Fitness4Her

Women's Fitness

5 Ways to Get Fit Outside the Gym

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Ready for some fresh air and warm sunshine? When you can’t get to the gym or if you are looking for an alternative to working out indoors, there are many activities you can participate in that will give you a full workout–body, mind and soul.

From stretching to cardio, these are 5 activities that will help you put the “fun” in a functional workout.

Walking is one of the best ways to stretch your legs, arms and mind. It is a low impact cardio activity that strengthens the body, improves flexibility, and destresses the mind. You will run faster and longer with a short walk before you start.

Jogging burns calories and is an excellent cardio activity. 30 minutes of jogging can burn up to 350 calories. Remember to start out with a short walk before launching into a full jog to prepare both your muscles and your heart for the activity. Jogging outdoors lets you get lots of fresh air and sunshine.

Sprinting is a complete body workout. It promotes muscular growth, burns fat and improves heart function. You will want to warm up with some lunges, side steps, high knee lifts and running in place. If just starting to sprint, try walking for 2 minutes, sprinting for 30 seconds to 1 minute and repeat for 20 minutes of fun.

Bicycling outdoors takes you on an adventure that works the body, mind and soul. Choose a route with some inclines, curves and long straight paths. Map out a distance that will take about 30 minutes to an hour to complete. You will burn approximately 200 to 400 calories and have lots of fun.

Set up your own bootcamp and mix revved up cardio moves with strength training exercises. Design your own time-based interval circuits with just a few pieces of equipment. A set of hand weights, a jump rope and a stability ball will provide you with enough gear for a killer workout.

Look and Feel Younger With Exercise

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Looking for the Fountain of Youth? Don’t be too disappointed to learn that it doesn’t exist. But there is good news, and a way to restore the beauty and vitality of youth. Exercise is one of the best things you can do to make you look and feel younger.

Staying active is essential to your health, offering benefits for your body and your brain. A combination of cardio and resistance training is the ultimate prescription to energize you and restore your youthful appearance.

Our bodies were made to be active. We are not designed to be sedentary. Even if you are limited in your abilities, keeping your body and mind as active as possible will provide healthy benefits that can last a lifetime.

Sweating may seem un-lady like, but working up a sweat can help you slim down and improve your respiratory, cardio, and circulatory functions. Cardio activities can help you work up a healthy sweat. Some examples include walking, running and playing sports to increase your strength and improve your stamina.

Maintaining an active lifestyle in your thirties will help to keep your muscles stronger and your body more flexible, way on into your fifties and sixties. That doesn’t mean you should stop exercising after 30. Making exercise a vital part of your life will ensure that your body works for you and not against you, as you grow older.

As we age, it is common to lose a small amount of muscle mass. Studies indicate that after the age of 30, people who are inactive can lose 3% to 5% of muscle mass per decade due to age-related sarcopinia. Although common, losing muscle mass means a decrease in strength and stamina. Staying active can offset these alarming statistics; it is the key to sustaining the vitality of youth.

Regular exercise is paramount to keeping your body healthy and strong. Start now and never give up or give in. Your health should be a top priority, so be sure to stick with your exercise routine and not give it up on a whim. There will be challenges and changes in schedules, but if you stay as true to yourself as you do to others, you will be able to meet those challenges and adjust to any changes that get in your way.

If you are already active, then you are on the right track. Not only will you help to maintain your strength and stamina but regular exercise will change the way you feel and look. Exercise is such a benefit to the body that it accentuates your natural beauty and restores the vitality of youth.

Energize with Exercise

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Energize your body, mind and soul by exercising every day. Even when you feel too tired to get moving, motivate yourself to push forward. Our bodies are designed to move! We need to keep moving throughout our lives in order to maintain not only healthy muscles but to keep all of our internal systems in tip top shape as well.

To keep our bodily mechanisms hard at work, we must keep the gears moving. Otherwise our muscles become lax and withered and in turn, our bones suffer the consequences. For instance, when core muscles in the body are not exercised and developed, more stress and strain is put on the back and spine. The same for the knee. Knee injuries that develop into arthritis can be helped dramatically by strengthening the muscles that surround the knee.

We all know that a healthy heart is essential to living well. Daily activity has been proven to strengthen the heart muscles and alleviate stress by helping the body to produce endorphins. Regular cardio exercises combined with strength training provides the best exercise plan.

