Why Almost Everyone Is Wrong About Stomach Exercises And Abdominal Muscles

By: David Grisaffi

“Stomach exercises” are among the most frequently asked about and searched on (via internet) yet misunderstood subjects in the entire field of health, fitness and exercise. Regardless of age, experience or gender, everyone wants a flat “stomach” because the abdominal region is the true showcase of your physique. Since the abs are usually the last place to “shape up” and “lean out,” then most people would say that if you’ve got abs, you’ve got it all.

Well, in my way of thinking, this is only partially true. There’s more to a complete physique than “abdominal exercises” and “six pack abs” and most people are completely wrong about “stomach exercises” and “”stomach muscles.” (you’ll find out why in just a moment)…

The Difference Between “6-Pack Abs” And Truly “Fit Abs”

Having a great looking set of abs is very much a matter of low body fat. But make no mistake, just being lean and seeing a “six-pack” doesn’t mean you are strong, fit or conditioned. Real fitness means more than visible muscle development, it means strength, endurance, and stability, and this type of true functional fitness does not come from merely eating the right foods or reducing your body fat.

Nutrition is so important that you could even say that “abs are made in the kitchen, not in the gym” and you would not be telling a lie. But this clever maxim is not telling the whole truth either. Great abs come from nutrition AND training, not one or the other. The training develops them. The nutrition uncovers them.

Don Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in America in 1493 looking for a fountain of youth and today in the “stomach exercise” marketplace, it seems that far too many people are looking for a “magic fountain” in order to flatten their waistlines.

Ponce never found the fountain of youth and you will never find a magical solution for flat abs. There are no short cuts. It takes a change in lifestyle to get a change in health, physique and performance. That includes nutrition AND training. There’s No Such Thing As “Stomach Exercises”

THIS is your stomach! Proper choice of exercise is a critical factor in your quest for a firm and flat waistline. But you will never get a great “stomach” from ANY “stomach exercise” because your stomach is a part of your digestive tract, not your skeletal muscular system! So let’s get the terminology straight, shall we? The area of you body you really want to improve is called your “core region.” Many people refer to it as the “abdominal region.”

However, training only with “ab exercise” is NOT the optimal approach. The abdominals only include the front (anterior) side of your body and if the only type of training you do is abdominal training, you may be unwittingly setting yourself up for lower back problems. If you don’t think this is serious, then consider this statistic: According to the

American Chiropractic Association, more than 31 million Americans are suffering from low back pain at any given time. So would you like to trade great abs for a bad back? I didn’t think so. The good news is that you can kill two birds with one stone. You can develop great abdominal muscles, great core muscles and a strong, pain-free back by using exercises that focus not on the “stomach,” (which is not a muscle you train at all), not on the “abdominals,” (which is only part of the muscles you need to target), but on the entire core.

The core is the key to your success. The core is the entire complex of muscles around your hip and waist region from your lower rib cage to the bottom of your pelvis. If you just focus on “abdominal exercises” alone (or “stomach” exercises, LOL), you will develop what I refer to as a “one dimensional body.” I focus on training the body as a whole, or “multi-dimensional training” to develop a complete person and to develop effective and powerful athletes.

What every program I write has in common is that I do not attempt to “isolate” the abdominals (or train the “stomach muscles!”) It’s all about the core and about integrating your body as a unit so you function better in daily life. As you do core-focused exercise programs you are improving not only your muscular system but also the systems that drives your muscular system – that is, the nervous system.

This may very well be the most important secret for getting better results in your workout programs. The more efficiently your nervous system works, the better your results will be. Core workouts that improve both muscular strength and conditioning while also improving neural drive and develop stronger neural control of the associated muscles.

This type of training for your core may very well be the most important secret for getting better results in your workout programs.

* THIS is why my “brand” of core training gets results in women who have had C-sections, or other abdominal surgeries when nothing else worked

* THIS is why the core exercises I recommend will flatten out a “pooching” belly, which is a result of deep muscular weakness and lack of neuromuscular control (It’s NOT just a body fat problem!)

* THIS is why my clients have overcome lower back when all else failed

* THIS is why my workout program have helped men and women recover from embarrassing incontinence

* THIS is how I have helped hundreds of new moms regain their flat and firm midsections after having their babies

* THIS is why my clients remain injury free, while so many other training programs are actually the CAUSE of injuries * And THIS is why my type of training – PROGRESSIVE CORE TRAINING – develops amazing athletes – top wrestlers, PGA golfers, and pro boxers with powerful punches and abs of steel. I’ve written an entire book about core training (“Firm And Flatten Your Abs), which you learn more about on the Flatten Your Abs home page, as well as dozens of articles which you can read elsewhere on this site (or you can subscribe to my biweekly newsletter).

The purpose of this article was not to give more workout routines (there are plenty of core training workouts to be found on this site and in my book and lots more to come in upcoming issues of my newsletter). The purpose of this article was to “install” 3 incredibly important lessons into your brain:

* You can’t train your “stomach” because your stomach is an internal organ of digestion not a skeletal muscle!

* You can’t totally “isolate” your abdominals because your abdominals do not work in isolation, they work in conjunction with the rest of your body (and “isolation” as with only doing crunches, is not the optimal approach anyway).

* You get more by training your core! You become a better athlete, you help prevent injuries, you get stronger and you get that coveted 6-pack abs look. I hope the “morals” of these lessons have already sunk in and will become a part of your own fitness philosophy… and the next time you hear someone talk about “stomach exercises”, you’ll now be able to get a good chuckle out of that.

