Overtraining Syndrome

Sidelined by injuries.

Sore muscles after every workout.

Feeling tired more often than not.

Catching every virus that goes around.

Not seeing any progress from your workouts.

If any of these statements rings true for you, overtraining syndrome might be the cause. We often get the idea that if some exercise is good, then more is better.

When we push our bodies beyond what they can handle and don’t give them what they need to rest and recover properly from our workouts, they may fight back and let us know it’s time to take a break.

So listen up and see if your body may be telling you that it’s time for a break.

Overtraining syndrome occurs when we push our bodies beyond their ability to recover from exercise. You may not realize it, but after each workout your body needs rest, proper nutrition, and a certain amount of recovery time before the next workout. Not fulfilling each of these after every workout will not cause overtraining syndrome. However, when we frequently neglect one or more of these factors we may experience the signs of overtraining syndrome.

The signs that you may be overtraining can include tiredness, susceptibility to viruses, difficulty sleeping, a plateau in weight loss, no progress in workouts or even a decrease in strength, frequent muscle soreness, irritability and a lack of motivation. Everyone’s experience with overtraining is unique, so keep in mind that you may not have all of these symptoms, or you may have ones not listed.

Overtraining syndrome often happens to athletes who are training for an event. We all know that to improve in a sport and perform well we need to push our bodies and work hard. However, when we push beyond the body’s ability to recover, the signs of overtraining may occur and progress may come to a halt.

Overtraining can also happen to those who are trying to lose weight or get in shape. We know that exercise is good for losing fat and building muscle. If results are slower than we like we sometimes think that more exercise will mean faster results. This may not be the case, if nutrition, rest and recovery time are not factored in.

Fortunately, overtraining syndrome can easily be prevented. Taking one day off a week from exercise allows the body a greater chance for recovery. Getting 7-8 hours of sleep a night is critical for the body to be ready for the next workout. With our busy lifestyles, getting enough sleep can seem impossible.

However, if you want your workouts to be successful and to avoid overtraining, sleep must be made a priority. Finally, adequate nutrition is a crucial factor that we often forget. Food is the fuel that runs our engines.

Without enough food our engines fail to function at their best and may run out of steam. Your muscles begin the recovery process right after your workout, so consuming a high carbohydrate snack shortly after your workout will aid your body in the early recovery process.

If you believe you are experiencing the symptoms of overtraining syndrome start by taking some time away from exercise. This can be difficult mentally, but the body needs it.

Take a week off, more if your symptoms are severe. During this time reevaluate your exercise and nutrition regimen. Determine if you are exercising too much, not eating enough, not giving the body adequate recovery time, or pushing too hard during your workouts. Make the necessary changes to prevent overtraining syndrome from occurring again.

Overtraining syndrome is common occurrence for athletes and those who workout regularly, but is easy to avoid with rest, recovery time and nutrition.

Do not underestimate the importance of listening to what your body is telling you, and make adjustments accordingly so you can continue to see the progress you want.

How to Prevent Aging Muscle as You Get Older

How to Prevent Aging Muscle as You Get Older.

Many people under emphasize the important role that strong, toned muscles playing in enhancing appearance and promoting mobility.

Unfortunately, the aging process takes its toll on muscle mass just as it does with the rest of the body.

Muscle mass and strength generally peak by the mid 30’s and gradually decline from there.

Serious loss of muscle mass doesn’t have to happen with age. By taking simple steps to pamper aging muscle, you can maintain the look of health and vitality well into an advanced age.

Here are some suggestions for helping to maintain muscle mass as you grow older :-

Watch your protein intake.

Even though most Americans consume more protein than is necessary, this isn’t the case with older adults. Many older adults are deficient not only in protein intake but are calorie deprived as well.

Protein is an essential ingredient for maintaining lean body mass. As you age, make sure you’re getting a gram of protein for each kilogram of body weight to help maintain the integrity of aging muscle.

Start a weight training program.

If you don’t do some form of resistance exercise, you lose muscle mass at a rate of about three percent every ten years after the age of fifty. The good news is a weight training program can help to maintain lean body mass and muscle strength.

Any form of resistance exercise should have a positive effect on muscle tissue. If you can’t get to a gym, get some resistance bands to use at home on a daily basis. Don’t forget to add cardiovascular exercise to keep your heart, your most important muscle healthy.

Get your Vitamin D

There’s increasing evidence that vitamin D plays a role in preserving aging muscle. Most people fail to get enough of this important vitamin which may play a role in both bone and muscle preservation. To help prevent vitamin D deficiencies and muscle loss, try to get ten minutes of direct sun exposure each day. If this is impossible, consider taking a vitamin D supplement.

