Monday, 21 May 2012

LYING TRICEPS EXTENSION


Most women find it very depressing that a lot of fat accumulate on the triceps or the underside of arms.  No matter what they do, it stays put. Men who do not exercise, on the other side, may become huge and obese, yet sport frail and thin hands. Men can bring up the size of their hands with exercise for the triceps and biceps, but women can never bring down the size of their hands with just exercise for the hands.
A beginner always puts so much effort into developing the size of his hands, when what he should be doing is concentrate on the basic exercises that build overall strength and stamina. Hands always get a thorough workout whenever an exercise for the upper body is performed and so doing a lot of exercise for only the hands result in the hands getting too tired and injured.
This is a must-do exercise for body builders. As the name denotes, the triceps has three heads, the long head, the medial head and the lateral head and ‘lying triceps extension’ hits them all hard.

Execution
1. Warm up the triceps well before starting this exercise as it places a lot of pressure on the elbow joint.
2. Always have someone to assist you with this exercise.
3. Lie on your back on the floor or on a bench, keep your knees bent and firmly place your feet on the bench or floor.
4. Hold the barbell with a grip with about six inches width between the hands.
5. Let the spotter help you lift the weight and you hold it above your chest with your hands straight.
6. Without spreading your elbows too wide, bring the weight down to your forehead.
7. Slowly push the weight back until your hands are straight and elbows locked.
8. Lower the weight only until your elbow joint has reached a 90 degree position and any movement further down may result in injury of the elbows.

Variation for improvement
Use an inclined bench to do this exercise instead of lying down on the floor or a horizontal bench. You may also hold the barbell with a palm down grip, i.e., a reverse grip. You may have to reduce the weights by 20% while doing the reverse grip lying-triceps-extension.
Muscles involved in action
The entire triceps brachii work hard to do this exercise as also the pectoralis major and the anterior deltoid, which contract isometrically to bring stability of the torso.
Most beginners who have never done any exercise for their triceps may find this exercise very tough to handle and may discard it forever. Neglecting to do this exercise will not give your hands   the full and complete look and may keep your hands full, in future, trying to bring out the size of  the triceps in proportion to the biceps development.

Friday, 18 May 2012

TREADMILL


Have you noticed that your body has a certain way of doing things, I mean, when you acquire proficiency at something, the body sets about doing it in its own pace and rhythm. If you had a twin brother and both of you were asked to answer the same question with some chosen words as answers, you will find that both of you have different style of saying it. From your mannerism to how much space you provide between words, even the passion with which it is said.. all will be so unique. Now try saying the same answer without following the same mannerisms and body language. You will find that you are starting to stammer and grope for the answer. It will not be smooth and controlled as before. Have noticed the way you ride your bike, or drive your car? You have your own way of doing it.
It is the same with jogging too. Even when you set about to run at 5 km/hour, you will probably do it at 4.9km/hr for some time, then 5.1km/hr etc etc and it is your body that decides its own rhythm and pace , not your conscious mind. The body is very aware of your stamina, strength and when your conscious mind gives a command that it has to run non stop for 3 or 4 km, the body decides on the speed which may not be exactly the same as you decided but close to it. You try to break the rhythem and anything from ankle to hip injury may occur. You may even tire out faster because you have chosen to break your body’s natural and most efficient way of handling things.
 This is what happens on a tread mill. You set the treadmill in motion, let’s say at 5km/hr and start to run on it. There is no way you can slow down or speed up once the pace is fixed on the treadmill. You start to break your body’s rhythm after a few minutes and then it becomes less efficient at handling the stress developed on the joints. Some say, you burn more calories that way. How much can it be? 300-400 calories?, which is nothing . A good exercise routine will make the body burn energy for more than 48 hours and there is no way you can measure that. It is not calories that matter, but how efficient the body has become at handling the energy that you supply. And to do that, it is a good idea to let the body decide how best to do it. Some of the heavy weight training sessions burn upto 15 calories a minute and it would seem that heavy power weight training is what that counts to burn fat efficiently But looking at the power lifters , it is very obvious that it is not fatthat they have used up with power lifting exercises. Slow, steady and sustained effforts do burn up fat consistently and that is why jogging burns a lot of fat. You can jog longer on the road [ with the right kind of footwear] than you can on the treadmill. Another reason for the tread mill for being not so good is the steady, continuous pounding the ankles, knee joints and hips take, on the tread mill. The pounding and the beating is so well timed and bring about injury faster than when you do jog on the road, where the body is allowed to slow down or adjust to the impact on the joints. Military personnel, marching [ which is rhythemic pounding in itself] on a bridge are always asked to break the march ,as such steady beating by so many people can bring about instability and cracks to the structure of the bridge. That is pure civil engineering.
 Brisk walking on the treadmill  may not be as bad as jogging. But definitely the hip joints are going to tire out and give way fast. It is so painful for the body to sustain such regularity of pace [ however slow it may seem] . It has to be allowed to adjust and rejuvenate. Have you noticed that simply sitting somewhere without moving, for sometime is also strenuous. The body will, after a few minutes, shift and turn to release stress and settle down again. Try not to do that and it will become very stressful to stay put in that position. But let the body shift a little bit and settle down and you may be able to hold that position for hours. The same happens with every action of the body. The bottom line is that never fight the body natural way of doing things. It always knows what is best. You just give the command to do certain things and try doing it and soon the body will come up with the best way to do it. How did you learn to cycle? You just sat on seat and tried to get it to move. You fell down a few times and one day…lo!! you were balancing the cycle so well. How did you do it? You know so well that you couldn’t do by reading how to cycle, now could you? But the body has its own unique way of handling and adjusting to circumstances and sometimes it is a good idea to sit back and watch things happen. Believe me, when you learn to trust your body’s gut feeling and abide by it, things will start to happen as smooth as breathing itself. For the above mentioned reasons, I never recommend the tread mill to anyone. But  you can use it once every now and then, when you cannot go for jogging on rainy days or do not have much time. But then elliptical cycle is certainly much better for it