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_7109.shtml

Recovery From Exercise: Looking At What\’s Best

By: Yuri Elkaim

The human body operates most efficiently when it is in balance, or has achieved a state known as homeostasis. As such, optimal recovery means that all body systems have returned to the state they were in before exercise (homeostasis). However, for most avid exercisers, recovery is a limiting factor. The better you can recover, the sooner and better you can train. The process of recovery (regeneration) gets less attention than it should. Every person should have a systematic plan that includes recovery activities on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. The following are simple tools that you can implement to help your body recover better between exercise bouts.

Cool-down

After exhaustive exercise, don’t stop and rest immediately. You can speed up the removal of lactic acid from your muscles by continuing to exercise at a low intensity for 10-20 minutes. Cooling down can help reduce the feeling of stiffness that often occurs after a workout and is especially important if your next training session or event is scheduled a few hours later.

Stretch

Static stretching before exercise puts you at risk for damaging the very tissues you are trying to protect and as such should be avoided. Research has shown that stretching causes lengthening of the tendinous fibers within the muscle-tendon unit. Such lengthening causes the tendon (or passive) component to lose much of its shock absorbency, thus, placing the muscle fibers at greater risk of trauma. However, stretching after exercise may help minimize muscle soreness and may even help prevent future soft tissue injuries. Thus, before activity, more active-type stretching routines that promote range of motion and increased blood flow are recommended. Conversely, after exercise, the emphasis should be on passive or static stretching to allow the muscles to relax and return to their resting lengths.

Carbohydrates

The muscles are primed for quick restoration of their carbohydrate fuel reserves (glycogen) immediately after exercise, so don’t wait too long to start eating foods and drinking beverages rich in carbohydrate. Fruits, energy bars, and sports drinks all contain large amounts of carbohydrate. From a nutrition standpoint, post-exercise is one of the only times where you want to be consuming high-glycemic index foods for they will stimulate a quicker release of insulin and, thus, carbohydrate storage in the muscles. Ideally, these fuels should be consumed as quickly as possible upon finishing your exercise session.

Protein

Most forms of exercise lead to the breakdown of proteins within the muscles. This breakdown-repair process stimulates the muscles to rebuild and become stronger. Moreover, some of our muscle proteins continue to be broken down during the recovery phase after exercise. For a faster buildup of muscle proteins during recovery, include a small amount of protein in the foods you eat. Milk, cheese, eggs, whey protein shakes, sandwiches, nuts (almonds, walnuts) and energy bars provide carbohydrate and protein. Look for easily digestible protein sources (such as the ones listed above) following strenuous exercise. Avoid saturated fats.

Fluids

Replacing lost fluid is crucial to the recovery process. Having adequate fluids within your body promotes the removal of toxins and waste from your muscles. Top off your supply of fluids by drinking before exercise, continue to hydrate every 15 or 20 minutes during a workout, and replace any body weight lost during exercise by drinking while you recover. Remember, 1 L of water is equivalent to 1 kg of body weight. Therefore, if the difference between your pre- and post-exercise weight is 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs) you would want to rehydrate with 1.5 L of water to bring your body fluid back to homeostasis. Before, during, and after exercise, the rule of thumb is that if you?re thirsty, it?s too late! Therefore, be sure to have a water bottle throughout the day to sip on. On a daily basis (at rest), the number of ounces of water you should be consuming should equal half of your body weight (in lbs). Thus, if you weigh 200 lbs, then you want to be drinking 100 ounces of water (almost 3 L).

Salt

Your body loses water and minerals – mostly sodium chloride, some potassium – when you sweat. Drinking water alone during exercise and recovery will make it difficult to replace body fluids rapidly because much of it will pass through the kidneys to become urine. Replace the salt along with the water to counteract dehydration. If you have to compete again within a few hours, consider sports drinks that contain water, sodium chloride, or fruits such as bananas which are high in potassium. Add extra salt to foods at mealtime if you are susceptible to cramps. Consider using condiments, sports drinks, and fitness waters instead of salt tablets.

Damage Control

Inflammation, swelling, and muscle soreness are possibilities following strenuous exercise. To minimize the effects, consider cold packs around joint areas, alternating cold and hot whirlpool baths, and the use of specially designed magnets to speed the recovery process. Light massage is also a good option for promoting toxin removal from the tissues and reducing delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). A study by Hilbert et al. showed that a 20 minute massage 2 hours following exercise helped to reduce the intensity of soreness 48 hours post-exercise in subjects who underwent 6 sets of maximal eccentric hamstring contractions. Minimize foot contact with the ground. Engage in light activities that increase blood flow while not taxing the nervous system. Swimming, cycling, walking, and light jogs are alternatives, but minimize foot contact with the ground.

Sleep

There is plenty of evidence to show that lack of sleep can have an adverse affect on training and competition. You might get by for a day or two with inadequate sleep, but it will catch up with up sooner or later. If you haven’t monitored your sleep habits already, determine how much sleep you need each night to ensure full recovery. It’s not eight hours for everyone – could be less, could be more. Then try to establish a routine that will allow you get what you need to perform well. Sleep is divided into 1.5-hour time cycles. If you can time sleep cycles in increments of an hour and a half (1.5 hours, 3.0 hours, 4.5 hours, 6.0 hours, 7.5 hours, 9.0 hours), you have a better chance of waking up refreshed. The idea is to awake at the top of the cycle instead of at the bottom. And don’t dismiss the power of a 20-30 minute nap during the day. The journal Sleep highlighted a meta-analysis done on studies looking at the effects of sleep deprivation on performance. The researchers found that overall sleep deprivation strongly impairs human functioning. Moreover, they found that mood is more affected by sleep deprivation than either cognitive or motor performance and that partial sleep deprivation has a more profound effect on functioning than either long-term or short-term sleep deprivation.