Although 400 milligrams of vitamin D has historically been the recommended dose, new studies are showing it may be wise to take more. Studies suggest that up to 1200 milligrams of vitamin D per day are safe.

Watch your potassium intake

A study published in the March 2008 Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that older people who consume higher levels of potassium are able to better preserve muscle mass than those who don’t.

The recommended daily intake of potassium is 3,500 milligrams per day which can be obtained from eating sufficient quantities of fruits and vegetables. To counteract aging muscle, try adding more fresh fruits and lightly steamed vegetables to your diet.

As you age, you can prevent aging muscle by making a few simple lifestyle changes.

These changes can also help you to achieve an overall higher level of health in your later years.

5 Top Reasons Baby Boomers Should Be Pumping Iron

5 Top Reasons Baby Boomers Should Be Pumping Iron.

If you're a baby boomer, chances are you're already working to take care of your health.

You're probably scarfing down those fresh salads and making an effort to walk everywhere you go.

These are great things to do, but if you are not lifting weights, you are missing one of the most important parts of your overall fitness program.

Whether you're a boomer male or female, weight training is an essential part of maintaining youthful vigor.

Here are five things you can expect to accomplish by lifting weights.

1. Go from flab to fab. Face it. Time and gravity cause our bodies to, well, sag in a few places. Areas that used to be taut and firm become soft and flabby. Weight training is one of the best forms of exercise for dealing with soft flesh.

The way it works is that lifting weights properly will increase your muscle mass in whatever part of your body you are working out. Muscle burns more calories even when at rest than fat does, so you burn fat while those muscles gain strength and definition.

2. Increase the density of your bones. This is of particular interest to women, who have a greater risk of osteoporosis in mid-life than men do. Studies have found that even elderly people could improve their bone density by following a simple but methodical program of weight lifting.

It doesn't take but about 15 minutes twice a week to see results. The trick is to use heavy enough weights to start, and then increase the weight as your strength increases.

3. Improve the quality of your sleep. Many boomers have problems with insomnia. Worries, depression, and hot flashes are just a few of the ailments that can keep you up at night.

Any appropriate exercise (i.e. exercise that does not injure your body) will improve your ability to get to sleep, stay asleep, and wake refreshed. Lifting weights is one such exercise.

4. Be safer on your feet, whatever you're doing. The older you get, the more you worry about taking a fall. Little kids fall and bounce right back up, but boomers go boom and stay there a while. Ouch. If you train with weights, though, your muscles, bones, and ligaments all get stronger. This means that your joints are more stable and don't give out on you. You will also have better balance and coordination, so that you can catch yourself.

5. Enjoy the health benefits of a new hobby. Weight training involves several things that produce the same benefits as taking on a hobby. For one thing, you will learn new terms, procedures, and concepts, so it's good for your mind.

The act of lifting causes you to focus on the action, which makes it a great temporary escape from the worries that normally cloud your mind. And if you go to a gym to work out, you're even likely to meet new like-minded people. All of these benefits have been found to be conducive to better health and vitality.

If you're a baby boomer who is serious about attaining and keeping youthful good health, you owe it to yourself to add weight training to your exercise regimen.

Remember to start small with any new habit.

Make sure you are using good form, and that the weight is the right amount to cause you to tire after 8 to 12 repetitions of a movement.

Usually the local Y will have a trainer on staff who can help you learn the ropes.

How to Run Safely at Night

How to Run Safely at Night.

There’s a certain joy and peace associated with running at night. To look up into the nighttime sky and see the stars twinkling back at you makes an evening run all the more enjoyable.

But when you run at night you also need to take extra precautions to protect yourself against injury so you can stay injure free and health to enjoy future outings.

Here’s how to run safely at night:

Wear reflective clothing.

If there’s one precaution that can save your life when running at night, wearing protective clothing would be it. If you’re not wearing reflective gear, cars will have a difficult time seeing you and may be unable to stop quickly enough when they do.

If you’re concerned about overheating when you wear reflective clothing, look for running clothing with breathable microfibers. Putting on reflective clothing is a small precaution that may save your life.

Let someone know where you’ll be running.

Because running at night is inherently more risky, let someone you know and trust know your route and approximately how long you’ll be gone. If you don’t return within a reasonable time, they can take the car and look for you.

Run facing traffic.

The advantage to running at night is that it’s easier to see an oncoming car with its headlights on. By running in the direction of traffic, you’ll have better visibility and can move off the road quickly when a car approaches.

Run indoors during inclement weather

Running at night when you can’t see the pavement is tricky enough without adding additional factors such as a wet or slick surface. If the streets and sidewalks are wet, do your workout on an indoor treadmill instead.

Take a flashlight.

