5 Ways to Exercise Your Way to Good Health
By Sandy Schroeder
You may have been bobbing in and out of the exercise scene, trying to maintain 30 minutes of daily physical activity, but now it's time to get serious and examine all of your options to create the best plan.
EasyHealthOptions.com explains what these key types of exercise can do for you.
Aerobics increase the oxygen in the blood - Fast walking, jogging, or elliptical machines help the heart pump more efficiently, rev up the immune system, and call up the body's natural painkillers: endorphins.
Core exercises protect the spine - The back, abdomen and pelvis are the core muscles to strengthen with yoga, stand-up paddle boarding, crunches, and Pilates. They will keep you mobile and help you keep your balance.
Stretching delivers flexibility - Up your game on the courts or the green and prevent injury with the support of stretching. Use yoga to stretch your whole body and do dynamic stretching with hip circles, shoulder swings or half-squats.
Interval training helps shed pounds - Use aerobics and anaerobic exercises to burn fat and strengthen the heart. In interval training you might mix steady walking with short intense sprints.
Try supra-aerobics - Start with your normal aerobic fitness and build capacity and endurance with bursts of high intensity exercise, varying the periods of exertion and rest. The variety challenges the heart and lungs to adapt.
Cap Your Efforts With Healthy Meals
Don't blow your workouts with fast food runs and supersized sodas. Exercise delivers 20 percent of health benefits and good nutrition delivers the other 80 percent. When you create an effective combo you lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and obesity.
Pull it all together with diets like the Mediterranean diet of whole foods, vegetables, fruits, olive oil, seeds, nuts and fish. Make your farmers market a family hangout and let everybody pick their favorites. Then take those berries, apples, bananas, tomatoes, leafy greens, corn and cabbages and find some new recipes from Epicurious.com. Try for lots of sit-down suppers and hide all of the phones.
Keep moving, vary your workouts and eat well as often as you can to boost your health and spike your energy.
As you use these various types of exercise, see how they play out in speed, power and energy as you bike, hike, or run on the weekends. Use volleyball, soccer, basketball, or dancing to keep the motion going.
Cap Your Efforts With Healthy Meals
Don't blow your workouts with fast food runs and supersized sodas or sugar-loaded treats. Exercise delivers 20 percent of health benefits and good nutrition delivers the other 80 percent. When you create an effective combo you lower your risk of heart disease, diabetes, cancer and obesity.
Pull it all together with smart choices like the Mediterranean diet of whole foods, vegetables, fruits, olive oil, seeds, nuts and fish. Make your farmers market a family hangout and let everybody pick their favorites. Then take those berries, apples, bananas, tomatoes, leafy greens, corn and cabbages and find some new recipes from Epicurious.com.
Keep moving, vary your workouts and eat well as often as you can to boost your health and spike your energy.
To learn more about your health, wellness, and fitness, see your local chiropractor at The Joint Chiropractic in Schaumburg, Ill.