Total Human Performance

Month: June 2011

  • Cycling For Weight Loss

    Cycling For Weight Loss

    Losing weight cycling is a fun and enjoyable way to improve your health and to make you feel better. Pedaling down a rural road or through a city park rouses your spirit and awakens your senses.

    One of the most powerful arguments for encouraging more people to cycle is that it leads to considerable improvements in public health.   A regular routine to lose weight cycling can reduce the risk of serious conditions such as heart disease, high blood pressure and obesity.

    Cycling is also a good way to improve your balance and co-ordination.   They say once you learn to ride a bike you never forget and that is true. The motion and balance come back to you very quickly. If you’re looking to get outside more often and improve your fitness, biking is the answer.  It enhances your general well-being and promotes mental health. Beyond the health benefits, it’s an enjoyable way to get around.

    Getting on your cycling bike regularly can also be an effective form of aerobic exercise.  A recent study found that even a small amount of cycling for weight loss can lead to a significant fitness gain. Aerobic fitness was boosted by 11 percent after just 6 weeks of cycling short distances four times a week. 

    Cycling can have positive effects on how we feel too.  Moderate exercise has been found to reduce levels of stress and depression, improve mood and raise self esteem. It has also been found, in some instances, to relieve symptoms of PMS.  Benefits in strength and agility can come from regular cycling also. There are no real-age barriers to cycling and people at almost any fitness level can begin slowly and gently if necessary.

    Physically active older people can reduce the rate of hip fractures with regular cycling exercise. Most of the negative things we associate with aging aren’t a result of chronological aging but rather a lack of physical activity.  Cycling is as gently on your body as a sport can be. It is a non weight bearing exercise so it’s easy on your joints, even the achy ones. It can be a wonderful way to get exercise and lose weight without pain.

    If your looking to lose weight cycling, jump on your bike and leave your worries and stress at home. Enjoy your ride. Just think you could be at work instead.

    If you are interested in starting a weight loss plan, or interested in cycling basics, please contact Total Human Performance for a free consultation by using our contact form located at http://www.totalhumanperformance.net/about-us/contact-us/ today!

  • Choosing a Fitness Trainer and Nutrition Consultant

    Choosing a Fitness Trainer and Nutrition Consultant

    A personal fitness trainer and nutrition consultant can help you enter a race where there’s no engraved cup or money award at the finish line. Unlike the Thoroughbreds racing at the local park, you will be running for your very life instead. Fitness and nutrition are the keys to a quality long life.

    Racing for Fitness

    Almost 60% of people in the United States are overweight or obese. The consequences of having too much fat on your body can be severe. Obesity is a major cause of many serious illnesses including Type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease, high blood pressure and even certain forms of cancer.

    It’s hard to maintain a fitness routine on your own. On top of that you are bombarded with advertisements selling unhealthy food and gadgets and inventions that actually result in less physical activity. The perfect examples are kids playing electronic games for hours instead of baseball or soccer. There are bigger and better computers and TVs promoting lifestyles with little exercise time included.

    Sedentary lifestyles are not good for the body, and neither is junk food. But everyone lives extremely busy lives and fitness and nutrition often take a low priority. A personal fitness trainer and nutrition consultant can help you rearrange your priorities so you place your health top of the list.

    When you are young, it’s easy to believe good health is forever.  But as you age, the truth is slowly revealed. Metabolisms slow naturally. Fat accumulates after years of eating meals with little nutritional value.

    Free radicals form unimpeded because the diet has consistently lack antioxidants found in fruits and vegetables. Other diseases eventually take root. For example, lack of exercise increases the chances of developing osteoporosis.

    Finding Your Stride

    A personal fitness trainer and nutrition consultant can assist you in a number of ways beginning with an assessment of your current fitness level. A personal trainer will work with to establish mutual goals including measures of progress such as weight loss or inches loss.

    Personal fitness and nutrition consultation includes the following:

    • Evaluating current dietary habits and making necessary changes
    • Calculating the body mass index (BMI)
    • Establishing an exercise routine that fits your lifestyle
    • Develop a strength training program
    • Tracking progress and making necessary adjustments as you progress

    Using a personal fitness trainer and nutrition consultant can help you stay motivated as you begin the race for your life. The quality of your life in your senior years is directly related to the level of fitness you maintain in your younger years. It becomes clearer with each medical study that problems associated with aging are as much a consequence of poor nutrition as they are of the aging process itself.

    Utilizing the services of a personal fitness trainer and nutrition consultant only makes sense if you’re ready to get serious about your health. Racing for the grand prize of good health means finding your “fitness stride”.

    You don’t have to work out 8 hours a day to stay fit and healthy. You do have to exercise regularly and watch what you eat. A personal fitness trainer and nutrition consultant can be the key to your success.

    To start your adventure on the right path to fitness, please contact Total Human Performance for a free fitness consultation by using our contact form located at http://www.totalhumanperformance.net/about-us/contact-us/ today!

  • Fitness for the Average Golfer

    Fitness for the Average Golfer

    Although some professional golfers don’t look like athletes, the fact remains that golfers are athletes.  These days, a more careful look at the professional golf ranks will reveal many well-conditioned people.  Such conditioning is needed to perform consistently well at a high level.  After all, it isn’t often noted, but the golf swing is an intensely athletic motion.

    Given that fact, even the most casual golfer who incorporates the simplest of exercises can help himself or herself shave strokes off the handicap, and maybe a few inches off the waist.

    A golf analysis company based in Germany, Golf Biodynamics, conducted a study using twenty-eight weekend golfers. They were introduced to an eight-week, “five-column” workout plan.  The five columns were different sets of exercises that concentrated on five different fitness-related aspects of golf – coordination, balance, strength, the swing itself, and flexibility.

    The results of the study were overwhelming.  The group as a whole experienced an increase in upper-body rotation and an 80 percent gain in upper-body strength.  The stability of their hip rotation also increased, resulting in a more controlled swing, and their collective clubhead speed increased by 9.4 percent.  Think they’re having fun knocking their drives past their playing partners now?

    As with any workout regimen, the older a person gets, the harder it is to see results.  Younger golfers and women, all with lower handicaps, saw more immediate results on the golf course.  But seniors and bogey golfers can take heart; the sport is a game of inches.  The slightest change any golfer makes can have a significant impact in his or her game, and will help avoid back pain, knee pain, and other health problems many middle-aged to senior golfers experience.

    No matter the age or skill level, a complex golf fitness program can keep golfers swinging away and enjoying the game for many years.  If you are interested in starting a fitness progam today, contact Total Human Performance today at  http://www.totalhumanperformance.net/about-us/contact-us/