Studies show that seven out of 10 American adults don’t exercise regularly despite the proven health benefits. Experts say lack of physical activity contributes to some 300,000 deaths each year in the United States caused by heart disease, stroke, diabetes and other conditions. However, lack of exercise is not just something that affects adults.  It’s now affecting the children of the United States.  One out of every three children are now considered to be overweight or obese.  It doesn’t have to be that way!

In my opinion, we parents who are in our late 30’s to early 40’s may end up out-living our children.  Why do I make this claim?  It’s due to the inactivity of many children these days.  Most children prefer to sit on the couch or lay in bed text messaging their friends, emailing or playing video games.  And, our school system doesn’t make it any easier.  Most elementary and middle schools have either eliminated or are eliminating physical education from their curriculum.

Most children these days choose inactivity over activity, because it’s easier.  They derive their social interaction through technology over physical activity.

As a child of the late 70’s and early 80’s, I was very active in team sports and other forms of exercise.  When I got home from school or from wrestling practice, I did my homework and then spent several hours outside engaged in some type of physical activity.  Nowadays, most kids prefer to remain in-doors and don’t participate in any activity that requires more strength necessary than to text message.  I see it every day.

At my studio, we train several middle school aged kids who are hard challenged to keep up with some of my geriatric clients.  It’s the responsibility of us parents to ensure that our kids get enough exercise and make it a daily occurrence.

Action is the best form of prevention.  In my house, I’ve taken away my kid’s cell phones and computers from 4pm to 7pm.  I encourage them to get outside and ride their bikes, skate board, throw the football and roller blade.  Even a simple activity such as taking our dog for a long walk around the lake has health benefits.

It’s right in front of our faces, parents.  We need to get our kids away from the technology for a few hours each day and present them with other choices to get their bodies moving.  If we consistently neglect their physical fitness, we are going to be the first generation of parents to outlive our own children.

How to reduce belly fat

Belly fat, an unpleasant and unattractive state of the body, can be very dangerous to health. Extra fat carried around your abdomen can increase your risk of heart disease and diabetes so it is very necessary to eliminate excess belly fat.

Some effective measures to reduce belly fat are given below.

Healthy Meals

Want to know the norms? The following are general body fat norms:

* Obese: More than 33% for women and more than 26% for men.  (Body fat percentages within this range or greater pose a serious danger for developing diabetes and heart disease.  If you have a family history of either, it is urgent that you begin a strict diet and exercise program to lower your body fat percentage to a safe range as soon as possible).

* Overweight: Between 28% and 33% for women and between 21% and 26% for men.

* Acceptable: Between 17% and 28% for women and between 12% and 21% for men.

* Lean: Less than 17% for women and less than 12% for men.

* Underweight: Less than 8% for women and 5% for men.

By MARIA CHENG

LONDON, Feb. 25, 2010 (AP Online delivered by Newstex) — People who complain they have no time to exercise may soon need another excuse.

Some experts say intense exercise sessions could help people squeeze an entire week’s workout into less than an hour. Intense exercise regimens, or interval training, was originally developed for Olympic athletes and thought to be too strenuous for normal people.

But in recent years, studies in older people and those with health problems suggest many more people might be able to handle it. If true, that could revolutionize how officials advise people to exercise — and save millions of people hours in the gym every week. It is also a smarter way to exercise, experts say.

“High-intensity interval training is twice as effective as normal exercise,” said Jan Helgerud, an exercise expert at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. “This is like finding a new pill that works twice as well … we should immediately throw out the old way of exercising.”

Intense interval training means working very hard for a few minutes, with rest periods in between sets. Experts have mostly tested people running or biking, but other sports like rowing or swimming should also work.

Helgerud recommends people try four sessions lasting four minutes each, with three minutes of recovery time in between. Unless you’re an elite athlete, it shouldn’t be an all-out effort.

“You should be a little out of breath, but you shouldn’t have the obvious feeling of exhaustion,” Helgerud said.

In Britain and the U.S., officials recommend that people get about two and a half hours each week of moderate exercise.