Also be aware that overtraining can impair your body?s ability to fully rest and regenerate. A study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise revealed that female swimmers who trained excessively showed a higher incidence of sleep disruptions. In sum, there are several measure that you can take to better your recovery between exercise sessions. Remember that a combination of the several of the aforementioned tools should be implemented for best results.

References:

Safran, M. et al (1989). Warm up and muscular injury prevention: an update. Sports Medicine, 239-249.

Hibert, J. et al (2003). The effects of massage on delayed onset muscle soreness. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 37: 72-75.

Pilcher, J & Huffcutt, A. (1996). Effects of sleep deprivation on performance: a meta-analysis. Sleep, 19(4): 318-326.

S. Taylor et al. (1997). Effects of training volume on sleep, psychological, and selected physiological profiles of elite female swimmers. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 29(5):688-693.

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_7079.shtml

Lifestyle Changes to Improve Your Health

By: Mary Watson

The choices you make are important to healthy living. If you are one of the many people who has begun to think about what lies ahead for you, it?s time to begin to look toward doing something about it. The choices you make now and in the future will determine how well you will stand up to the perils of life as you approach your senior years. By taking the time to learn some ways you can improve your life now can help you live longer and healthier.

Eating a Healthier Diet

Most of us are guilty of not eating foods that are good for our health. We develop poor eating habits at an early age, and we tend to put off making changes that will improve our well being. We may make small changes when the need for losing weight is important or during a time when certain foods may take a tool on the way we feel, but it takes something major for us to really make a change in the way we eat. The problem is that quite often by the time we make the decision to make changes, it?s too late for them to make a difference. We must begin early in life to develop healthy eating habits, and we must continue those habits through out our lives.

Develop an Exercise Routine

Exercise is an important part of remaining healthy. If you don?t have an exercise routine already, you should develop one based on your own abilities. Even if you are only able to walk around the block a few times a day, you will be doing something that is good for your body. No matter what the condition of your health may be it?s important to exercise on a regular basis. Aerobic exercises such as walking, swimming, skiing, and bicycling are best, and you want to perform your routine long enough to increase your heart rate.

Reduce Stress

Stress is always an important issue, but as we get older, it begins to take a greater toll on our health. It?s important to learn to reduce stress levels before they cause severe health problems, and the best time to do that is when you are still young enough to fight the impulse to allow stress to consume you. Even every day conditions such as asthma, allergies, and even colds and hay fever can be caused by stress. Stress can cause the immune system to break down, and when that happens, it is ripe for many different conditions and illnesses.

Maintain a Proper Weight

In order to stay healthy, you need to keep your weight within normal range. If you are overweight, you will have less energy and thus be unable to exercise or even do household chores. Excess weight also puts a strain on your heart and makes you more likely to have a heart attack. Of course, maintaining a proper weight falls in directly with the other methods of developing a healthy lifestyle since you need to exercise and eat healthy foods in order to maintain a proper weight. Since many people have a tendency to overeat when they are under stress, keeping that in control can also help you keep your weight within normal range. Although some recent evidence suggests that being up to 10% overweight is healthier than being 10% underweight, it is healthier to be as close to a normal range as possible.

Making the choice to change your lifestyle is essential if you want to live a healthy and pain free lifestyle. There is no substitute for healthy living, and healthy living comes from making lifestyle changes that affect your complete body and mind. Only by making those important changes can you expect to live a normal, healthy life into your golden years.

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_7088.shtml

Is Weight Loss All in the Mind

By: Mary Watson

Is hypnosis the answer to losing weight quickly and safely? Well look into my eyes as I delve into the deepest, darkest recesses of the mind to find out.

Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness, usually achieved with the help of a hypnotherapist. When you’re under hypnosis, your attention is highly focused and you’re more responsive to suggestions, including behaviour changes that hypnotherapists say can help you lose weight.

Many advertisers on the Internet want you to believe that because hypnosis is “natural”, it cannot harm you and is therefore a superior method of weight loss.

Firstly, it cannot be claimed that hypnosis is one of the most natural ways to lose weight, because it’s obviously not natural to be in a state of induced hypnosis. But, having said that, it could be a safe method. The real question is does it work?

One reason for weight gain is quite often psychological. Basically, it’s all in the mind. So one way to effectively reach your weight loss goal is to reach deep down into your subconscious mind and change the way you think about food.

Imagine if you could lose weight by just relaxing and listening to a pleasant and friendly subliminal message. A message that could be implanted deep into your subconscious. A powerful message that affects your attitude to eating and exercise, without you even realising.

Hypnosis is a unique experience, but you are always in control. Hypnotherapy is rather like being in a daydream, it is a state called “trance”. It might be a deep trance or it might only be a light trance.

With hypnosis there’s no right or wrong way to experience it, there’s just different ways for different people. In general a hypnotic trance is a very pleasant, relaxing and tranquil xperience. While hypnotised you will be aware of all physical sensations around you, perhaps even noticing sounds you wouldn’t otherwise be aware of.

When you are fully conscious again you may be able to recall everything that happened while you were in your trance-like state, depending how deep your trance was.

Hypnosis can help by allowing you to overcome unconscious obstacles, which prevent you from losing weight and from keeping weight off. You know that eating too much is not what you desire and you know that exercise and sensible diet are important.

