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Body

Just a note: Like you, we are a work in progress. Things will always be changing and we will always be adding here. It’s April 26th, 2020 and we are just getting started re-building our site here.

The body, like the mind, needs to be used as often as possible. As they say, “Use it or lose it.” So when we think of the body, we need to think of pure movement. That could be HIIT (High-intensity interval training) or it could be something gentle like Yoga. But you need to move each day.

We are going to eventually re-organize this into different pages. For now we will list some immediate and easy to understand content below.

For starters, think about these categories: gentle movement (Yoga, Tai Chi etc…), HIIT (High-intensity interval training), running, swimming, riding a bicycle, sit-ups and weight lifting.

Yoga

Yoga is a mind-body practice in complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) with origins in ancient Indian philosophy. The various styles of yoga that people use for health purposes typically combine physical postures, breathing techniques, and meditation or relaxation. There are numerous schools of yoga. Hatha yoga, the most commonly practiced in the United States and Europe, emphasizes postures (asanas) and breathing exercises (pranayama). Some of the major styles of hatha yoga include Iyengar, Ashtanga, Vini, Kundalini, and Bikram yoga. People use yoga for a variety of conditions and to achieve fitness and relaxation.

The 2007 National Health Interview Survey found that yoga is one of the top 10 CAM modalities used among U.S. adults. An estimated 6 percent of adults used yoga for health purposes in the previous 12 months.

(This is from the The National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine website)

Benefits of Yoga:

  • Stress Relief: The practice of yoga is well-demonstrated to reduce the physical effects of stress on the body. The body responds to stress through a fight-or-flight response, which is a combination of the sympathetic nervous system and hormonal pathways activating, releasing cortisol – the stress hormone – from the adrenal glands.  Cortisol is often used to measure the stress response. Yoga practice has been demonstrated to reduce the levels of cortisol. Most yoga classes end with savasana, a relaxation pose, which further reduces the experience of stress.
  • Pain Relief: Yoga can ease pain. Studies have shown that practicing yoga asanas (postures), meditation or a combination of the two, reduced pain for people with conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, auto-immune diseases and hypertension as well as arthritis, back and neck pain and other chronic conditions.
  • Better Breathing: Yoga includes breathing practices known as pranayama, which can be effective for reducing our stress response, improving lung function and encouraging relaxation.  Many pranayamas emphasize slowing down and deepening the breath, which activates the body’s parasympathetic system, or relaxation response. By changing our pattern of breathing, we can significantly affect our body’s experience of and response to stress. This may be one of the most profound lessons we can learn from our yoga practice.
  • Flexibility: Yoga can improve flexibility and mobility and increase range of motion. Over time, the ligaments, tendons and muscles lengthen, increasing elasticity.
  • Increased Strength: Yoga asanas use every muscle in the body, increasing strength literally from head to toe. A regular yoga practice can also relieve muscular tension throughout the whole body.
  • Weight management: While most of the evidence for the effects of yoga on weight loss is anecdotal or experiential, yoga teachers, students and practitioners across the country find that yoga helps to support weight loss. Many teachers specialize in yoga programs to promote weight management and find that even gentle yoga practices help support weight loss. People do not have to practice the most vigorous forms of yoga to lose weight. Yoga encourages development of a positive self-image, as more attention is paid to nutrition and the body as a whole. A study from the Journal of Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicinefound that regular yoga practice was associated with less age-related weight gain.  The lifestyle study of 15,500 adults in their 50’s covered 10 years of participants’ weight history, physical activity, medical history and diet.
  • Improved circulation: Yoga helps to improve circulation by efficiently moving oxygenated blood to the body’s cells.
  • Cardiovascular Conditioning: Even a gentle yoga practice can provide cardiovascular benefits by lowering resting heart rate, increasing endurance and improving oxygen uptake during exercise.
  • Presence: Yoga connects us with the present moment. The more we practice, the more aware we become of our surroundings and the world around us. It opens the way to improved concentration, coordination, reaction time and memory.
  • Inner peace: The meditative effects of a consistent yoga practice help many cultivate inner peace and calm.