Thursday, 17 May 2012

BARBELL ROWING [For the Latissimus dorsi]


Barbell rowing or heavy barbell rowing is for the serious and experienced body builder. Beginners who have not learned to focus on the latissimus dorsi while working out may not benefit at all from this exercise. It requires great deal of concentration, effort, skill and a certain mental toughness to do this exercise. 
EXECUTION
1. Warm up your lower back, upper back, biceps and forearms thoroughly well before you attempt do this exercise.
2. Bend forward, always remembering to keep your back straight, and hold the barbell with a shoulder wide grip.
3.Bendforward only until the upper body is parallel to the ground and that is the position you have to maintain while doing this exercise.
4. Pull the weighted barbell towards your abdomen. Always remember to thrust your chest and shoulder up and keep your lower back straight. [The word straight is actually a misnomer. The spine is slightly arched inwards at the lower back region when you stand up straight and you have to maintain that arch even when you bend down].
5. Slowly bring the weight down until your hands are fully stretched and gently dip your hands a little bit to give that extra stretch to the lats.
6. During the execution of this exercise, it is normal for the body to move up and down from the hips a little bit, but to attempt to do violent bursts of such motions can and will eventually lead to serious back injuries.
VARIATION FOR BETTER PERFORMANCE
Barbell rowing hits the lower back, trapezius, biceps and forearms hard besides the main muscle group, i.e., the latissimus dorsi and so any of these muscles other than the main muscle group getting tired first would severely affect the efficacy of this exercise. The only solution is to do an exercise that does not involve the biceps, trapezius and forearms a lot first and then proceed to do barbell rowing. The bent arm pullover is the only exercise that fits the bill. Also doing bent arm pullover first to tire out the lats would mean that you cannot go too heavy on barbell rowing , which is not very bad, when you consider what a back breaking exercise this is.
MUSCLES INVOLVED
The main muscle group is the latissimus dorsi and the supporting muscle groups are the biceps brachii, brachialis, brachioradialis, flexor and extensors of the forearm. The trapezius and the serratus anterior also work hard help in the movement. The lower back perhaps works as much or even more during this exercise as it has to maintain the bent position throughout the exercise and so doing heavy barbell rowing would also mean developing the strength of the lower back..
Barbell rowing is for developing the latissimus dorsi or the muscles you call “wings” and heavy barbell rowing is for the serious body builder.   Though this may be included in the regular aerobic exercise routine, barbell rowing really flexes its wings only when the going gets tough and only for the tough who like it when it gets tough , i.e., for the best effect go heavy on this exercise.

