fact: Women Have a Different Heart Rate Response to Exercise originally appeared on About.com Exercise on Wednesday, July 21st, 2010 at 05:00:31.
It's taken the medical and fitness world some time to figure out that women aren't just small men (and if they'd just read "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus," they would've known that) but they are getting there. We know that women's bodies work differently from men's - woman have different heart attack symptoms, they tend to lose weight differently and they also have a different response to exercise.
174 - 65 (RHR) = 109
109 * 65% (low end of heart rate zone) OR 85% (high end) = 71 (65%) or 93 (85%)
71 + 65 (RHR) = 136
93 + 65 (RHR) = 158
The target heart rate zone for this person would be 136-158 beats per minute.
163 - 65 (RHR) = 98
98 * 65% (low end of heart rate zone) OR 85% (high end) = 64 (65%) or 83 (85%)
64 + 65 (RHR) = 129
83 + 65 (RHR) = 148
The target heart rate zone for this person would be 129-148 beats per minute.
Vote in This Week's Poll: What dieting mistakes are you guilty of? The problem is, those behaviors often backfire. When you skip meals, you're so starved by the time the next meal comes around that you go out thinking, "I really should have that grilled chicken salad, but I may just die if I don't get the double cheeseburger."
Many of us have grown up with the idea of three meals a day, so the thought of eating more often may be completely foreign. However, that's often the best way to keep your cravings in check and keep your blood sugar levels from taking a nosedive, which leads to horrible decision making and the mistaken belief that a cheeseburger is necessary to continue to live. In fact, there are some specific mistakes that often lead to overeating such as:
What about you? Do you ever skip meals or eat at odd intervals throughout the day? Do you feel guilty if you eat more frequently? Vote in this week's poll and leave a comment about how you manage your diet.
Source: Berman, Jae. "You Want Me to Eat When?" IDEA Fitness Journal. April 2010. Vote in This Week's Poll: What dieting mistakes are you guilty of? originally appeared on About.com Exercise on Monday, June 28th, 2010 at 05:00:38.
Do you ever feel guilty when you eat? I ask this because I got an email from a young reader struggling with her weight. She mentioned watching her diet to the point of feeling guilty every time she ate anything and I know many of us can sympathize. We know we should eat fewer calories, but that often spirals into extremes - skipping meals, monitoring every bite and, sometimes, feeling guilty for eating at all.
Vote in this week's poll: How do you feel about exercise? Exercise is sort of the same way. Until you feel the benefits for yourself, you may understand intellectually why it's important but that does nothing to motivate you to actually do it. I've had clients who claim to hate exercise and I can talk about how great it is until I'm blue in the face, but no one likes a blue-faced trainer who talks too much.
The truth is, you have to exercise for awhile before you experience the many, many perks - More energy, better sleep, a sense of self-satisfaction and, of course, losing weight. Many people give up before get to that point. Maybe it's frustration, maybe it's confusion, maybe they really do hate to exercise - or, it's all of the above.
I'm curious about you? How do you really feel about exercise? Do you have a love/hate affair or perhaps there's no love there at all? Maybe you're on the other side, someone who loves physical movement and couldn't imagine your life without it. Vote in this week's poll and tell us about it.
Vote in this week's poll: How do you feel about exercise? originally appeared on About.com Exercise on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 05:00:49.
Trying to convince someone of the importance of exercise is probably a lot like trying to teach kids the importance of learning things math and English. Some day, they appreciate those things but, until then, they usually think it's a big waste of time.