Exercise is good for the mind and soul as well as the body. It feels great to take a nice walk after a big meal. Not only does the walk help your food to digest, it relieves stress and gives the mind and soul a chance to recharge and reboot.

There are so many benefits to staying active. Just as well, there are serious side effects that can develop when a person chooses a sedentary lifestyle devoid of exercise and activity. Don’t wait for these ailments to steal your zest in life. Go out there and get moving.

You don’t have to join a club or do anything fancy to begin exercising. If you are a beginner, start with a 15-minute walk out and 15-minute walk back. That’s an easy 30 minutes of exercising that you can build on day after day. I guarantee you that if you stick with it you will never regret the time you invest in exercise and taking care of your body.

Exercise For A Healthy Heart

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We all know that exercise improves the heart’s functions but did you know that not exercising could be worse on your heart than just about anything? According to a recent study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, inactivity is the largest risk factor for heart disease in women over the age of 30. The largest factor! That means it is crucial to your health and your longevity that you get moving. Walk, run, swim anything you like to do to be active, but get up and get going.

Thirty minutes is all it takes of vigorous exercise each day. Of course, once you begin exercising regularly, you will probably find you want to exercise longer, too. Challenge yourself each session or each week by changing your routine and adding weights or resistance to your cardio exercises. The idea is to train your heart to work harder and become stronger.

If you have been walking for exercise and find it becoming almost too easy. Try wearing a backpack with weights inside. This will make your walk a bit more difficult as you work your entire body to accommodate the added weight. To work your arm muscles, you can carry little hand weights to build arm muscles and add some resistance to your stride. The same idea can be carried over to cardio activities at the gym, if the exercise becomes mundane, change it up and add something different.

The important thing is to keep moving. No matter what your age, it is never too late to benefit from exercise. Medical News Today reported that starting exercise at the age of 40 has the same heart benefits as earlier training. A reassuring fact that exercise improves health and is essential to our well being.

As healthy as exercise is for the heart, it is also beneficial to other organs in the body as well. Thirty minutes of vigorous exercise will increase your lung capacity, aid in circulation, reduce inflammation, and help you to control your weight. When you exert your body, it uses the calories that you consume for energy. Regular exercise will help you to burn those calories rather than store them.

In addition to cardio exercises to improve heart health, resistance exercises also benefit the heart by making it work harder. That is why an exercise program that alternates cardio and strength is the best combination to keep your heart healthy, while losing weight and staying in shape.

Sleeveless and Sexy—Get Sleek Arms For The Summer

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The popularity of sun dresses and sleeveless tops in summer means full exposure for your arms. You can be confident that they will look their best with exercises that are specially designed to fight arm jiggle and sculpt your arms from your shoulders to your fingertips.

Upper arm workouts, when done regularly will make keep the muscles in your arms toned and fit. The bigger the muscle, the less jiggle you will have in your arms. This is true for women who are underweight as well as women who are overweight. Developing your muscles will give your arms that beautiful sculpted look, which is desired by many.

When you begin to work your arms regularly, you will notice a difference in as little as 30 days. Less wiggle and jiggle and a larger muscle mass in your arm when flexed will be proof that with just a little bit of exercise directed as these small muscle groups can make a big difference.

You will find yourself opting out for the wrap, sweater and jacket to accommodate your dress or blouse. No longer wanting to hide your arms under clothing, you will want to take every opportunity to show them off.

If it’s hard to act out a story without having the embarrassment of jiggly arms, it is definitely time for you to start moving those wings. Arms are often neglected in cardio exercises like walking and running. That’s why it’s important to add hand weights when walking and use the handles on the elliptical machine to ensure your arms are getting worked too.
Below is an upper arm exercise that is designed to give you sleek and sexy arms that will look great in any outfit, sleeveless or not. This exercise, the Two Arm Overhead Dumbell Extension is a great exercise to help build muscles in your upper shoulder, triceps, biceps and core.
Position 1: Begin by grasping the stem of a dumbbell with both hands.
Position 2: Raise your arms overhead, bending your elbows and allow the weight to hang down behind your head as far as comfortably possible.
Position 3: Slowly straighten your arms keeping your elbows back and pointed toward the ceiling throughout the move.
Position 4: Contract your triceps, and then slowly lower the weight back along the same path to the start position.

Take it to the next level by increasing the weight of the dumb bell. Biceps will develop rapidly and you will be ready for all of those sleeveless days and nights of summer.