Karen’s Free Health and Fitness Tips

Aerobic exercise, while great for building your cardiovascular system, can be hard on your feet. Aerobic activities consist of quick lateral movements with lots of jumping and leaping which can have a very negative impact on your feet if you are not wearing the right shoes. Wearing the proper shoes will make your workout more effective with less irritation and discomfort. The right shoes will help you enjoy the activity and be more willing to stick with the program for maximum results.

So, how do decide on the right shoes? The first thing to remember is that all shoes are not created equal. Shoes designed for one exercise activity do not always offer the best support for a different activity. Running shoes, for example, are designed to provide stability in forward motion. If you try to do sideways aerobics movements in running shoes, you can wind up tripping over your own feet! It is recommended that you buy a pair of aerobic shoes and only wear them for aerobic activities. Although they can be expensive, shoes that are used only for aerobics and not worn as ever day shoes will last a long, long time. Also, when considering an exercise shoe, name brand shoes are usually worth the difference in price. They will offer more support and last longer than cheap generic shoes.

The definition of Aerobics according to the Wikipedia dictionary is a form of exercise that comprises rhythmic exercise with stretching and strength training routines with the goal of improving all elements of fitness.

Aerobics means “using oxygen”. With aerobic exercise, you are breathing and the oxygen passes through your body. Exercises such as bench pressing or sprinting uses up the body’s storage of oxygen.

Aerobics is usually done to music with an instructor. Most aerobic classes are divided into beginner, intermediate and advanced classes according to your fitness level.

The benefits of aerobics are numerous. Through research, aerobics is shown to be one of the healthiest forms of exercise. The benefits of aerobic exercise are:

Aerobics encourages cardiovascular fitness.Aerobics are wonderful for building leaner bodies and a stronger heart. Aerobics improves sleep patterns. Aerobics lowers cholestorol.Aerobics burns calories and if done on a regular basis, it can increase the basal metabolic rate and this helps with weight loss.Aerobics enhances flexibility in both the joints and the muscle. Aerobics normalizes the hormone levels that cause premenstrual syndromes and menopausal systems. Aerobics give the heart a workout to help prevent the build up of fatty deposits in the arteries Weight bearing aerobics can help prevent osteoporosis. Not only does it give you more strength, it also slows down the loss of calcium in your bones.

An aerobics workout gets the lungs working to get more air into your body and more carbon dioxide out. Though initially it produces only short gasps, recovery during resting time often leads to deeper and easier breathing. This is crucial in helping the body to naturally heal itself.

Meditative Aerobics Workout.

Few people realize the value of a regular meditative aerobics workout. Most people incorporate lively and loud music to their cardio workouts, and is in fact the fad nowadays. But there is greater health value in doing them in the quiet of early mornings. Meditative exercises can do wonders to overall health and faster healing. This is the principle behind the health and healing benefits of slow and rhythmic exercises like tai-chi, yoga, and inner martial arts.

Correct Meditative Exercises.

An aerobic workout done outdoors amid lush green surroundings, or in a quiet open space, is meditative. Focus on your body cadence, making sure there is a continuous smooth flow of breathing and body movements. There should be no awkward movement sequences when moving the limbs and the body. When breathing is hard and you seem to run out of breath, it means something is upsetting the flow. You may be doing things too fast or doing something that punishes the body more than exercising it. To remedy this, just let everything flow smoothly, with artistic balance and symmetry. Remember rhythmic movement.

So, you have decided that you want to get healthier. This is a great decision. You probably already know that aerobic exercises are the way to get healthier and fitter fast. Just as you probably already know that regular aerobics can help you maintain your weight loss and stay trimmer. What you may not know is that by joining an aerobics class you are likely to receive far more benefits by joining a class than just performing aerobic exercises by yourself. Although, any exercise is better than no exercise at all.

At an aerobics class, you will have an instructor. You will be taught all about aerobics, what they can do for you, how they work and why aerobics are so important. The instructor will teach you the fundamental types of aerobics that you need to be doing to target the specific areas of your body. You may not know the different moves yet, the instructor can teach you. You will also be taught how to move from one type of aerobics to another. Another great thing about learning aerobics from an instructor, especially if they are good at what they do, is you will be good at aerobics too.

Here are some aerobics exercises for the abdomen and to lose weight. Warning: If you’re expecting me to bore you to death talking about jogging, riding a bike, and stupid stuff like that, you’re in for a treat. I have some cool and fun aerobic exercises that target the abdomen.

Aerobics Exercises for the Abdomen

1. Hindu Squats

You’re thinking, what the BLANK are hindu squats! Here’s what they are… you squat up and down as fast as possible without any weights. You also swipe or touch your finger tips to the ground for each repetitions to prove you went down far enough. Your goal is to do 100 repetitions in under 5 minutes. When you can do that, increase to 200 repetitions in under 10 minutes.