However, these are not conscious, logical issues. Successful weight loss is all about re-educating your unconscious mind and forming new healthy habits.

Hypnosis and hypnotherapy work on a subconscious level to help you achieve a state of mind where you can actually lose weight willingly. Until you are genuinely willing to make these changes, your weight loss goals will seem very difficult to achieve.

So, on the surface it would appear that hypnosis as a weight loss aid has something going for it. After all, hypnosis works for smokers who are trying to give up the fags, doesn’t it? Well, the truth is hypnosis is slow to produce any long-lasting results and will not work for everyone.

Studies have shown that one reason why it doesn’t work is because it requires weekly consultations with a qualified hypnotist for at least 8 weeks or more in addition to any self-hypnosis or listening to some recorded message. So, In order to achieve any benefits from its use, hypnosis must be practiced on a regular basis for a significant period of time.

And, as we all want to see results almost instantly, this method is very likely to fail because we just don’t have the patience to continue. Then there’s the cost to consider. Hypnotherapy sessions do not come cheap.

Unfortunately, the only people who claim hypnosis is easy, simple, and effective are those trying to sell you their programme. So, in conclusion, hypnosis is just another method that seems to be making money for those who practice it.

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_7096.shtml

Is Weight Loss All in the Mind

By: Mary Watson

Is hypnosis the answer to losing weight quickly and safely? Well look into my eyes as I delve into the deepest, darkest recesses of the mind to find out.

Hypnosis is an altered state of consciousness, usually achieved with the help of a hypnotherapist. When you’re under hypnosis, your attention is highly focused and you’re more responsive to suggestions, including behaviour changes that hypnotherapists say can help you lose weight.

Many advertisers on the Internet want you to believe that because hypnosis is “natural”, it cannot harm you and is therefore a superior method of weight loss.

Firstly, it cannot be claimed that hypnosis is one of the most natural ways to lose weight, because it’s obviously not natural to be in a state of induced hypnosis. But, having said that, it could be a safe method. The real question is does it work?

One reason for weight gain is quite often psychological. Basically, it’s all in the mind. So one way to effectively reach your weight loss goal is to reach deep down into your subconscious mind and change the way you think about food.

Imagine if you could lose weight by just relaxing and listening to a pleasant and friendly subliminal message. A message that could be implanted deep into your subconscious. A powerful message that affects your attitude to eating and exercise, without you even realising.

Hypnosis is a unique experience, but you are always in control. Hypnotherapy is rather like being in a daydream, it is a state called “trance”. It might be a deep trance or it might only be a light trance.

With hypnosis there’s no right or wrong way to experience it, there’s just different ways for different people. In general a hypnotic trance is a very pleasant, relaxing and tranquil xperience. While hypnotised you will be aware of all physical sensations around you, perhaps even noticing sounds you wouldn’t otherwise be aware of.

When you are fully conscious again you may be able to recall everything that happened while you were in your trance-like state, depending how deep your trance was.

Hypnosis can help by allowing you to overcome unconscious obstacles, which prevent you from losing weight and from keeping weight off. You know that eating too much is not what you desire and you know that exercise and sensible diet are important.

However, these are not conscious, logical issues. Successful weight loss is all about re-educating your unconscious mind and forming new healthy habits.

Hypnosis and hypnotherapy work on a subconscious level to help you achieve a state of mind where you can actually lose weight willingly. Until you are genuinely willing to make these changes, your weight loss goals will seem very difficult to achieve.

So, on the surface it would appear that hypnosis as a weight loss aid has something going for it. After all, hypnosis works for smokers who are trying to give up the fags, doesn’t it? Well, the truth is hypnosis is slow to produce any long-lasting results and will not work for everyone.

Studies have shown that one reason why it doesn’t work is because it requires weekly consultations with a qualified hypnotist for at least 8 weeks or more in addition to any self-hypnosis or listening to some recorded message. So, In order to achieve any benefits from its use, hypnosis must be practiced on a regular basis for a significant period of time.

And, as we all want to see results almost instantly, this method is very likely to fail because we just don’t have the patience to continue. Then there’s the cost to consider. Hypnotherapy sessions do not come cheap.

Unfortunately, the only people who claim hypnosis is easy, simple, and effective are those trying to sell you their programme. So, in conclusion, hypnosis is just another method that seems to be making money for those who practice it.

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_7096.shtml

Knock Out Weight Loss Strategies: 7 Dynamic Ways To A New You

By: Ted Cantu

I got the phone call early on a Monday. It was from California and I had no idea what I was about to learn from the amazing Dr. Berneathy. Dr. B, as he is affectionately known, has created a dynamite weight loss formula for his patients in his Chiropractic clinic. I was about to embark on a real education.

If you want to lose the weight then you will have to lose any type of victim mentality and get positive. I learned from Dr. B that weight loss was not that hard to do. This guy had the secret that so many other programs out there seemed to miss.

I am going to tell you some of these strategies now.

Lesson 1: You Got To Detoxify ? Now what does this exactly mean? You have to get rid of all the junk in your diet. If you are serious about weight loss then you must get rid of the excess garbage in your daily diet. There is a time period here that you will have to observe. This is a multi-step process that you must start on if you want to lose the unwanted pounds.

Lesson 2: Keeping A Positive Mindset ? Getting powerful results starts with a healthy mindset. I suggest getting rid of all the substances in your daily pattern that lead to racing thoughts. In this category I include caffeinated drinks, alcohol, sugar and other stimulants. I recently switched to herbal teas from around the world and noticed a huge difference in every aspect of my life.

