Mountain Biking: handling the hills

If cycling or mountain biking is new to you, many guides have several trips that are the perfect introduction. You will need to learn some basic shifting and climbing skills. Mountain biking can take us many places including away from the daily stress and turmoil of our hectic lives. Besides freeing our minds, it has the incredible health benefit of keeping our hearts and bodies in great physical shape as well. Mountain biking can be relaxing or strenuous, depending on the terrain and your physical capabilities or goals. And, when you consider that the terrain is influenced by weather factors, temperature, natural elements, and even natural hazards, every trip is truly a new and exhilarating experience! Read more.....

Get ready to spice up your walking program

More and more women opt for walking as a form of cardiovascular exercise to burn calories and melt away the unwanted fat. Walking for fitness is certainly much more than going out for a stroll. It incorporates the muscles of the upper and lower body making it a GREAT aerobic activity.

Regular fitness walking strengthens and tones muscles; increases stamina, metabolism and energy; burns calories and fat; relieves stress; improves cardiovascular health; lowers blood pressure and reduces the risk of heart disease and osteoporosis. Best of all, it's easy on the joints (low-impact) and light on the pocket. Read more.....

Being Active at all Sizes

Women can be active at any size by bringing about modifications in their daily lifestyle. Being overweight, obese or even extremely obese in no way should interfere in your determination towards achieving health & fitness goals. To begin with you need to do away with the fact that losing fat or achieving healthy weight is beyond your reach.

I always recommend my clients to focus more on what needs to be done, how it should be done instead of focusing on quick results. Always remember even a slightest effort put in by you towards adopting a regular workout routine or consuming healthy diet will do a 100% good to your physical, mental, emotional and social well-being. Read more.....

EASY WAYS TO BOOST YOUR ACTIVITY LEVEL

An active lifestyle is more than simply visiting the gym for an hour or jumping around in the living room to an aerobics tape. Be creative and find ways to incorporate movement into almost everything you do. Here are some suggestions from WF team to get you started and help you boost your activity level. Believe me, if you make a conscious effort to integrate more activity into your daily life, it will eventually become second nature. Give some of these suggestions a try! Read more.....

Eating to Win

Good nutrition is essential for optimal health and top performance during any physical activity. Exercise, whether intensive or mild, increases both fluid and nutrient requirements. Incorporating the right foods and beverages prior to all exercise is essential for peak performance, whether for a brisk walk, heavy workout, or a competition.

Research shows that proper food and fluid intake prior to working out or engaging in a competition will improve endurance. Results also show that athletes who eat prior to exercise feel better and find the activity less rigorous than those who choose to fast.  Read more.....

A Plateful of heart-smart eating

For a long time heart disease has had a reputation of a strictly male malady.  But it has been observed that, once women reach menopause, this advantage quickly dissipates.  In fact, 11 times as many women die from heart disease as from breast cancer.  The question arises as to, what happens at menopause that causes heart disease risk to skyrocket among women?  Doctors suspect it has something to do with the hormone estrogen. Estrogen circulation in the bloodstream helps keep the arteries clear by regulating cholesterol levels increasing high-density lipoprotein cholesterol while lowering low-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Read more.....

Eat your way to a  Better Body

When it comes to the shape and condition of your body, you are most definitely what you eat. Diet can help beat fat and fluid retention and protect your against sun damage.
1. TO GAIN WEIGHT : Of course, not everyone needs to lose weight- some of us would actually like to gain weight. It's actually harder to do this healthily than you may think- the foods that contain the most calories are normally the ones that are particularly bad for our health. Read more.....

Diet for Athletic Endurance

The endurance factor of the muscles  depends on the nutritive support for the muscle-more than anything else on the amount of glycogen that has been stored in the muscle prior to the period of exercise. A person on a high carbohydrate diet stores far more glycogen in muscles than a person on either a mixed diet or a high fat diet. Therefore, endurance is greatly enhanced by a high carbohydrate diet. Read more.....