Wednesday, 16 May 2012

AB-SOLUTION WITHOUT AB EXERCISES


This is perhaps one of the most controversial topics I have discussed in my career as a consultant. For some, it takes the hard way to find out, some believe you outright, but most do not even bother to find out, and give up exercise without reaching any where. For those who wish to know only the gist of what I am going to say and cannot be bothered to read the entire article, I sum it all up in just a few words. DOING ABDOMINAL EXERCISE DOES NOT HELP LOSE FAT FROM THE ABDOMEN. That is a fact. Yes, you have wasted a lot of time doing all those silly exercises.
I found out the hard way. Those days, in the early eighties, when I started out in the gym where I used to work out, a word such as diet was unheard of. You were supposed to workout like crazy and eat big. And if you had a big belly, you worked it off with just exercise. Yes, putting in about two and a half hours of hard work for more than fifteen repetitions did take away a big chunk from the belly. It flattened out and nobody knew you had some fat around the lower tummy until they saw you without your shirt. But that little bit around the lower abs just refused to vanish. There were those who had excellent eight pack, the lucky ones who would not pack on some fat around the waist no matter what they ate.
I was not one of them, though I was not big, I had a bit of lard that defied the toughest of abdomen exercises. I was around 51 kg when I started out, added about a kilo of muscle per month and in two years weighed a little over 70kg, but the same amount of fat stuck to my abs and I could not stomach that anymore. My exercise routine was basically built around Arnold Schwarzenegger’s “Education of a body builder”, in which he mentions diet but never bothered to read it.

At 70-plus kg of body weight, I decided enough was enough and had to bring some quality to my physique by flattening the tummy and showing all eight pieces of abs. And I thought it was the easiest thing I could do. I used to do a three day on, one day off exercise routine as suggested by Arnold Schwarzenegger, which I did in the morning and devoted one hour in the evening to my abs, doing crunches, leg raises.
My abs got stronger and stronger, but the fat refused to budge. And then I started looking around for help. I consulted everyone who had perfect abs and tried every single one of the suggestions I got from them to no avail. Then it dawned on me that may there was something that I missed and checked with all the guys one more time and they furnished the missing piece in the jigsaw. CUT DOWN ON EATING!
I ate four times a day, and ate heavy and I thought I could burn it all off with just ab exercises. Now I was starting to feel a little desperate. By how much should I bring down and I had to find out the hard way. I immediately proceeded to cut and avoid all fatty foods [maintained the carbohydrate intake the same] and realised that all I could eat safely were egg whites and fish as everything else had hidden fats. I followed this pattern for about two months with absolutely no visible change and so went back to my previous eating habits. This brought about immediate results on my belly. It increased in size by about half an inch. Now I was hopping mad. And my friends were a great help. They would say “Look at Venu, he lifts heavy, eats heavy, drinks heavy and is heavy. Bet you can’t see the reading on a weighing machine which is right under your feet.”
I was 26 years old, weighed around 75 kg. Apart from weight training, I boxed three days a week and that was good aerobic exercise and still had a belly to sport. Then a chance comment by a friend brought about a sea of change in my eating habits. I wasn’t what you called someone with a sweet tooth, but occasionally I would gorge on all the goodies I could lay my hands on. Especially after a drink or two of rum, I could sit down to eat and polish off whatever there was on the dining table. And on one occasion, for a birthday party, I ate about half a kilo of cake and about four drinks to warm up and then proceeded to polish off twelve parattas and four plates of chicken, which made my friend comment thus, “no wonder you have so much lard around your waist, you eat so much sweets and chemically alcohol is also a sugar.”

I did not know how close to the solution I was then, until I checked with my mother, who is a chemistry professor in a college. She confirmed what my friend said, that alcohol was indeed a sugar. And I drank at least four pegs once every two or three days and never gave it a second thought. I also realised I had to give up all kinds of sweets. If alcohol which does not taste sweet in your mouth qualified as a sugar, there must be a lot of other stuff which was sugar and I was gorging on them all.
Cutting down on sugar and going off booze brought about some changes and my waist measurement came down by one and a half inches in two months. I was eating only just enough and sometimes, even, going hungry. I had to get the cuts on abs and was willing to do whatever it took me to get there. I also spend a lot of time in front of the mirror, checking out belly and my mother would sometimes say thus, “Venu, I wish you would do something more constructive than spend so much time in front of the mirror, even your sister takes only half the time”.