Here’s the deal…

Hindu squats create a huge oxygen deficit within your body. Because your body is always in survival mode, it’s going to burn bodyfat because of this oxygen deficit. It needs quick energy so it purges it from your bodyfat under these circumstances. And most times, this will be bodyfat from your abdomen.

Simple enough right? Well, try them out.

2. Spinning around like a 4 year old child

How is your weight looking these days? When you step on the talking scale in the bathroom, does it ask one of you to get off? Bathroom scales are merciless in that way, because they always tell it like it is, whether you like it or not. Yes, your weight tends to fluctuate up and down, a few pounds up on this day and a few pounds less on that day, but you never really reach that lower figure you want to maintain, right? You can give dirty looks to your bathroom scale all day long, even replace it or throw it out the window, but a better plan would be to start a rigorous health program and a good exercise regime using a new and improved diet plan and good aerobic exercises.

How often do you exercise now? Be honest, this isn’t a test. This is a very important question that we should all be asking ourselves, especially as we get older. Fitness is one of the main key components in staying healthy and living well. You don’t want to be “living” in a hospital room, do you? Of course there are some things that are out of our control as far as being in a hospital room, but eating healthy and getting sufficient exercise on a regular basis is one of the things that YOU have control over, and too many people take that control far too lightly.

Aerobic Exercise

This refers to a particular form of exercise which can either help or even improve the consumption of oxygen by the body. The word Aerobic means “an association with oxygen”, and involves the use of oxygen in the body’s metabolic process by which energy is generated.

In general, Aerobic exercises are associated with a level of exertion that tends to be low, and over longer periods of time. A warm up period should precede any aerobic session for best results. This should then be followed by 15-20 minutes of either moderate or ranging through to intense exercise which utilises large muscle groups. The session would end with a short period of cooling down.

Historical Development

The concept of aerobic exercise was developed by Dr Cooper, an exercise physiologist, and Col. Potts, a physical therapist, both of the United States Air Force. Dr. Cooper, who was himself a keen exercise enthusiast, could not understand why some people with excellent muscular strength were still unable to give good performances with tasks such as long-distance running, swimming, and cycling.

Aerobic and Anaerobic Comparison

There are countless forms of aerobic exercise. However, the most common format is when it is performed at a steady pace and over a relatively long period of time. To illustrate the point, consider the following examples:

Running a long distance at a moderate pace is classified as an aerobic exercise, whereas sprinting is not.

Playing singles tennis, which involves almost continuous activity, is typically regarded as an aerobic activity, whereas playing golf or doubles tennis, which involves brief bursts of high activity punctuated with more frequent breaks, is not regarded as predominantly aerobic.

Accordingly, some sports may be designated as inherently “aerobic.” On the other hand, some aerobic exercises, such as fartlek training or aerobic dance classes, are designed specifically to improve aerobic capacity and fitness.

Fartlek means “speed play” in Swedish. Most Fartlek programmes last for at least 45 minutes. They can include anything from aerobic walking to anaerobic sprinting. Fartlek training is normally synonymous with running, but can include almost any kind of exercise.

Becoming involved in a regular programme of aerobic exercises can produce some very desirable benefits, such as:

Aerobics exercise is the optimum way to raise your heart rate, burn fat, and tone your muscles. You can choose from a variety of options, from running and walking to aerobic machines and classes. You can dance, run, walk or hop your way to a fitter body. As your body becomes accustomed to the routine, you’ll want to find ways to add more intensity to the program. A good way to step up your routine is to add step aerobics moves. The great thing about step aerobics is you can find ways to intensify your workout with limited cost and space involved.

Step aerobics routines follow the same principle as other aerobic activities using continuous activity through a series of steps and arm movements that are set to music. A step aerobic routine is different because the workout goes vertically, by situating the entire routine around a small platform that you continuously step onto and off of. Not only does step aerobics increase the number of calories burned, you will also intensify the effects in your leg and buttock muscles.

You have decided that you want to start aerobic exercises. Congratulations! This decision could just about be one of the best decisions you have made in your life and you are about to become much more healthy.

Looking around at the different aerobics classes available, you are justified in feeling a little overwhelmed. This is because there are so many different ways in which to work out aerobically. One of the most important things that you have to decide is which class is right for your fitness level. As a spectator of an aerobics class you might see that there are lots of choreographed movements all designed to raise your heart rate and to maintain it at an acceptable level. It is understandable that when you join a class you are going to be un-coordinated at first, but believe me, it doesn’t take long to adjust to the movements and before you know it, you will be just as coordinated as the rest of the class and it will be like you have been doing aerobic exercises all your life.