Keep Your Fat Furnace Working

To look full and cut - i.e., to display nice detail throughout your physique without having your muscles look stringy and depleted - follow our four keys to weight loss, and you'll be shocked by how quickly you reach your goal. To make your effort truly successful, think of your body not as a temple, but as a machine that needs fuel. 

One problem for the increase in body fat % with advancing age is that 'basal fat oxidation' - the rate at which fat is broken down inside the body tends to drop as we get older. As fat oxidation drops, more fat piles up on the hips or droops from the midsection. Read more.....

Resistance Band Workout for Travelers

resistance band is a great travel workout aid because it's an effective resistance-training tool and yet it folds up into the tiniest of spaces. There are different brands and styles, but basically a resistance band looks like a giant rubber band (some have handles), and you stretch it to work your muscles. They are great for beginners, cheap and extremely portable.  

For the exercises indicated below, you need a resistance band or tube with handles, one that's long enough for you to stretch from the floor to over your head. They come in different levels of resistance - try a pliable tube to start off with.  Try to work up to 20 reps for each exercise while performing your resistance band workout. (If it's your first time, start with five or however many you can or have time to do).  Read more.....

FOOT MASSAGE - A RELIEF FOR TRIED FEET

A foot massage can be performed at any time you wish or as part of a home pedicure procedure. The following illustrations depict some standard foot massage techniques that a nail technician might perform on a client during a pedicure.

Wear lose, comfortable clothes and sit comfortably with your back supported. Read more.....

Striking the right Attitude

If you take a look at any success story and grasp the one element of similarity between them, you'll notice that virtually every self-made, successful person has this one super-important object of success in their mind- a burning desire to succeed.  What counts is your frame of mind. Age, location, ethnic origin, gender, or any other individuality have absolutely no part in your attitude to become what you desire. Read more.....

Getting Tough With ab Muscles

The stomach muscles are often some of the weakest in women's body and we tend to make up for this fact by letting the back take all the strain. The end result being - our backs end up hunched, tense, overarched, presenting a risk for lower back pain. 

Here are few excellent exercises to build a trim torso:  

Side Stretches: Keeping your feet hip width- apart and slightly turned out, lift your arms above your head and clasp your hands together, keeping your shoulders dropped. Now, in a smooth movement, looking straight ahead, drop down on to the left, bending from the waist. Try to get low enough for your arms to be parallel with the floor. Slowly come back to the centre and repeat on the right. Do at least 6- 10 drops each side. Read more.....

EXERCISE FOR RELAXATION

Ease your body into these stretches: you should not be jumping or bouncing around, and the exercises are not supposed to be uncomfortable.  Remember to breathe slowly and rhythmically too.  The positions should be held for at least 10 seconds, but if you want to increase your flexibility, stretch the major muscle groups for a minimum of 30 seconds. As well as helping your body to relax by reducing muscle tension, these stretch exercises can be done to increase flexibility or to ease muscles, or cool down after exercising. Read more.....

Top 10 to Conditioned buttocks - to prevent knee and back injuries

Side step squat:

This exercise works all the gluteals and the muscles at the sides of the hips and thighs. As this move is challenging but effective, take time to perfect it.  Use a chair the first time you do it to help you find the correct working position.  Take about two seconds to step out and two seconds to step in.

• Stand with good posture, knees soft, feet together, left foot lifted and prepared.  Breathe easily throughout. Read more.....

Top 10 Ways to check, if you are pushing too hard

Unless your training for some athletic activity that requires otherwise, don't work your self harder than necessary. If it hurts or is even uncomfortable then stop and do something different. Proper exercise does not require pain.  Read more.....

Top 10 Ways to Add Movement in Life

All exercises sound great for the benefits they extend. Also, it is understandable that committing to an exercise program can be overwhelming. But recent studies have proved that even moderate movements when done for as little as 30 minutes a day, can improve your health considerably and reduce the chances of heart and life-threatening diseases. 

By making just a few changes in your daily routine you can get the body moving and be well on your way to be fit. Here are my top ten ways to add movement to your daily routine. Read more.....