I knew the answer was within reach, only just out of sight. “May be you should read a bit of nutritional biochemistry” was what a doctor asked of me and I bought my first book on bio chemistry. And boy! Was the subject vast? It took me weeks to decipher and pinpoint just that little amount of “wisdom” required to change my eating habits forever.
Here is what I came up with and this makes boring reading, not to mention what you have gone through so far.
When you eat a meal, the presence of glucose, amino acids or fatty acids in the intestine stimulates the pancreas to secrete a hormone called insulin. Insulin acts on many cells in your body, especially those in the liver, muscle and fat tissue. Insulin tells the cells to do the following:

  • Absorb glucose, fatty acids and amino acids
  • Stop breaking down glucose, fatty acids and amino acids, glycogen into glucose, fats into fatty acids and glycerol, proteins into amino acids
  • Start building: Glycogen from glucose, Fats (triglycerides) from glycerol and fatty acids, Proteins from amino acids.

The activity of lipoprotein lipases depends upon the levels of insulin in the body. If insulin is high, then the lipases are highly active; if insulin is low, the lipases are inactive. The fatty acids are then absorbed from the blood into fat cells, muscle cells and liver cells. In these cells, under stimulation by insulin, fatty acids are made into fat molecules and stored as fat droplets. It is also possible for fat cells to take up glucose and amino acids, which have been absorbed into the bloodstream after a meal, and convert those into fat molecules.
When you are not eating, your body is not absorbing food. If your body is not absorbing food, there is little insulin in the blood. However, your body is always using energy; and if you’re not absorbing food, this energy must come from internal stores of complex carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Under these conditions, various organs in your body secrete hormones:

• pancreas – glucagon
• pituitary gland – growth hormone
• pituitary gland – ACTH (adrenocorticotropic hormone)
• adrenal gland – epinephrine (adrenaline)
• thyroid gland – thyroid hormone

These hormones act on cells of the liver, muscle and fat tissue, and have the opposite effects of insulin.
When you are not eating, or you are exercising, your body must draw on its internal energy stores. Your body’s prime source of energy is glucose. In fact, some cells in your body, such as brain cells, can get energy only from glucose. The first line of defense in maintaining energy is to break down carbohydrates, or glycogen, into simple glucose molecules — this process is called glycogenolysis. Next, your body breaks down fats into glycerol and fatty acids in the process of lipolysis. The fatty acids can then be broken down directly to get energy, or can be used to make glucose through a multi-step process called gluconeogenesis.
So far, so good. From what I have read, I inferred that the culprit was the hormone, INSULIN, and insulin management was all it required to have your fat stores used up. Any food product that stimulated an increased production of insulin was decreed bad. I even started to note down the list of foods that caused an insulin spike. For this purpose, I had to be in touch with so many people, put my students through torturous dieting sessions and finally designed a diet programme that worked for everyone. Now coming back to the point, I realised how stupid it was to offer weight loss without diet. I also realise that it is not required to exercise the abdomen directly at all to lose fat from that area.
There are lots of people who still can’t “stomach” this idea and is still “belly full” of the old theory that you have to do abdominal exercises to lose fat from there. It is high time that they realised that they are wasting a lot of time on the waist line and incorporated a diet replete with all nutritional content and started on an aerobic exercise programme.

