Health and Fitness Information

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Any type of physical activity you choose to do–strenuous activities such as running or aerobic dancing or moderate-intensity activities such as walking or household work–will increase the number of calories your body uses (remember, calories in – calories out.) And the good news is it’s easier than one thinks to perform numerous aerobic activities throughout the day.

So we all know we’re supposed to exercise. So what? Without getting to technical, here are a couple reasons we all need to get out and exercise…NOW.

Exercise improves the strength and pumping efficiency of the heart, enabling more blood to be pumped with each stroke. This improves the ability to more rapidly transport life sustaining oxygen from the lungs to the heart and to all parts of the body.
Exercise tones up muscles throughout the body, thereby improving the general circulation, at times lowering the blood pressure and reducing the work on the heart.
Exercise causes an increase in the total amount of blood circulating through the body and increases the number of red blood cells and the amount of hemoglobin (matter which conveys oxygen to tissues), making the blood a more efficient oxygen carrier.

This increase in circulation has a twofold benefit to the body. First, an abundant supply of oxygen is taken not only to the muscles, but also to every part of the system.
And second, the blood is circulated through the eliminating organs at a much greater amount, thus resulting in an increase in the elimination of the body’s wastes. Both of these are essential for good health and healing.

There’s been a lot of talk about good and bad cholesterol lately. Well, aerobic exercise can raise your body’s high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels (good cholesterol) and lower your body’s low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels (bad cholesterol), improving blood flow, and increasing your heart’s working capacity.

To make a long story short, a physically fit person has greater ability to tolerate the physical challenges of daily life, whereas an unfit person would terminate activity because of fatigue. Trying to lose or maintain weight? Physical activity helps to control your weight by using excess calories that otherwise would be stored as fat. The number of calories you eat and use each day regulates your body weight. Everything you eat contains calories, and everything you do uses calories, including sleeping, breathing, and digesting food. Any physical activities in addition to what you normally do will use extra calories.

So now we have a little of the technical information on why exercise is good for the body (and soul we should add.) But where do we start and what types of exercise should we be focusing on?

First, your heart rate

While exercising, you want to work hard enough (intensity) for your heart rate to reach between 140 and 170, which is approximately double your resting rate. A person who is in poor physical condition will reach the Target Heart Rate with very little effort expended because the resting rate is high (80’s or 90’s) and the body does not have enough oxygen, so the person gets tired very quickly. On the other hand, the person in good physical condition will have to work harder to reach the target heart rate because the resting heart rate is low (50’s). Remember, the heart becomes a more efficient pump – delivering the oxygen needed with fewer beats. Therefore, it takes more effort to get the heart rate up to 170.

Low impact versus High impact

Aerobic activity is often coined either High Impact or Low Impact. The basic difference is that one foot always stays on the floor and supports the weight of the body in low-impact aerobics. High-impact aerobics include actions that take both feet off the floor, thus causing more jarring of the joints when the body weight hits the floor again. An example of Low Impact is walking while High Impact is jogging or jumping up and down.

The point is not to make physical activity an unwelcome chore, but to make the most of the opportunities you have to be active.

It is important to start at a low intensity and increase this over the following few weeks as the exercise feels easier. For example, 20 minutes of walking, jogging or a combination of walking/jogging may be sufficient to leave you rather breathless and fairly tired at the start of your program, but as the weeks go by, you may need to increase the pace or introduce jogging up some shallow hills to achieve a further increase in fitness.

To continue to increase your fitness level, you will have to increase the time spent exercising aerobically to 30 minutes per session for up to five sessions per week.