Helgerud says that time could be slashed dramatically if people did interval training instead. He said officials have been too afraid of recommending intense training, fearing it might be too much for some people.

“I’m much more afraid of people not exercising at all,” he said. “Inactivity is what’s killing us.”

When compared to people on a normal exercise routine, like jogging, research has shown those doing interval training can double their endurance, improve their oxygen use and strength by more than 10 percent, and their speed by at least 5 percent. Even studies in the elderly and in heart patients found they had better oxygen use and fitness after doing interval training.

Still, most studies have been done in young, healthy adults, and experts advise people to consult a doctor before starting any fitness program.

For Adamson Nicholls, a 36-year-old Londoner and martial arts enthusiast, interval training is a way to boost his endurance so he can outlast sparring opponents. “It’s a shortcut to explosive fitness,” he said, adding the training results in snappier and heavier punches.

Using interval training, Nicholls got into top shape last year in about six weeks, using weekly 45-minute sessions. He estimates the same level would have taken about three months via regular training.

Experts say that’s because intense bursts of activity are precisely what the body needs to build stronger muscles. Traditional workouts lasting an hour or more simply don’t push the body enough.

“A lot of the (benefits) from exercise are due to a stress response,” said Stephen Bailey, a sports sciences expert at the University of Exeter. “If you disturb your muscles, there’s an imbalance created and your body will start signaling pathways that result in adjustments.”

Bailey said intense bursts of exercise help the body to convert one type of muscle fiber into another type that uses oxygen more efficiently and is capable of exercising a lot longer. Even though interval training only takes a few minutes, its effects last for hours.

“You’ve exercised at such a high intensity that you’re going to create a massive disturbance in your muscles,” Bailey said. That creates a higher metabolism for several hours afterward, which the body will bring down by burning fat and carbohydrates.

Helgerud and others predicted that as further studies confirm interval training is safe for wider populations, authorities will include it in their exercise guidelines.

“This is definitely the way forward to save time on your exercise,” Nicholls said. “The results are worth it.”

So, after several months of training, you’ve finally added enough muscle to your body, but you still seem to have that extra layer of “padding.” You see it whenever you look in the mirror: the dreaded excess body fat that has accumulated as a result of a little too much food during your quest for muscle mass.

You are probably thinking that you will have to endure never-ending torture on the treadmill, bike or elliptical in order to destroy this extra layer and reveal your new physique. Well, the good news is that you won’t.   At T-3, we love to incorporate a lot of High Intensity Interval Training to keep your body moving and improving.

What Is HIIT?

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is cardio exercises performed at such intense levels that your body will spend the rest of the day expending energy to recover from the beating you gave it. This is commonly referred to as EPOC (excess post-exercise oxygen consumption) and it means that you consume a great deal more oxygen recovering from the exercise bout than you would have if you’d just done a steady-state workout.

This means that you will be burning up to nine times more fat while sitting on the couch later that night than you would have if you’d spent an hour on the treadmill at a moderate pace.

Obviously, I am talking about intense training. You will need to push yourself out of that comfort zone you have gotten used to and really challenge yourself. If you are willing to do this, however, I can guarantee that you will spend less than half the time you usually do on those machines and get much leaner in the process.

HIIT Benefits

HIIT training has a number of benefits in addition to the reduction in training time. First of all, this type of training is far superior to steady-state exercises when it comes to increasing your VO2 max, which is the maximum amount of oxygen you can uptake during exercise. This means that you’ll be in much better shape when it comes time to play a game of football with the guys.

Secondly, when you perform long-duration, moderate-intensity exercise, you can actually put yourself in a catabolic state in which you will start losing muscle mass. That’s right: Some of that hard-earned muscle will start degrading itself in your quest to get lean.

The reason is that there are two types of muscle fibers in your body: fast twitch and slow twitch.

Slow twitch fibers are more compatible with endurance training (such as a steady-state one-hour run), whereas fast twitch fibers are more compatible with short, intense bouts of exercise (such as weightlifting or sprinting).