Sunday, 13 May 2012

FOREARMED IS FOREWARNED


You could hide your potbelly by sucking it in, those two pimple-like-formations you call chest under a shirt, your scrawny legs with your pants and biceps behind your shirt sleeves, but you have to show your forearms sometime and they’d better look good, lest you be taken for a wimp. Good, strong forearms give you that man-of-action look and if you have good forearms, it also means that you have a good physique.  And do not mess with a guy with good forearms ‘cause he not only has a good physique, but is probably as strong as a bull too.
The forearms and the calf muscles usually come last in the workout routine and unless you are a competitive bodybuilder, the chances are that you will neglect or ignore their development and so, are the most neglected muscles.
The exercise that I mention here is a forgotten exercise. I do not see any of the modern gyms having this facility. But then, this happens to be one of the toughest forearm exercises and unless you like your workout routine to be tough and challenging, do not ever bother to try it out.
Starting from this feature on, there will be explained an exercise routine which you can do at home,  for every single muscle. No single muscle can be worked in isolation and requires help and support of other muscles in its action. So it goes without saying that there is such a thing as strength proportion between muscles and naturally the weights you choose to use should be based and built, with this particular point in mind.
Try this exercise for size [no pun intended]
1. Tie a thin but strong rope around the middle part of a small rounded rod and attach a light weight to the other end.
2. The length of the rope should be such that, when you hold your arms parallel to the ground from the shoulder, the rope should just about touch the floor.
3. Hold the hands parallel to the ground and slowly roll up the weight attached to the rope by rolling the bar forward with each hand taking turns, alternatively, to do the forward rolling action.

4. Once the entire rope has been wound round the bar, start the downward movement, by rolling the palm of the hand backwards. The movements of wrists are very similar to revving the accelerator of a bike.
5. Never relax the grip on the bar to let the weight roll down on its own downward pull, but the idea is to slow down the downward slide by applying a brake to the movement.
For most people, a weight of 4-6 kg is good enough. You could choose to do two non stop rounds to bring more intensity to your workout. There are exercises for the flexor muscle of the forearms called the wrist curl and reverse wrist curl for the extensor group of muscles, but wrist roll works both the muscle groups at one go and so saves a lot of time. Moreover, the pump it brings with it gives an awesome feeling that can last one or two days.
A word of caution to all the fans of weight training
Do not ever hold the view that doing more will bring more benefit. On the contrary, an exercise routine should leave you pleasantly tired, not out cold.

ISOMETRIC EXERCISES FOR FAT LOSS


I am a body builder. I eat, drink and even breathe body building. I have done and will do everything in my power to make body building the most popular sport of all. But, only about 10% of those who work out in a gym are body builders or body building fans. They all love a shapely physique, though, yet no one wants to get as big as a body builder.
But there is a sport that offers the kind of physique that is appealing to all. I have to hear anyone say anything against it. It is the physique of a gymnast. He is not too big like a body builder, but he could be termed a body builder in a small package. What do a body builder and a gymnast have in common, that is appealing to everyone.
As we all know, some exercises do not ever help us to burn fat. We have seen sumo wrestlers, power lifters and the likes of some boxers too, who do regular exercise but have a lot of fat in the body. But we also have seen the WWF wrestlers, who weigh an average of 250 pounds and not an ounce of fat to show and the incredible fat free body of the gymnasts.
Yes, the gymnasts and the wrestlers have six pack and a fat free body. Could it be that it has something to do with the exercise routine they do? Grappling and some gymnastic movements require you to hold and hang on to some positions, exerting all your strength. About 20-40% of all their movements are about holding or sticking to one position. This particular way of exerting strength, by keeping your muscles from moving and yet exerting force is called isometric exercise. It seems that those who do a lot of isometric exercises are indeed in good shape.
Simply put, you are doing isometric exercise if you hold the muscle tense, without any movement for sometime. All the regular bodybuilding movements do hold the muscles tense for sometime, but there is certainly a positive and negative phase of movements. But if the body builder, at any point, stops the movement and holds the weight at a particular point, then it becomes isometric in nature.
The first ever time I heard of the word isometrics is when I bought a “bullworker”, about thirty years ago. It is spring load equipment on which you apply about 60% of your strength from various angles and hold that position for about 7 seconds. Regular use of the bullworker started to burn off a lot of fat in my body. This was so with other people too and bullworker sales soared and reached a fever pitch in the early eighties.
Isometric training is a fantastic form of exercise that can build incredible strength while sculpting the body at the same time. It involves exercises that force the muscles to TRY to contract, without actually allowing them to do so. If you place your palms in front of your chest and press them together, tremendous force can be generated although there is no movement. This is an isometric contraction and it has been a major part of such disciplines as yoga and the martial arts for thousands of years.
Here’s why isometric training works. Every muscle in your body is made up of thousands of individual muscle fibers. Further, your body is always trying to do things in the most efficient manner possible. So, when you pick up an object, your body will activate the bare minimum of muscle fibers required to pick up that object.
If you are weight lifting, the whole goal is to do as many reps as required so that most of the muscle fibers get worked, leading to “muscle failure”. This forces your body to add more muscle and build strength for the future. This is where the power of the isometric contraction comes in.
When you work your muscles against something that can’t be moved, either another body part or a wall, your body keeps recruiting more and more muscle fibers in an attempt to contract the muscle and move the attached limb. As the muscle is never able to contract due to the nature of the isometric exercise, your body will recruit ALL of the muscle fibers available. This is why it’s possible to exhaust a muscle with only one isometric contraction lasting between 7 and 12 seconds, whereas something similar might take 3 sets of 12 reps without standard weight lifting.
Old time strongmen like Alexander Zass were famous for the feats of strength they  would perform. Zass, known as the “Amazing Samson”, was famous for bending bars, breaking chains by expanding his chest, as well as carrying small horses. How did he get this strong? Through a program of isometric training exclusively.
There are many advantages to using isometric exercises. The first advantage is for you to learn how your body should feel when you are isolating muscle groups. (If you are performing a bicep curl you do not want to feel it in your lower back.) By learning which muscle group or groups you want to work, an isometric exercise will allow you to accomplish just that. You will be able to target specific muscles to be worked.
Another advantage of using isometric exercises is it can be done anywhere and anytime. You do not always need machines and equipment to feel your muscles working. This is great for busy individuals who can never find the time to go to the gym. You can perform isometric exercises at your desk, while watching children, TV, or even reading. You can perform some isometric exercises while flying in a plane or sitting all day in a conference.
Another advantage of isometric exercises is ANYBODY can perform them. The morbidly obese, elderly, youth, baby boomers, those on chemotherapy, even those with physical limitations.