Lesson 3: Move ? You got to get in motion if you want to lose weight. Life is about motion, it is about doing, it is about experiencing new things, you got to get out of your living environment and breathe fresh air. Even if you are not used to exercising you have to get up and out. Mobility is everything. This is going to help you build up your mindset to finally exercise.

Lesson 4: Water Based Foods ? Just like Dr. B said do not eat junk foods. Artificial colors and flavors are ultimately bad for you and they must be avoided. Taking the bold step to water based foods will take some imagination There are a lots of great things to be said about what kind of vegetables you buy. You can either buy organic produce, eat vegan, or go totally vegetarian. Avoid taking too many radical steps to reach your goal. Your shifts in this area should be gradual.

Lesson 5: Love Yourself ? I always found that I usually got the munchies around 10 PM every night. This became a problem but I found ways around it. I was never tempted by late night advertising by Taco Bell because I had problems with dairy and my sinuses. I was able to find some guilt free snacks to help tide me over. I found things like black bean dip and blue corn chips that were fat free. I also found this amazing Green Tea Non Dairy Ice Cream. If you are willing to stretch your imagination you will come across some incredible finds. This is totally up to you. The other thing I can tell you is to get plenty of rest and drink plenty of water.

Lesson 6: Take Control ? Avoid being a victim whenever possible. Avoid living in a constant state of ?reaction?, (ex: you?ll never believe what this guy said to me, you?ll never believe what happened to me today, I could only get that promotion if so and so was out of the way etc.). These types of inner conflicts are not healthy for the mind. You are controlling the situations around you. It is for this reason you must have self mastery.

Lesson 7: Eat Often ? You can achieve great things with smaller meals. You can eat multiple times a day and not have to worry about going hungry. If you are eating the right things in the right combination then hunger pangs are a thing of the past. You are going to be well settled and will not have to worry about calorie counting. The body will start to adjust to your eating habits and you won?t have to worry about how much you need to eat. Your portions will be smaller.

Dr. Berneathy is well schooled in all of these areas. He is an abundant wealth of knowledge and I decided to take him on as a client. These areas of weight loss intrigued me and yet I wondered how I could apply these rules to my life.

We talked about fundamentals and what it would take to get fantastic results. Weight loss is a complicated game if you don?t approach it the right way. That is why there are so many diets that fail and fall off the market place. But talking to Dr. B made things really simple. We need to stop stuffing ourselves with fake food. But more importantly we had to follow a process that would help eliminate waste before the pounds would fall off.

The importance of this subject matter cannot be underplayed. Disease can settle in if the body is not where it should be. Losing weight is a very serious subject matter and you should take proper steps to take care of your body.

As Dr. Berneathy says, ?You only got one you!?. And I couldn?t agree more.

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_7082.shtml

Recovery From Exercise: Looking At What\’s Best

By: Yuri Elkaim

The human body operates most efficiently when it is in balance, or has achieved a state known as homeostasis. As such, optimal recovery means that all body systems have returned to the state they were in before exercise (homeostasis). However, for most avid exercisers, recovery is a limiting factor. The better you can recover, the sooner and better you can train. The process of recovery (regeneration) gets less attention than it should. Every person should have a systematic plan that includes recovery activities on a daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly basis. The following are simple tools that you can implement to help your body recover better between exercise bouts.

Cool-down

After exhaustive exercise, don’t stop and rest immediately. You can speed up the removal of lactic acid from your muscles by continuing to exercise at a low intensity for 10-20 minutes. Cooling down can help reduce the feeling of stiffness that often occurs after a workout and is especially important if your next training session or event is scheduled a few hours later.

Stretch

Static stretching before exercise puts you at risk for damaging the very tissues you are trying to protect and as such should be avoided. Research has shown that stretching causes lengthening of the tendinous fibers within the muscle-tendon unit. Such lengthening causes the tendon (or passive) component to lose much of its shock absorbency, thus, placing the muscle fibers at greater risk of trauma. However, stretching after exercise may help minimize muscle soreness and may even help prevent future soft tissue injuries. Thus, before activity, more active-type stretching routines that promote range of motion and increased blood flow are recommended. Conversely, after exercise, the emphasis should be on passive or static stretching to allow the muscles to relax and return to their resting lengths.

Carbohydrates

The muscles are primed for quick restoration of their carbohydrate fuel reserves (glycogen) immediately after exercise, so don’t wait too long to start eating foods and drinking beverages rich in carbohydrate. Fruits, energy bars, and sports drinks all contain large amounts of carbohydrate. From a nutrition standpoint, post-exercise is one of the only times where you want to be consuming high-glycemic index foods for they will stimulate a quicker release of insulin and, thus, carbohydrate storage in the muscles. Ideally, these fuels should be consumed as quickly as possible upon finishing your exercise session.

Protein

Most forms of exercise lead to the breakdown of proteins within the muscles. This breakdown-repair process stimulates the muscles to rebuild and become stronger. Moreover, some of our muscle proteins continue to be broken down during the recovery phase after exercise. For a faster buildup of muscle proteins during recovery, include a small amount of protein in the foods you eat. Milk, cheese, eggs, whey protein shakes, sandwiches, nuts (almonds, walnuts) and energy bars provide carbohydrate and protein. Look for easily digestible protein sources (such as the ones listed above) following strenuous exercise. Avoid saturated fats.