When we train in one of these modes, our muscle tissue has a tendency to take on the appropriate properties. As an illustration, imagine a marathon runner and a sprinter. The sprinter is composed of fast twitch muscles and carries a great deal more muscle mass, whereas the marathoner has a lot of thin, slow twitch muscle fibers so that his body is as light as possible to transport across those great distances.

This is going to the extreme to prove a point; however, you can see how much of a difference the type of training you do has on your body shape.

Lastly, HIIT training, when combined with a slightly hyper-caloric diet (above maintenance level), can actually be anabolic and help you to add more muscle without adding very much body fat. This means that you can develop the muscle you want without having to bother with endless treadmill torture.

So now that you’re convinced that HIIT is a great training method, how do you go about doing it?

The Specifics Of HIIT

Well, most of you training at T-3 have experienced one or more types of HIIT.  It’s become a huge part of my training methodology.  Here are a few different ways to do HIIT training.

You can either do all-out sprints — during which you go above your VO2 max for a very short period of time — coupled with adequate recovery periods or you can do sprints that are just below your VO2 max for a slightly longer period with an adequate recovery as well. The first option will really push your body and will elicit the greatest EPOC and VO2 max improvement. The second option will train your body to perform at a very high intensity for a slightly longer period of time while taking less time to recover.

For the first option, you will warm up at a comfortable intensity for approximately 5 minutes. Then, you will give your maximum effort for 15 to 30 seconds, followed by a 2-minute recovery. You can walk during the recovery or you can just take it down to a very light jog, depending on your current level of fitness. More than likely, though, you will be going so hard that you will need to walk during the recovery. Perform between 6 and 10 of these intervals, and finish with a cool-down.

For the second option, do the same warm-up as in the first option, and then sprint at approximately 80% of your maximum intensity for 45 seconds to 1½ minutes. Follow this with a 1- to 2-minute recovery period. You may find that your recovery periods are shorter since you aren’t running quite as intensely as in the first option. Repeat this sequence for 5 to 8 intervals, and follow it with a cool-down.

Working HIIT Into Your Training Regimen

These types of workouts are very intense and should only be done 2 to 3 times a week. A great idea is to perform them on your “off” days from weightlifting; however, if you must do them on the same day, I strongly recommend performing them at a separate time so you can devote all your energy to each session.

As with your weight training, be sure to take in a post-workout protein drink to help replenish lost glycogen and repair the muscle tissues.

Finally, I must warn that this type of training is not for everyone. It’s something that we build up to here at T-3.  Since HIIT is so high in intensity, many people find that they simply cannot work out at this level and end up bypassing their workout altogether. If this happens, you are much better off performing a more moderately paced endurance-type cardio workout.

However, try to challenge yourself with a few harder minutes interspersed throughout your workout. This will help increase your metabolism (although not as much as with HIIT), as well as your overall fitness level, which may help you to eventually include HIIT training as part of your workout.

Maximize Your Workout

Whether you have just added new muscle onto your frame or are trying to gain more muscle with minimal fat, HIIT training is your best option. Not only will you spend much less time on the cardio machines, but you will not risk putting yourself into a catabolic state associated with muscle tissue loss. You will also increase many of the anabolic hormones in your body that are associated with building muscle.

So next time you step on the treadmill, I’m going to get you out of your comfort zone and turn up the intensity.  Trust me, you won’t be sorry!

A typical response to experiencing back pain is to take it easy – either staying in bed or at least avoiding any activity that is at all strenuous. While this approach is understandable and may even be recommended in the short term, when done for more than a day or two it can actually undermine healing. Instead, active forms of back exercises are almost always necessary to rehabilitate the spine and help alleviate back pain.

Recently, I suffered a serious back injury at the studio, resulting in emergency spinal surgery.  Four days post-op, I was back in the studio, albeit, on light duty, but already engrossed in my rehabilitation program.  Actually, I began a basic rehab program consisting of gentle stretching and range of motion exercises followed by ice and moist heat, only 48 hours post-op.  It’s now been five days since my surgery and I’m up and walking ¼ mile a day at a slow pace, emphasizing an even gait and erect spinal posture.  My goal is for a complete recovery within 2 to 3 weeks post-op.