Breathe right while doing Isometrics
Most people are unaware of how they breathe … and many are likewise unaware that their usual method of taking in oxygen is shallow, short and highly inefficient. When you’re breathing correctly and more deeply, you’re taking in more oxygen, and enabling your body to use that oxygen more efficiently. This makes it possible for your muscles to function at top capacity.

How that works with isometrics is that by increasing the oxygen supply to the brain, you’re enhancing the brain’s ability to send messages to the muscles to contract. As you contract a specific group of muscles and have a targeted focus for your breathing technique, you’re actually forging new pathways of communication between the brain and the muscles you’re working.
It’s somewhat similar to Hatha yoga – which, in itself, is a kind of isometric exercise because you hold certain postures while you breathe deeply and slowly through the nose. But Hatha yoga isn’t specifically focused on physical fitness, whereas the combination of targeted isometric exercise plus a proper breathing technique is.
The one major item that is recommended is that you BREATHE. If you were to hold your breath while performing an isometric exercise your blood pressure will increase.
You can get light headed and possibly pass out. Always make sure that before starting any exercise program that you get an ‘ok’ from your physician. If you are on any form of medication even those that are over the counter drugs, you can have your blood pressure jump up higher than normal, and that is not a good thing. So no matter what, never hold your breath, always breathe.
Isometric exercises can be very safe for everyone if you listen to your body and know when enough is enough. Also slow deep breathing is the best way to get in more oxygen to your bodies so that your muscles can work more efficiently. Don’t forget that you are either inhaling or exhaling consistently. Never hold your breath.
Two words that in physical culture and fitness forums around the world pop up on a near daily basis. Bruce Lee.  Many of us today still marvel at Bruce Lee’s physique. His low body fat and sinewy, steel muscles have inspired dozens of young men to devote themselves to health and fitness in the quest to attain Lee’s legendary physique.
Not only did his physique influence the average school kid, but experienced weight lifters, athletes, and even bodybuilders – the men who spent their every waking moment in the pursuit of physical perfection were in awe…
But how did Bruce Lee develop such an incredible physique? Well the answer, comes from his widow, Linda Lee Cadwell…
“I know millions of his fans are convinced that Bruce was born with a special body, they have watched him exercise his extraordinary strength, seen his agility, studied him as he flexed his small but marvelously muscled frame. Many of them simply do not believe it when I explain that Bruce built his outstanding physique through sheer application and willpower, through intense training.”
Intense training, part of which included Isometrics. It was so successful that Lee practised it daily. That’s right he trained every day in these particular exercises because they produced incredible and dramatic increases in his strength and his muscle density. That system, of course, was isometrics.
In Tai Chi, you use a form of isometric contraction and since Bruce Lee’s father was a practitioner of Tai Chi and trained Bruce Lee in that art. It’s no wonder then, that he continued to use isometric exercise and improved his use of them.
Consult a doctor before starting on any exercise programme
I have yet to see a gymnast who is on a diet. The way his body shapes with gymnastic exercises is proof of what Isometric exercises can do for you. I do not think any other sports or games use the principle of Isometrics and with great result.
Isometric exercise do build up joint strength and from this angle of thinking, isometric exercises are important for all sportspersons.
Isometrics is not for people who:
1. suffer from High Blood Pressure
2. has had any kind of heart ailment
3. suffers from cardio vascular problems