Benefits of Yoga from YogaAlliance.org

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Fitness marketers often use extreme language (“Breakthrough!” “Miraculous!”) to describe the latest hot workout or gear. But scientists and doctors are now using superlatives to discuss what many consider to be one of the most important new fitness approaches in decades: high-intensity interval training, or HIIT, an approach to exercise that people can do in relatively little time, but with oversize benefits. 

If you ever did wind sprints in high school, then you know what HIIT is — brief bursts of very intense exercise followed by periods of slower, less-demanding work. Studies are showing that HIIT is an effective way for older people to build muscle, regulate insulin, cut fat and increase heart function. And for people just starting HIIT, it may take as little as one minute of hard work three times a week to see marked improvements. 

Perhaps most exciting of all: HIIT seems to be able to turn back the clock on a cellular level, improving the function of mitochondria (the battery cells of the body). And the older you are, the greater its impact, according to studies. Example A: Robert Marchand, who turns 107 this month.

When he was 101, Marchand set a world record for how far a centenarian cyclist could ride in an hour. But today, Marchand appears to be getting even stronger than he was when he set the record — so much so, in fact, that in the past few years his peak pedal power has increased by an incredible 40 percent. When measured last year, Marchand had the fitness level of the average 50-year-old, thanks to HIIT.

Here are just a few of the other ways HIIT can improve your life. 

  • Boost your youth hormones. A study of 22 sedentary men in their 60s found that regular exercise plus HIIT sprints on a bike increased their testosterone by 17 percent in 12 weeks. 
  • Recharge your cells. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic found that people ages 65 to 80 who incorporated HIIT into their walking or biking programs made more proteins for their energy-producing mitochondria, effectively slowing down aging at a cellular level.
  • Lose your belly. Another study of sedentary women compared 20 minutes of HIIT with 40 minutes of steady-state exercise. The HIIT subjects were the only ones who lost fat — primarily belly fat.
  • Protect your heart. In a study of nearly 5,000 people with heart disease, researchers found that HIIT did more to protect the subjects from future heart problems than traditional moderate workouts. 
  • Keep active longer. A Japanese study put 696 people of middle age or older on a walking program that incorporated HIIT training. Seventy percent were still doing the workout 22 months later.

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Running

Running – Healing your Body and your Soul

Pleasing the old and young, through every season of the year, running is one of the most prevalent activities all over the world. As probably the most universal health related fitness type, running can be classified into two basic sections, jogging and running as a competitive sport. There are many physical and psychological health benefits associated with running including weight loss, decreased cholesterol, decreased blood pressure, and increased cardiovascular endurance. Running also reduces the risk of heart disease, osteoporosis, diabetes, obesity, and some forms of cancer. Psychological factors include improved self-esteem, decreased depression, and anxiety. You do not need to be a professional runner to gain from those benefits.

With the right shoes, a stretching program, a cool-down program, and the right attitude, everyone can run or jog. Running is a major part in almost every performance-related sport, for example, soccer, basketball, baseball, football and volleyball. Athletes, who perform activities such as swimming, biking, or hockey, also benefit from running in their training sessions because it increases their endurance and condition.