When done in a controlled, gradual, and progressive manner, active back exercises distribute nutrients into the disc space and soft tissues in the back to keep the discs, muscles, ligaments and joints healthy. Consequently, a regular routine of lower back exercises helps patients avoid stiffness and weakness, minimize recurrences of lower back pain and reduce the severity and duration of possible future episodes of low back pain.

Depending upon the patient’s specific diagnosis and level of pain, the back pain exercises and rehabilitation programs will be very different, so it is important for patients to see a spine specialist trained to develop an individualized program of back exercises and to provide instruction on using the correct form and technique.

For most back conditions, active back exercises and stretching – not rest – are typically necessary to help reduce pain and encourage healing.  And, to be effective, a patient’s program of back exercises should be comprehensive, working the whole body, even if it targets the back.

Make stretching an integral part of your routine for back exercises.  Almost everyone can benefit from stretching the soft tissues – the muscles, ligaments and tendons – in the back and around the spine. The spinal column and its contiguous muscles, ligaments and tendons are all designed to move, and reduced motion can actually accentuate back pain. Stretching different muscles and ligaments during back exercises is essential for gaining and maintaining mobility and flexibility. Patients with chronic back pain may find it takes weeks or months of stretching to mobilize the spine and soft tissues, but will find that meaningful and sustained relief of low back pain typically follows the increase in motion experienced via back exercises.

A balanced workout of back exercises should include a combination of stretching, strengthening, and low impact aerobic conditioning.   Remember, prevention is the best way to ensure that you enjoy years of exercise and good health.

To attain better health and optimize fitness levels, most people engage in the 3 most popular components of physical fitness.

1) Diet and Nutrition
2) Cardiovascular Exercise and
3) Strength Training

Unfortunately, very little attention is paid to the 4th component of physical fitness.  Most people tend to ignore this particular component completely and most beginners are uneducated and unaware of its benefits.

So, what is the 4^th component?  Stretching!  With most people, stretching is not a priority when it comes to weight loss, strength gains or improving ones way of life.

Beginners should include stretching in their routine to speed up recovery, reduce muscle soreness, correct their posture and allow for improved and better range of motion at the shoulder, hip and knee joints and at the lumbosacral and cervical spine regions.

Experienced exercisers should optimize their workouts by stretching regularly to help overcome plateaus, increase the range of motion in various free weight exercises, speed up their recovery and help correct any muscular imbalances from years of lifting weights and not stretching or over training specific muscles.

As we age, most people will lose strength and lean muscle due to the aging process along with joint flexibility. A lesser range of motion can lead to injuries, falls, aches, pains and breaks. Stretching becomes that much more important for people who are getting on in years and will help prevent injuries while allowing for an improved range of motion at joints that have become stiff and sore over the years.

There are many great ways to stretch. Whether you enjoy waking up and stretching first thing in the morning or prefer to stretch right before bed, stretching in general will dramatically increase your fitness level and well being while relieving stress and improving your quality of life. As I’ve stressed to all of my clients, stretching only takes 5 to 10 minutes a day. During exercise, it is best to stretch lightly during your warm up and then more intensely at your cool down. You can also stretch target muscles in between sets to shorten workouts and give you something to do during rest periods. A minimum hold of 10 seconds per stretch for starters is recommended but you can hold a stretch for up to 30 seconds as your flexibility improves for greater benefits.

Here is a list describing many benefits of stretching.

* Improved flexibility will allow for a fluid and full range of motion making day to day tasks easier.
* Stretching during a warm up improves blood circulation, warms up muscles and prevents injuries.
* Stretching after workouts will reduce muscles soreness and speed up your recovery.
* Stretching also improves body alignment, prevents muscle imbalances and corrects postural challenges.
* Improved posture and body alignment will help prevent lower back problems.
* Stretching is a great way to relieve stress.
* Stretching between sets is great active rest and can help flush out lactic acid quicker.
* Stretching in general will increase and improve your muscular strength and your cardiovascular fitness level.
* Stretching can improve performance in sports.

Remember, it’s never too late to begin a regular exercise regimen that includes all 4 components.   Sart today!  You’ll be glad you did!