Friday, 11 May 2012

READY TO QUIT SMOKING






 Everyone who is addicted of smoking often reads the warning sign on the cigarette packet and does not pay attention to it but soon realizes that this disgusting addiction is clinical. You can read reasons to quit smoking here. You maybe do not believe but it is true, cigarettes contain these chemicals.
Cigarettes smoke contains more than four thousand different poisonous chemicals including chemicals used in toilet cleaners and rat poison. Approximate fifty of them cause cancer. This fact makes them the only legal product which can harm or even kill you.








List shows the most dangerous chemicals contained in cigarettes:
Nicotine: Very addictive deadly poison. Nicotine has very powerful effects on arteries throughout the body. Nicotine is a stimulant, speeding up the heart  with every cigarette; it raises Blood Pressure, and is a vasoconstrictor, making it harder for the heart to pump through the constricted arteries. It causes the body to release its stores of fat and cholesterol into the blood.
Benzene: Used as a solvent in fuel and in chemical manufacture (plastic, synthetic rubber, dyes). It is a known carcinogen and is associated with leukemia.
Formaldehyde: Chemical formula H2CO. A colorless liquid, highly poisonous, used to preserve dead bodies.
Ammonia: Found in dry cleaning fluids, bleach (toilet cleaner).
Acetone: Used as Nail polish remover and Paint thinner.
Arsenic: Arsenic and many of its compounds are especially potent poisons. Used as Rat poison.
Hydrogen Cyanide: Chemical formula of Hydrogen Cyanide is HCN. Gas chamber poison.
Cadmium: Cadmium is known to cause Cancer and occurs with Zinc ores. Cadmium is used largely in batteries and pigments. Example in plastic products.
Methane: A component of rocket fuel. Methane is a powerful Greenhouse gas produced both naturally and through human activities.
Carbon Monoxide: Same chemical that comes out of buses,cars, truks exhaust.
Is it the enough reasons to quit smoking today?
You should ask yourself this question: Why people smoke when they know how dangerous is it?

Thursday, 10 May 2012

DON’T LOSE HEART


A heart attack, technically called a “myocardial infarction,” is usually caused by the blockage of a coronary artery, an artery that carries blood to the heart, which impairs blood flow. The blockage can be created by plaque buildup, a blood clot or a spasm in the coronary artery itself.
What determines the age of your heart?
Two major aspects determine the age of the heart: the health of your arteries and the health of your heart muscle. If you don’t move, your heart muscles become flabby.  And arteries start getting blocked. You could be just 30, in the prime of your life, but your heart could have aged. Such a heart won’t pump sufficient blood and through it, life-giving oxygen. Everything will be fine until one day your heart can’t take the load anymore. Dr. Sudhansu Bhattacharya, cardiac surgeon, compares it to the working of a car. ‘Think of defective blood vessels as a narrow fuel pipe. As long as you are in 1st or 2nd gear it’s alright, but the minute you go into 4th or 5th the car will stall.’ A heart which does not get an adequate supply of blood from the artery stalls too.
The terrifying reality is that as long as we don’t go into fifth gear, we may never know that there is a problem with our heart, not unless we go in for diagnostic tests, as arteries get blocked gradually. Dr. AV Ganesh Kumar, Chief Interventional Cardiologist at Hiranandani Hospital, says, “The heart has to pump more blood during exertion or some emotional upset, and this can cause a heart attack.” There may be no warning signs before this, not as long as we are cruising along in second gear. “If the patient has breathlessness and fatigue, these are signs that it’s already late, that the blockage has progressed to an advanced stage,” says Dr. Kaushik.
Sporty youngsters stress their heart the most. If they have an underlying cardiac abnormality they are more likely to be at risk. This is because the heart is the body’s engine and like the engine of a high performance car, it is more vulnerable if it has to work extra hard.
Sport does not cause a heart attack but it can cause a young person to die suddenly by exacerbating an underlying problem that already exists.

