Monday, April 30, 2007

What Is Fitness?

I think fitness is about energy, endurance, flexibility, strength, and seeing the physician for statistics. EEFSP

It is not about only looking good, being thin, or fitting into smaller jeans. First, you need to get in touch with yourself, largely from working out, to see how your energy, endurance, flexibility, strength are. What good is strength if you have no endurance? Taking care of a child, moving furniture or even walking would not last long. What good is endurance if you have no strength? You would be able to walk for miles, but not lift anything or hold onto something with your arms and support your weight to prevent failing. What good are endurance and strength if you have no flexibility and are as stiff as a block, not being able to bend or reach to get anything or have healthy, flexible muscles?

And what good is all of this if you have high blood pressure and cholesterol?

Incorporate twice-yearly physician visits, and EEFS into your workout, and feel your body. That is fitness.

My book Pocket Guide to Fitness is now available on http://www.authorhouse.com, www.amazon.com and http://www.bn.com/. Check out my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com/!

Thursday, April 12, 2007

Medicine Balls for the Waist

Pick a medicine ball that is a challenging weight and a doable weight. For each of these exercises, hold the medicine ball steadily about the height of your belly button.

1. Hold a medicine ball with both hands by the front of your waist. Keep your legs a little more than hip width apart and twist from side to side, for about 190 degrees slowly in each direction. Do four sets of ten repetitions.

2. Hold a medicine ball with both hands by the front of your waist. Keep your legs a little more than hip width apart. Drop down slowly until your medicine ball touches your shins. Come back up slowly. Do four sets of ten repetitions. Inhale when you come up and exhale when you bend.

3. Repeat [2.]. Twist when you bend forward so that the medicine ball touches the shin of the right leg, then come up slowly and repeat for the left leg. Do four sets of ten repetitions. One repetition includes touching each leg one time.

My book Pocket Guide to Fitness is now available on http://www.authorhouse.com, www.amazon.com and http://www.bn.com/. Check out my Web site http://www.louizapatsis.com!

Wednesday, April 04, 2007

Using Weights with Cardiovascular Machine Work

You can combine cardiovascular machine work with weights. You can easily use free weights and hold them, or do exercises such as biceps curls while on the treadmill, stairmaster or other cardiovascular machine.

You can use weight bars as well. An advanced move to use would be a heavy medicine ball. To start, holding it would man that you cannot lean on the cardiovascular machine. This means that your core - abdominal muscles and back muscles - will do more work. You may even sweat more just from not being able to lean on the cardiovascular machine. If you do an exercise such as pectoral muscle extensions or shoulder exercises with the medicine ball, you will burn more calories. Keeping stable and in balance, you will use more muscle fibers.

Using weights while on cardiovascular machines is also a great way to get off a plateau.

My book Pocket Guide to Fitness is now available on www.authorhouse.com, amazon.com and www.bn.com. Check out my Web site www.louizapatsis.com!