Fluids

Replacing lost fluid is crucial to the recovery process. Having adequate fluids within your body promotes the removal of toxins and waste from your muscles. Top off your supply of fluids by drinking before exercise, continue to hydrate every 15 or 20 minutes during a workout, and replace any body weight lost during exercise by drinking while you recover. Remember, 1 L of water is equivalent to 1 kg of body weight. Therefore, if the difference between your pre- and post-exercise weight is 1.5 kg (3.3 lbs) you would want to rehydrate with 1.5 L of water to bring your body fluid back to homeostasis. Before, during, and after exercise, the rule of thumb is that if you?re thirsty, it?s too late! Therefore, be sure to have a water bottle throughout the day to sip on. On a daily basis (at rest), the number of ounces of water you should be consuming should equal half of your body weight (in lbs). Thus, if you weigh 200 lbs, then you want to be drinking 100 ounces of water (almost 3 L).

Salt

Your body loses water and minerals – mostly sodium chloride, some potassium – when you sweat. Drinking water alone during exercise and recovery will make it difficult to replace body fluids rapidly because much of it will pass through the kidneys to become urine. Replace the salt along with the water to counteract dehydration. If you have to compete again within a few hours, consider sports drinks that contain water, sodium chloride, or fruits such as bananas which are high in potassium. Add extra salt to foods at mealtime if you are susceptible to cramps. Consider using condiments, sports drinks, and fitness waters instead of salt tablets.

Damage Control

Inflammation, swelling, and muscle soreness are possibilities following strenuous exercise. To minimize the effects, consider cold packs around joint areas, alternating cold and hot whirlpool baths, and the use of specially designed magnets to speed the recovery process. Light massage is also a good option for promoting toxin removal from the tissues and reducing delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). A study by Hilbert et al. showed that a 20 minute massage 2 hours following exercise helped to reduce the intensity of soreness 48 hours post-exercise in subjects who underwent 6 sets of maximal eccentric hamstring contractions. Minimize foot contact with the ground. Engage in light activities that increase blood flow while not taxing the nervous system. Swimming, cycling, walking, and light jogs are alternatives, but minimize foot contact with the ground.

Sleep

There is plenty of evidence to show that lack of sleep can have an adverse affect on training and competition. You might get by for a day or two with inadequate sleep, but it will catch up with up sooner or later. If you haven’t monitored your sleep habits already, determine how much sleep you need each night to ensure full recovery. It’s not eight hours for everyone – could be less, could be more. Then try to establish a routine that will allow you get what you need to perform well. Sleep is divided into 1.5-hour time cycles. If you can time sleep cycles in increments of an hour and a half (1.5 hours, 3.0 hours, 4.5 hours, 6.0 hours, 7.5 hours, 9.0 hours), you have a better chance of waking up refreshed. The idea is to awake at the top of the cycle instead of at the bottom. And don’t dismiss the power of a 20-30 minute nap during the day. The journal Sleep highlighted a meta-analysis done on studies looking at the effects of sleep deprivation on performance. The researchers found that overall sleep deprivation strongly impairs human functioning. Moreover, they found that mood is more affected by sleep deprivation than either cognitive or motor performance and that partial sleep deprivation has a more profound effect on functioning than either long-term or short-term sleep deprivation.

Also be aware that overtraining can impair your body?s ability to fully rest and regenerate. A study in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise revealed that female swimmers who trained excessively showed a higher incidence of sleep disruptions. In sum, there are several measure that you can take to better your recovery between exercise sessions. Remember that a combination of the several of the aforementioned tools should be implemented for best results.

References:

Safran, M. et al (1989). Warm up and muscular injury prevention: an update. Sports Medicine, 239-249.

Hibert, J. et al (2003). The effects of massage on delayed onset muscle soreness. British Journal of Sports Medicine, 37: 72-75.

Pilcher, J & Huffcutt, A. (1996). Effects of sleep deprivation on performance: a meta-analysis. Sleep, 19(4): 318-326.

S. Taylor et al. (1997). Effects of training volume on sleep, psychological, and selected physiological profiles of elite female swimmers. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 29(5):688-693.

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http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_7079.shtml

Lifestyle Changes to Improve Your Health

By: Mary Watson

The choices you make are important to healthy living. If you are one of the many people who has begun to think about what lies ahead for you, it?s time to begin to look toward doing something about it. The choices you make now and in the future will determine how well you will stand up to the perils of life as you approach your senior years. By taking the time to learn some ways you can improve your life now can help you live longer and healthier.

Eating a Healthier Diet

Most of us are guilty of not eating foods that are good for our health. We develop poor eating habits at an early age, and we tend to put off making changes that will improve our well being. We may make small changes when the need for losing weight is important or during a time when certain foods may take a tool on the way we feel, but it takes something major for us to really make a change in the way we eat. The problem is that quite often by the time we make the decision to make changes, it?s too late for them to make a difference. We must begin early in life to develop healthy eating habits, and we must continue those habits through out our lives.

Develop an Exercise Routine

Exercise is an important part of remaining healthy. If you don?t have an exercise routine already, you should develop one based on your own abilities. Even if you are only able to walk around the block a few times a day, you will be doing something that is good for your body. No matter what the condition of your health may be it?s important to exercise on a regular basis. Aerobic exercises such as walking, swimming, skiing, and bicycling are best, and you want to perform your routine long enough to increase your heart rate.

Reduce Stress

Stress is always an important issue, but as we get older, it begins to take a greater toll on our health. It?s important to learn to reduce stress levels before they cause severe health problems, and the best time to do that is when you are still young enough to fight the impulse to allow stress to consume you. Even every day conditions such as asthma, allergies, and even colds and hay fever can be caused by stress. Stress can cause the immune system to break down, and when that happens, it is ripe for many different conditions and illnesses.