What are the symptoms of a heart attack?
If you are having any one of the symptoms described below that lasts for more than 5 minutes, SEEK EMERGENCY TREATMENT WITHOUT DELAY. These symptoms could be the signs of a heart attack (also called myocardial infarction or MI) and immediate treatment is essential.
Symptoms of a heart attack include:

  • Chest pain or discomfort in the center of the chest; also described as a heaviness, tightness, pressure, aching, burning, numbness, fullness or squeezing feeling that lasts for more than a few minutes or goes away and comes back. It is sometimes mistakenly thought to be indigestion or heart burn.
  • Pain or discomfort in other areas of the upper body including the arms, left shoulder, back, neck, jaw, or stomach
  • Difficulty in breathing or shortness of breath
  • Sweating or ‘cold sweat’
  • Fullness, indigestion, or choking feeling (may feel like “heart burn”)
  • Nausea or vomiting
  • Light-headedness, dizziness, extreme weakness or anxiety
  • Rapid or irregular heart beats

Women’s Symptoms Differ
Women often have different symptoms of a heart attack than men and may report symptoms before having a heart attack, although the symptoms are not typical “heart” symptoms.
Women’s symptoms may include:

  • Upper back or shoulder pain
  • Jaw pain or pain spreading to the jaw
  • Pressure or pain in the center of the chest
  • Light headedness
  • Pain that spreads to the arm
  • Unusual fatigue for several days

In a study of 515 women who had an acute myocardial infarction (MI), the most frequently reported symptoms were unusual fatigue, sleep disturbances, shortness of breath, indigestion and anxiety. The majority of women (78%) reported at least one symptom for more than one month before their heart attack. Only 30% reported chest discomfort, which was described as an aching, tightness, pressure, sharpness, burning, fullness or tingling.


Do not wait to get help
At the first signs of a heart attack, call for emergency treatment. Do not wait for your symptoms to “go away.” Early recognition and treatment of heart attack symptoms can reduce the risk of heart damage and allow treatment to be started immediately. Even if you’re not sure your symptoms are those of a heart attack, you should still be evaluated.
The best time to treat a heart attack is within one hour of the onset of the first symptoms. When a heart attack occurs, there’s a limited amount of time before significant and long-lasting damage occurs to the heart muscle. If a large area of the heart is injured during the heart attack, full recovery becomes much more difficult.
Studies show that the people who have symptoms of a heart attack often delay, or wait to seek treatment, for longer than seven hours.
Reasons people delay:

  • They are young and don’t believe a heart attack could happen to them
  • Symptoms are not what they expected
  • They may deny the symptoms are serious and wait until they go away
  • They may ask the advice of others, especially family members
  • They may first try to treat the symptoms themselves, using aspirin or antacids
  • They may think the symptoms are related to other health problems (upset stomach, arthritis)
  • They may put the care of others first (take care of children or other family members) and not want to worry them

Waiting just a couple hours for medical help may limit your treatment options, increase the amount of damage to your heart muscle, and reduce your chance of survival.
Women can protect themselves by learning to identify the common symptoms of heart disease in women, getting a physical exam that includes screening for heart disease, and seeking a second opinion if symptoms persist. Learn more about women and heart attack.
Some people have a heart attack without having any symptoms (a “silent” myocardial infarction). A silent MI can occur among all patients, though it is more common among people with diabetes. A silent MI may be diagnosed during a routine doctor’s exam.
Preventing a Heart Attack
Even if you have a strong family history of early heart disease, there are many ways to decrease your likelihood of having a heart attack:

  • Do not smoke
  • Eat a healthy diet
  • Reduce cholesterol
  • Maintain a healthy weight
  • Alleviate stress
  • Drink moderately, if at all
  • Decrease high blood pressure
  • Manage (or avoid) diabetes
If heart disease runs in your family, it is imperative that you maintain the best possible overall health.