Monday, November 29, 2010

Back Exercise, Making Your Back Work For You

No matter, what our jobs, all of use our back every day when we're sitting, standing, lifting, even lying down. A back injury can result in pain, disability, and even loss of income if it prevents us from doing our jobs. Together with proper lifting techniques, back exercises are one of the most important things each of us can do to strengthen our backs and help protect them from accidental injury and sports injuries. The right back exercises, when done on a daily basis, can help you to keep your back fitness at the best possible level.

Remember, though, if you are experiencing back pain of any sort, check with a healthcare professional before doing these or any exercises. And do the exercise according to the medical advice rendered by that professional. Sciatica is the disease which affects nerves of the back. To control the back pain due to the nerve disease you must undergo strength training in physiotherapy.

If you understand the concepts of how backs get injured by bad back exercise habits you can easily tell if you are moving in healthy ways, if an exercise will help or harm, or if you're doing a good exercise in bad way. You're not helping yourself if all you do is a "list" of exercises. Worse, many people are given a list of things to never do again. This list is often favorite activities that made their lives worthwhile and fun.

Most people spend their lives doing activities with poor posture that rounds their lower back. They sit, stand, walk, and exercise round-shouldered and round-backed. This shortens chest and shoulder muscles in front, and over stretches and weakens your back. Like squeezing a water balloon in front, when you round forward, it squeezes the front of your discs between your back bones (vertebrae) above and below the disc.

Monday, November 8, 2010

5 Great Tips On Exercise

Have exercise misconceptions prevented you from starting an exercise program? Clear up any confusion and let these exercise tips improve your workout routine. Hopefully none of these common exercise myths, mistakes and misconceptions have prevented you from working out.

1. Common Mistake: Failure to set goals. Do you exercise without a clear goal in mind? Having a clear goal set is a critical step in exercise and weight loss success. Tracking your progress in a journal will help ensure you see your improvements, will help motivate you and help you meet your ultimate goal.

2. Common Misconception: No Pain, No Gain. Pain is your body’s way of letting you know something is wrong. Do not ignore this. When you go beyond exercise and testing yourself, you will encounter physical discomfort and need to overcome it. An example of this would be training for a marathon. It is important that you have the “base training” before getting into the advance training. The base training develops the body and gets it ready for extensive training. You need to learn to “read” your body. Is the heavy breathing because you are pushing your body or could it be the beginning of a heart attack. Exercise is important. Do it correctly and you can do it for the rest of your life.

It is normal for you to hurt after you exercise, but it must be done gradually with a good amount of rest periods to allow proper healing. There are two common problems here with beginning exercisers. You can cause long lasting damage to muscles, tendons and ligaments if you work out while you are in pain, without allowing enough rest time to heal. You might find yourself in constant and long lasting pain if you do this which means that you will no longer be able to exercise.

If you wake up the next morning after you exercised and can barely drag your aching body out of bed because everything hurts, you are going to be less motivated to exercise at all. Constant pain is a sure way to kill your exercise program.

3. Common Mistake: Sacrificing Quality for Quantity. When you are ready to increase the number of reps of a particular exercise, and strengthen the corresponding muscles, instead of forcing yourself to do a little more each time try decreasing the number of reps in a set but increase the number of sets. Also, back off to half your usual number of reps but add a couple of more sets. You will feel less tired and will be able to gain strength in your fast-twitch muscles.

4. Common Myth: Weight Training Makes Women Bulky. Weight training for a woman will strengthen and tone muscle, burn fat and increase metabolism, not build mass. Women do not produce enough of testosterone to build muscle mass the way that men do.

5. Common Mistake: Over-Emphasizing Strengths. You should start focusing on your points rather then what you are good at. This will help you balance things. For example, if your lower body is stronger than you upper body, then try to work only on this area one day a week.

Being smart about how you exercise will take you a long way. It is important to have a healthy body so get out there and start exercising today.