Maintain a Proper Weight

In order to stay healthy, you need to keep your weight within normal range. If you are overweight, you will have less energy and thus be unable to exercise or even do household chores. Excess weight also puts a strain on your heart and makes you more likely to have a heart attack. Of course, maintaining a proper weight falls in directly with the other methods of developing a healthy lifestyle since you need to exercise and eat healthy foods in order to maintain a proper weight. Since many people have a tendency to overeat when they are under stress, keeping that in control can also help you keep your weight within normal range. Although some recent evidence suggests that being up to 10% overweight is healthier than being 10% underweight, it is healthier to be as close to a normal range as possible.

Making the choice to change your lifestyle is essential if you want to live a healthy and pain free lifestyle. There is no substitute for healthy living, and healthy living comes from making lifestyle changes that affect your complete body and mind. Only by making those important changes can you expect to live a normal, healthy life into your golden years.

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http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_7088.shtml

How Subliminal Messages help you to Lose Weight

By: Greg Frost

Ever found yourself looking at the weighing scales and wishing you could lose weight? And yet, you scoff at diet pills and weight loss programs that have not worked for you. This is your conscious mind at work. Your conscious mind tells you that it is not possible to lose those pounds, and that subliminal CDs to lose weight are a hoax. However, this is not true!

All your previous weight loss attempts have failed because your conscious mind has already decided that they will fail. Hence, subliminal CDs provide you with the key to losing weight, by bypassing the conscious mind that forms judgments and negative thoughts. The subconscious mind is uncritical, and accepts the opinions and ideas that you embed into it, helping to dispel these negative thoughts. With the help of subliminal CDs to inject positive affirmations into your subconscious mind, you will be able to lose weight now.

That is not to say that just by listening to a subliminal CD over and over you will lose weight! The magic behind subliminal CDs goes beyond that. The message that the CD sends out to your subconscious consists of a few different but simple principles which you will find yourself practicing slowly as you listen to the CD as per the instructions on the packaging. This is how it works.

1) Confidence

The subliminal CDs will give you the confidence in yourself to lose weight. By going straight to your subconscious, you are able to eliminate the root of the weight loss problem: your conscious mind. The conscious mind tells you that it is impossible and that you will never lose weight, and hence you never lose those pounds.

2) Eat Right, Exercise More

The subliminal CD will encourage you to exercise more, and eat right. You will find yourself more motivated to visit the gym, instead of merely thinking about it. In other words, the subliminal CD contains positive messages that help you transform your ideas into actions. You will feel your subconscious telling you to get busy and cut down on snacking, and to eat right. All these are knowledge that you already have, but just never put into practice!

3) Drink Water

It is important to drink a lot of water when you?re trying to lose weight. Water acts as a natural cleansing and detox routine, as it flushes out the toxics, fats and calories in your body. This is also a part of the magic of the subliminal CD, which encourages you to drink a healthy amount of water everyday.

Before you know it, you will find yourself avoiding snacks and unhealthy food as your body adjusts to take in only the amount of food that is necessary. This is not magic, it is simply the power of your subconscious mind being harnessed to overcome the negative thoughts that your conscious mind produces!

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_7146.shtml

Benchmarking : How To Make The Best Decisions For Your Practice

By: Sherri Dumford

Today more than ever before, medical practice management is not just about caring for your patients – it is also about running a successful business. If you lack efficiency, your quality of service will ultimately suffer. To thrive, you need to make informed decisions, but this can be a challenge. After all, as the saying goes, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” Without a way to measure relevant financial and operational indicators, you might find yourself relying on educated guesswork. Thankfully, there is an alternative to good guessing: benchmarking – a strategic management tool that helps evaluate effectiveness and fosters goal-setting.

Essentially, benchmarking provides a snapshot of the performance of your business and helps you understand where you are in relation to a particular standard. If your accounts receivable are averaging a sluggish 54 days and you’re wondering whether this is normal, benchmarking can show how you compare to your specialty’s average at just 45 days, signifying not only that you’re trailing behind your peers but that a reduction should be achievable. Or, if you find that your patient wait times have increased, benchmarking can help you find the optimal balance between same-day and future appointment openings. Benchmarking can even help effectively manage your successes. Suppose you know your practice is gaining new patients at an astonishing rate. Only by analyzing this growth will you be able to easily predict whether it is time to hire another full time employee, or if this is just a short-term spike in workload.

So, what exactly should you be benchmarking? In a nutshell, the statistics and trends you need to gather can be broken down into two categories; operational and revenue-related.

Operational benchmarking

Benchmarking your operations embraces everything from staffing and productivity to office flow and analysis of procedures performed. It will help you to uncover such details as:

* How many patients per month each provider is seeing,

* How many more procedures your practice is performing this quarter than last,

* Where the bottlenecks in office flow are

* What your patient retention rates are

All these factors impact the efficiency of your business. Once you know, say, the average number of statement reminders it takes before a patient pays their bill, you can work out when you should stop mailing reminders and turn the account over to collections. The savings in resources that these types of measures afford may seem slight, but added together over the course of several months it can transform your practice. Even managing relationships with referring providers, essentially a marketing exercise, can benefit from benchmarking – you will be able to give some impressive aggregate data to these providers that will help your practice stick in their minds.

One of the largest expenses in a practice comes in the form of payroll. Are you paying too much overtime or do you have too many employees to perform office operations that could be automated or even eliminated. I’ve seen many practices that are performing certain functions (i.e. logging patients manually) just because it has always been done that way. If it doesn’t serve a purpose, it should be eliminated.