Although many might think that running does not require a certain technique, the right way of running adds to a runner’s success and prevents injuries. First of all, before exercising, everybody should warm up. This video shows a warm-up that stretches the muscles to increase flexibility and to slowly raise your heart rate http://video.about.com/running/5-Stretches-for-Runners.htm. A short 5-10 minute cool down after your run in form of walking ensures that your blood keeps flowing throughout your body and prevents light-headedness. The surface is also very important to runners. You can run almost everywhere; however, some surfaces can cause injuries due to how well the human body can absorb the shock of impact. According to www.abc-of-running.com, the best possible surface is grass because the ground is soft and easy on the legs and does not strain the muscles. Earth, sand, and woodland trails are almost as good as grass. Cinders are also ideal for running except for that the ground might be loose and slippery in warm weather and sticky in the rain. A synthetic track is most suitable for fast or professional runners with an almost perfect surface. However, most of those tracks have a length of only 400 meters and thus, requires the body to constantly strain the ankles and knees. It is important to change the direction so that either direction is used for about the same amount of time because injuries might happen. As you turn with your whole body in the same direction, the force or pressure is not equally divided among body parts and therefore, it can lead to injuries such as periostitis. Concrete and asphalt are the worst kind of surfaces a runner can choose because of the rigidity that creates the greatest shock to the legs and an immense pressure on the knees. However, concrete and asphalt are the most assessable grounds for runners and therefore, unavoidable. It is recommended that runners should change their surfaces constantly to make their bodies less susceptible to injuries such as stress fractures. In fact, running can help to protect bone and joint problems and does not cause them as previously thought. Recent studies have shown that runners have a lower risk of getting arthritis because runners have thicker and healthier knee cartilage (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1948208,00.html).

There is no ideal running technique that is universal and fits to everyone, but there are many other aspects everybody should consider while running. The head should always look up and be focused towards the horizon. Shoulders should be in a low and relaxed position and thus, an upright posture should be maintained. Breathing is an important part, as you should fully exhale to increase inhalation. The arms should be bent at a 90 degree angle and swung naturally between chest and hip level without being crossed in front of the chest. They should also remain close to the body. The hands should be closed lightly with the thumb resting on top of the fingers.

There is a great controversy regarding the ideal running technique. In 1977 Nicholas S. Romanov developed the Pose Method, which is based on the mechanical and biological model. The hip position, which is the center of gravity, should move in a horizontal line without vertical up and down displacements. The rear leg has to be in an “S” position without ever straightening. That way, runners run on their midfoot rather than on their heels, which leads to a pulling action by using the hamstring instead of pushing the foot into the ground. It is scientifically proven that the Pose technique reduces impact on knees by 50%. You can review this technique at www.posetech.com.  Some people strongly follow this method whereas others prefer different techniques such as the heel strike method.

Using the right running shoes is also very important because they help prevent injuries. People differ in feet sizes and shapes and therefore, there is not one universal perfect running shoe. Your toes should be able to spread out with shoes that are ½ to ¾ longer than your longest toe. Every running shoe consists of three layers. The first layer, the outer sole, is made out of hard rubber because it contacts the ground. The midsole is the base of the shoe protecting midfoot and toes. It provides cushioning and shock absorption. The last layer also absorbs the shock when the foot hits the ground and thus, it is made out of a thick, spongy substance. Furthermore, a person’s foot type has to be considered. There are three major foot types, supination, neutral, and over pronation. Supinators have a high arch and outward leaning ankles. The best shoe for them is one with good cushioning. Conversely, pronators need a shoe with high motion control and stability because they have a flat foot with inwards leaning ankles. Lastly, running shoes should be replaced every 500 miles because they lose their ability to absorb shock.

Most track sprinters and some cross country runners use running spikes because they offer some benefits to increase speed and prevent slipping. Spike shoes are extremely light shoes with a base plate to insert spikes. Sprinters usually run with the front of their feet by digging into the ground and therefore, those shoes provide a better traction on the track. There are different sizes of spikes, which can be used on different kinds of tracks.

Running is one of the “easiest” activities. There is no expensive equipment needed, except for running shoes and the right running clothes depending on the weather. Running will continue to be the leading exercise type in almost every country all over the world. Running does not just serve as a sport but also as mental helper to free your mind from stress and concerns and it improves sleep, eating, and relaxation. Everybody should try to run and jog in his or her free time to see how much fun it is.

Running article by Jenny Kurz

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The swimming, riding a bicycle, sit-ups and weight lifting sections coming soon