Examples of mild to moderate aerobic activities:

Take a short walk around the block
Rake leaves
Play actively with the kids
Walk up the stairs instead of taking the elevator
Mow the lawn
Take an activity break–get up and stretch or walk around
Park your car a little farther away from your destination

Examples of higher intensity aerobic activities:

Brisk walking
Jogging
Bicycling
Swimming
Aerobic dancing
Racket sports
Rowing
Ice or roller-skating
Cross-country or downhill skiing
Using aerobic equipment (i.e., treadmill, stationary bike)

Exercise can have a surprising number of benefits: it can improve your cardiovascular fitness and muscular endurance, which translates into an increase in energy; it can dramatically reduce the risk of coronary artery disease; it may also help lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and aid in weight control; and it appears to give self-esteem a measurable boost, and in general to improve your sense of well-being.

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At seventy years old, Clarence Bass continues to set goals and physical challenge many people half or one third his age to reach. This is the challenge that Bass enjoys and has kept him training for all these decades. "Great Expectations" is his latest book, in which he shares wisdom that he is, not only through study of fitness and health, but his research into his own life and use her body as an experiment in health, fitness and life.

One of the things I particularly like about Clarence is his complete honesty and willingness to not only his triumphs, but his problems to share. I found the courage to discuss his medical condition, with such blunt honesty and openness. Learn more about how he underwent hip and read about his story of the catheter, where information that, although I hope I never have either crawl, I recognize that as we get older we all face different> Health care and know that we keep in good physical condition we can better address and solve these problems. Clarence tells how he overcame his medical problems, including by displaying the scar from his hip on the front page of the book will undoubtedly encourage others to overcome and triumph over their problems, whatever their age.

Another thing that I really like about all of Clarence's books, this included, is that he not onlysharing of resources, but the practical ways he incorporated his research into his training and lifestyle and then invites the reader to healthy eating and training of their own. Not to copy what he does, but the principles he teaches and learn to take training and eating habits that will ensure your success. I also enjoy the shops and examples he shared with others, especially Dan Sawyer's opinion in the last chapter.

It is also interesting to see how Clarence'seducation has changed over the years. This is a natural progression. As we all age and go through different periods in our physical goals, our training will change well. I really like that Clarence writes about what he does and why he has changed and why.

Here is some of what you learn in this book:

Chapter 1: Great Expectations. More information about the attitudes, expectations and a competitive advantage among other mental elements of education.

Chapter 2:Overcoming. This is the chapter where Clarence tells about his medical problems. He shares his stories and experiences, so you can learn at your fitness level will affect your results, you learn that you are responsible, and that the ultimate responsibility to help your life with you.

Chapter 3: Take It Off, Keep It Off. Learn about metabolism, exercise, fat loss and eating.

Chapter 4: Exercise for Life. Learn about exercise, including strength andaerobic exercise.

Chapter 5: About Training. This chapter discusses the concepts of overload and rest, training rate, slow lift, balance and much more.

Chapter 6: About Diet (not on a diet). An excellent overview of healthy eating. Clarence tells me how he eats and why. The section on each meal to date is very important to know.

Chapter 7: Eating for Peak. Through the years, has photos of Clarence at his peak was very motivating.The pictures of him at 70 still inspire. Many half or one third of his age want to look that good. In this chapter he explains how he prepares his peak.

Chapter 8: Training for Peak. Bass continues his advice on the peaks by sharing how he trains for the peak also.

Chapter 9: Motivation and Change. Clarence says to plan for success and motivation to start. Good chapter with advice not only from the Clarence but some great words of Dan Sawyer, and helpand you get motivated toward healthy living.

"Great Expectations" is an excellent addition to anyone's health and fitness bookshelf. It is motivating and informative. Actually, if you only had room for a couple of health and fitness books Clarence's "Lean For Life", "challenge yourself" and "high expectations" should be on the short list. These three books together provide such a wealth of information and is very motivating to see how Clarenceand his wife Carol have lived these principles, and the success they have achieved because of their healthy lifestyle.

On pages 145-146, Clarence, that some people in their 20s are not relate to his writings in the Muscle & Fitness back in the 80s, but now he is older, and they are in their 40s, they relate to his message more. Maybe they can follow in his footsteps by taking advantage of his methods and example. Personally I have always enjoyed his columns than in M & S.But now in my 40, I once again comes to leave his last three books – the ones I mentioned above. And yes, I have a number of methods, and use it as an example for healthy living for the next three decades. And then in my 70s when I read about how Clarence was to train 100 to motivate me to train even 30 years.