Revenue benchmarking

Similarly, revenue-related trends and statistics – whether concerning reimbursement, claim rejections and denials, the collections process or payer trends – can reveal the financial health of your practice and what steps you need to take to control it. Monitoring payer contracts, specifically, the contracted reimbursement rates for each procedure, may seem like a lot of extra work, but is a vital part of maximizing your revenue. A 2004 survey by the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) found that practices that don’t keep track of their payer contracts are reimbursed on average four percent less per evaluation and management (E/M) code billed. Thinking that a payer will always stick to the rate quoted in your contract without any input from your practice can be a costly mistake to make.

More general payer trends are also important to monitor because they are likely to indicate a parallel trend in your revenue. Armed with this knowledge, you can negotiate more skillfully when your payer contracts are up for renewal. The composition of payers is also an important factor, albeit one that is more difficult to influence. Consider a practice that has a stable number of patient visits per month. If the composition of payers shifts from a majority of commercial to a majority of government and self-payers, accounts receivable days are likely to increase and total revenue is likely to decrease. If you are proactively keeping track of these changes rather than just waiting until it is reflected in your cash flow, you can implement reimbursement policies to safeguard your practice.

Set goals

For benchmarking to be effective, however, it can’t just be about measuring â?” it also should involve active goal-setting. To be able to set realistic goals, you need to evaluate:

* How efficient your practice is currently

* How much you have improved over time (compared to your own past data)

* How far you still have to go

Your own practice is the first best reference point – compare this month to last month as well as the same time last year. What has changed? In particular, focus on a workflow audit and an analysis of how much you are putting in compared to how much you are getting out. How quickly can you process payments and charges? What percentage of the amount you bill is never reimbursed? Which payers are rejecting the most claims?

Secondly, look outside your practice if you can. Be as diligent as possible about finding data that is specifically relevant to your specialty and type of practice. For example, a drop-in women’s health clinic will not provide the best comparable data to an appointment-only OB/Gyn practice, even if the provider and staff numbers are similar.

Use analysis provided by associations such as:

* The Medical Group Management Association (MGMA)

* The American Health Information Management Association (AHIMA)

* Healthcare Billing and Management Association (HBMA)

* The National Association of Healthcare Consultants.

In addition, look for information about best practices within your specialty. Subscribe to peer-reviewed trade journals and network as much as possible through local peer organizations, trade associations, software user meetings and opportunities within your specialty societies.

Be Compliant

In an increasingly regulated industry, benchmarking also has the added benefit of helping practices comply with the guidelines issued by the Office of Inspector General (OIG). These guidelines were issued to assist physician practices and third party medical billing companies to file claims more accurately, prevent fraud, and avoid conflicts with federal health care law. The seven steps that the OIG lists as integral to creating a compliance program are:

1. Conducting internal monitoring and auditing

2. Implementing compliance and practice standards

3. Designating a compliance officer or contact

4. Conducting appropriate training and education

5. Responding appropriately to detected offenses and developing corrective action

6. Developing open lines of communication

7. Enforcing disciplinary standards through well-publicized guidelines

Benchmarking takes care of steps one and two; because it provides more structure, benchmarking also lays a solid foundation for establishing procedures, highlighting required action steps, and other elements that are in line with the guidelines. By following the guidelines, your internal controls not only help you stay in compliance with applicable statutes and regulations, they also benefit your practice by increasing efficiencies and reducing errors and optimizing employee performance.

Let technology do the hard work

Of course, it is one thing to know what you should be doing and quite another to implement it. I still talk to physicians who insist that they just haven’t enough time to benchmark with this level of detail. There is one straightforward solution to this problem: automate your practice. The right practice management software will not only make benchmarking much easier (running reports takes seconds rather than hours), but it will also streamline your workflow and maximize your revenue so that the goals that you’ve set become much more attainable. Generally, the cost of automating your practice is quickly recouped. One option would be to choose a lower-cost Internet-based solution that doesn’t require purchasing expensive servers or hiring IT support.

The most important aspect of your business that a good practice management system can help with is the claims process. Choose a software solution that has claims scrubbing ability. This way, any errors on a completed CMS 1500 form will be detected before the claim is submitted, meaning that you won’t have to deal with re-submitting returned forms several weeks later and the billing black hole that this sometimes can lead to. A practice management system should have all the different requirements of each payer stored and be dynamic so that as requirements change, so does the software. For instance, as of this writing, if you submit a claim for a patient over the age of 100 to Medicaid of California, the software needs to know that currently, the payer will only accept the claim if all dates are in six digit format (mmddyy) except in box 19, where an eight digit date is required. Being able to track how actual reimbursement compares to the contracted amount for each payer also simplifies this important aspect of benchmarking.

People power

Finally, the one thing that single-minded physicians occasionally forget when implementing a benchmarking system: the success of a practice can depend on its staff. You can’t single-handedly be effective at benchmarking without the buy-in of your employees. Sharing the benchmarks of your organization with your employees is also vital to their performance! If they are unclear about what is expected of them, how will they know whether they are doing a good job? Drawing up job descriptions for your seasoned employees may seem unnecessary, but clarifying responsibilities can help tremendously. Explain what you are trying to achieve with benchmarking and how they can help. Share your goals!

Knowledge, no matter what your profession, is power, and keeping your finger on the pulse of your practice is an obvious first step in keeping it healthy both financially and operationally. Being a physician in the twenty-first century may involve some juggling of roles, but benchmarking and setting sensible business goals will ultimately reduce the challenges that it presents.

Article Source:

http://www.articlecity.com/articles/health/article_7157.shtml