When you run at night, it’s difficult to see the ground. Imagine how easy it would be to trip over a branch in the road or even slide on some rocks or gravel. A small hand-held flashlight is useful for illuminating the ground as well as alerting oncoming cars of your presence.

Double tie your shoes.

It can be difficult to tell when your shoelaces are untied when you run at night. Take some extra time to double tie your shoe lashes or wear running shoes that don’t lace up to avoid tripping during your run.

Choose your route.

Choose your evening running route carefully so that you jog on well lit streets and roads. It’s far safer to jog on streets where you can look down and see your feet and easily see what’s in front of you. It’s also helpful if you pick a clear night with a full moon to illuminate your path.

Consider running with someone.

For an additional element of safety, consider running with a jogging partner after dusk. Not only will running with a partner make your run more enjoyable, it may also deter interlopers who may not have good intentions.

Enjoy your evening runs but don’t take unnecessary chances when running at night.

A few simple precautions could potentially save your life.

Fitness Exercise Rewards

Fitness Exercise Rewards.

Fitness is not about certain physical skills but the ability to withstand the emergency demands of everyday living.

Usually a fitness enthusiast could easily expect to survive a sprint for the bus or a bout of early morning driveway shoveling.

We sleep better, think better, digest better and feel better when we are in a good fitness shape. We have more confidence too when we are in great fitness shape.

People who are in great fitness shape always looks better because they are in good healthy state.

Not only do fit people have fun and gain satisfaction from their skills—they look good. Vanity and pride sometimes are not regarded as nice. But they play a tremendously important and beneficial role in our society.

They stimulate us to study more, work harder, give more freely, and look better. There are many ways to put a best foot forward. A clean, crisp, neat, trim appearance is one. Men want to appear more manly and women more feminine.

This is part of human nature. Looking better is fun. Narcissism can be over done and often is. But we are not concerned with Muscle Beach. A little bit of honest pride in one's clothes, haircut, fingernails, and figure is socially acceptable.

We tend to spend time and money on our appearance, yet pretend that we do not care.

Nonsense! This is not an admission of a crime. Why not look better ? And what easier or more economical way than through fitness exercises ?

Sports activities do have an effect on ego.

G. Hambridge in his book Time to Live: Adventures in the Use of Leisure succinctly summarized this as follows :

The experience of the spectator is mild compared with that of the player, which is the reason games should be played, not watched from a grandstand.

At the risk of uttering a blasphemy, I wish to remark that catching a fast ping-pong ball and returning it with precision gives a pleasure not so far removed from that a painter feels when he makes a good stroke with his brush on canvas.

That is one of the reasons why athletic games are so valuable for those of middle age and beyond.

The game not only keeps the body supple and in good shape which, after all, calisthenics would do; it subtly flatters the ego with a sense of mastering new and difficult things.

All of us need that kind of flattery on occasion. We get it in games no matter how modest the skill required.

Video - Mental Rewards of Fitness Exercises For Seniors

Fitness Exercises Should Be Fun To Do

Fitness Exercises Should Be Fun To Do.

If fitness exercises are fun to do, there will be a lot of fit and healthy person on this world but it's not fun at all to some.

To those who are doing exercises because its fun, they actually don't need to do exercises as they are already fit and healthy because they think exercises is fun.

Exhausting as it sounds, a rugged fitness exercise workout can be exhilarating to some.

Fitness should not be a deadly serious matter, it should be a fun thing to do.

There is one sound reason a man exercises — for fun. It will be more fun when you do it with a group like in a marathon or something like that.

There are dividends from fitness, to be sure.

These benefits are "extras," however. These are not reasons why people keep fit.

These are bonuses for people who exercise for fun and fitness.

Tension is the businessman's heaviest burden. Deadlines, promotion, competition, improvement, insecurity, and worry are part of our society.

No wonder the executive has difficulty relaxing. Tight nerves and tense muscles are the usual rather than the exception. Fitness is one way out. No one can relax by being ordered to do so. Keyed-up nerves and muscles do not respond to talk.

Nerves and muscles can be re-educated. Relaxing habits can be substituted for bad habits.

How To Relax

The way to relax is to non relax. Translated, this means: exercise vigorously. Having non relaxed energetically for thirty minutes, no one needs to be told to relax. He has no choice —he is exhausted—he has to relax.

Ask anyone what is the best part of his workout. It is taking a shower afterward— naturally!

A workout inescapably prepares one for relaxation. During a workout it is impossible to be concerned about anything other than the task at hand. One's every thought and effort is concentrated on the workout.

Try preparing a report to the boss while watching your tennis adversary's cannonball serve go streaking past. Try adding up all your debts while giving the bowling ball a little body English toward a remote tenpin.