Image : http://www.flickr.com

At seventy years old, Clarence Bass continues to set goals and physical challenge many people half or one third his age to reach. This is the challenge that Bass enjoys and has kept him training for all these decades. "Great Expectations" is his latest book, in which he shares wisdom that he is, not only through study of fitness and health, but his research into his own life and use her body as an experiment in health, fitness and life.

One of the things I particularly like about Clarence is his complete honesty and willingness to not only his triumphs, but his problems to share. I found the courage to discuss medical conditions, with such blunt honesty and openness. Learn more about how he underwent hip and read about his story of the catheter, where information that, although I hope I never have either crawl, I recognize that as we get older we all face different> Health care and know that we keep in good physical condition we can better address and solve these problems. Clarence tells how he overcame his medical problems, including by displaying the scar from his hip on the front page of the book will undoubtedly encourage others to overcome and triumph over their problems, whatever their age.

Another thing that I really like about all of Clarence's books, this included, is that he not onlysharing of resources, but the practical ways he incorporated his research into his training and lifestyle and then invites the reader to healthy eating and training of their own. Not to copy what he does, but the principles he teaches and learn to take training and eating habits that will ensure your success. I also enjoy the shops and examples he shared with others, especially Dan Sawyer's opinion in the last chapter.

It is also interesting to see how Clarence'seducation has changed over the years. This is a natural progression. As we all age and go through different periods in our physical goals, our training will change well. I really like that Clarence writes about what he does and why he has changed and why.

Here is some of what you learn in this book:

Chapter 1: Great Expectations. More information about the attitudes, expectations and a competitive advantage among other mental elements of education.

Chapter 2:Overcoming. This is the chapter where Clarence tells about his medical problems. He shares his stories and experiences, so you can learn at your fitness level will affect your results, you learn that you are responsible, and that the ultimate responsibility to help your life with you.

Chapter 3: Take It Off, Keep It Off. Learn about metabolism, exercise, fat loss and eating.

Chapter 4: Exercise for Life. Learn about exercise, including strength andaerobic exercise.

Chapter 5: About Training. This chapter discusses the concepts of overload and rest, training rate, slow lift, balance and much more.

Chapter 6: About Diet (not on a diet). An excellent overview of healthy eating. Clarence tells me how he eats and why. The section on each meal to date is very important to know.

Chapter 7: Eating for Peak. Through the years, has photos of Clarence at his peak was very motivating.The pictures of him at 70 still inspire. Many half or one third of his age want to look that good. In this chapter he explains how he prepares his peak.

Chapter 8: Training for Peak. Bass continues his advice on the peaks by sharing how he trains for the peak also.

Chapter 9: Motivation and Change. Clarence says to plan for success and motivation to start. Good chapter with advice not only from the Clarence but some great words of Dan Sawyer, and helpand you get motivated toward healthy living.

"Great Expectations" is an excellent addition to anyone's health and fitness bookshelf. It is motivating and informative. Actually, if you only had room for a couple of health and fitness books Clarence's "Lean For Life", "challenge yourself" and "high expectations" should be on the short list. These three books together provide such a wealth of information and is very motivating to see how Clarenceand his wife Carol have lived these principles, and the success they have achieved because of their healthy lifestyle.

On pages 145-146, Clarence, that some people in their 20s are not relate to his writings in the Muscle & Fitness back in the 80s, but now he is older, and they are in their 40s, they relate to his message more. Maybe they can follow in his footsteps by taking advantage of his methods and example. Personally I have always enjoyed his columns than in M & S. Butin my 40s, I once again comes to leave his last three books – the ones I mentioned above. And yes, I have a number of methods, and use it as an example for healthy living for the next three decades. And then in my 70s when I read about how Clarence was to train 100 to motivate me to train even 30 years.