Try thinking about anything while exercising except exercising. It cannot be done! Your mind is off your problems and that is good.

After the workout, with physically tired muscles, with the glow of physical satisfaction, and with the refreshing relief of a warm shower, relaxation is inevitable. And in a few weeks nerves and muscles once again have learned the rewarding art of relaxation.

The word "athlete" will be used now and then and should not scare you.

By definition, an athlete is one "trained in acts of physical exercise."

The dictionary does not specify sex, age limit, type of physical activity, or competitive ability as requisites for the definition of "athlete."

Many of my athletic patients are of both sexes, of all ages, and never compete. But they certainly are athletes. Most of my athletic patients would, to be sure, deny they are athletes—but they are.

Somehow they feel they do not deserve this approbation but they do.

Dangers Of Obesity

Obesity, the commonest background of premature death, is rare among those who exercise regularly.

Obese people have a greater chance to develop heart disease, cancer, kidney illnesses, hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, and other degenerative disorders.

While fitness apparently does not lengthen life, obesity certainly shortens it.

There are no vaccinations or antibiotics which protect you from these illnesses.

But fitness exercises which abolishes obesity provides statistical immunization and if you do it for fun, your body will appreciate it more.

Video - Fun Things To Do With An Exercise Ball ( Funny !! )

Warming Up Tips Before You Start Your Fitness Exercises

Warming Up Tips Before You Start Your Fitness Exercises.

It is best not to start any exercises without some sort of warming up.

Warming up will improves your overall performance and greatly reduce any risk of injury during exercising.

Remember to warm up before you start any kind of fitness exercise activity. Start slowly...let your muscles stretch first.

Warming up usually requires just a few minutes to get all that muscles stretched out.

Warm up until you begin to perspire. Keep going—slowly. Do not stop during your workout. Endurance cannot increase with sporadic bursts of unbridled energy.

If you start slowly, there will be no need to stop in the middle of a workout. If you must halt due to fatigue, you have tackled too much in too short a time.

We can be impetuous. We want to achieve the difficult today and the impossible tomorrow. Take it easy, be leisurely, and be of relaxed mien. To be blunt, do not kill yourself!

During exercise, do not let extra exertion creep up unnoticed. This is a particular hazard in "friendly" games. The first time Fancy Dan is your adversary in a game of tennis he may have you lunging for impossible returns. If you cannot retrieve his shots with an average attempt, forget it.

Once you are in shape, you may or may not pin his ears back. With outdoor sports, force yourself to slow down in cold weather.

Low temperatures mean extra clothing, and the weight and wind resistance of added apparel necessarily increase work load and decrease efficiency. A head wind or uphill topography also requires inappropriate "oomph." Rowing against the current is the same. Reserve that impetuous, carefree blast for downstream, downhill, tail-wind, cautious pick-ups.

Save three minutes for the weak areas.

When you are well into a workout and as you finish, a feeling of well-being pervades.

This stems partly from a sense of accomplishment and partly from a wholesome release of unresolved tensions and pent-up nerves.

Worry, anger, boredom, anxiety, and frustration come back into proper perspective.

Things are not quite so bad as they seem.

Into this glow of minor achievement intrudes the only hint of athletic tedium. Although not time-consuming, you must round out your session with calisthenics.

Very few sports exercise the whole body. Swimming and weight lifting, while vastly different, are two exceptions.

Suppose, however, you walk, bicycle, or run. The legs do most of the work. The arms reap the least benefit. Three minutes o£ push-ups and pull-ups after a satisfactory workout is a modest imposition on the time and effort of the hiker, cyclist, or runner, yet ensures a more equal distribution of muscular rehabilitation.

Contrariwise, a three-minute rapid jog (half a mile) for the oarsman balances his fitness program. You are the judge of what muscles you have called into play for your own activity. Devote the last three minutes to calisthenics which utilize the rest of your physique.

Calisthenics, while boring and almost totally devoid of fun, are essential for total fitness.

Judiciously selected they fill a hiatus inherent in most sports. They also promote flexibility and mobility, your best insurance against creaking joints, bunched-up muscles, and poor posture.

It is how you play the sport, not the sport itself, that counts.

Overexertion may mean injury and defeat. Regardless of how refreshed and vigorous you may feel, temper your zeal.

Never do so much on one day that you interfere with the next day's program. A two- or three-day layoff because of stiffness, fatigue, and the need for recuperation may well negate the good of the initial workout.

Time and experience will very quickly outline your own limitations.

If you exercise properly, you should always be able to repeat yesterday's workout today without feeling stiff or tired.

Warming up before your fitness exercises will reduce the risk of you getting injured during the workout, so warm up slowly...

Video - Top 6 Warming Up Stretching Exercises