Health Articles for Bodybuilding

Every woman would love to have a lean flat abdomen. Every man loves to admire that six pack abdomen. A flat stomach is nice but a defined stomach is just sexy.

Proper Diet to Get a Six Pack for Girls

To get a slim, trim, flat and defined abdomen you must eat the proper nutrients to first lose fat, and then build muscle.  You lose the fat first because believe it or not, there is muscle under that fat.  So you need to eat a diet designed for fat loss, not muscle building. Then once you see a glimmer of that muscle as the fat melts away change to a diet designed to build muscle.

Foods to help burn fat include oatmeal, nuts, protein powder, olive oil, berries, eggs, beans and legumes, lean meats and fish, whole grains, peanut butter, green vegetables, low fat dairy products, avocados and iced tea.  Once you have burned the fat off your belly, eat foods that are high in protein to help build healthy muscle.

Proper Exercises to Get a Six Pack for Girls

The focus of defining your abdomen should be losing the fat that covers your muscles. You will make no progress in defining your stomach until the fat is gone.  Therefore do exercises to burn fat first.  Avoid abdominal exercises meant to build muscle.  It is after all, already there.  You just can’t find it under the fat.  After you find the muscle then work to build it and tone it.

Do fat burning exercises to work off the fat such as cardio, stretching and walking. After you have burned the fat begin to work your abdominal muscles with sit ups and crunches, weight lifting and continue your cardio and walking because those will also help to build muscle on your abdomen after the fat is gone.

What Not to Do to Get a Six Pack for Girls

Do not stress about building your abs.  Stress actually can cause you to add fat to your stomach due to the effects of stress.  Make a plan and follow it.

Do not begin to do abdominal muscle building exercises until you have lost the fat where you can see the muscle you have. If you simply work to build muscle, you will add the weight of the muscle and the bulk of the muscle increasing the size of your abdomen but still have that layer of fat over it.

Can tai chi improve your health? Proponents for this ancient practice suggest that it can, and a recent Mayo Clinic article Tai Chi: Improved Stress Reduction, Balance, Agility for All seems to support this claim. The martial art offers many benefits for a person’s mind and body.

What is Tai Chi?

What is tai chi? The program is a form of martial art that incorporates mind-body exercises in its techniques. The individual has an opportunity to improve health, mental functioning and overall wellbeing using the “moving meditation”. This approach is excellent because it helps you become balanced with heightened awareness of your body.

Tai chi was originally developed as a way for a person to defend him or her self. However, the process has been associated to healthful benefits. The program enlists opposing forces in the body known as the “yin” and the “yang” along with “qi”, which is the body’s energy force.

The process calls to the environment as well. The posturing in tai chi is named after animals and elements of nature. This helps the individual to develop deeper self-awareness through awareness of his or her surroundings.

Meditation is part of the process as well. It is necessary to remove stressful thoughts as you follow the movements. The idea is to used relaxed focus in order to build awareness of nature, including body awareness.

Body Awareness

Body awareness is an important facet of heath and well being that is commonly overlooked. Body awareness involves harmony and balance that exists on a conscious as well as a subconscious level. In many instances, a person can lose touch with the body, often ignoring signs that attention is required.

Overeating is a prime example of lack of body awareness. People may overeat out of sheer boredom, emotional reasons or poor habit rather than according to their bodies’ signals of hunger. Over time, the individual no longer notices feelings of hunger unless they are extreme. In addition, the problem can involve eating when full. The signals for fullness have been ignored so long that the person is out of touch with them.

Tai Chi for Body Awareness

Several approaches offer increased body awareness. Biofeedback is an example that works for many people but tai chi may be an approach that is more convenient for many. The process is excellent because it helps develop strength, relaxation, and improved body awareness.

Many people have adopted this ancient approach to improving health over time with great success, and scientific studies are exploring the effects of tai chi on the body. The research is focused on how the martial arts practice effects health and how it can help alleviate certain medical conditions. In addition, researchers are exploring chronic diseases that the approach can treat.

Before adopting tai chi into your treatment plan, discuss the option with your physician. As for now, the martial arts practice is not designed to treat any specific medical condition. However, with approval from your healthcare provider, you may find that the process offers excellent benefits.

Many marathons are held each year in a wide range of locations. Some are held just simply based on tradition, while others are held for the purpose of raising money for a cause. For the better known marathons, hundreds and sometimes thousands of people participate. Unfortunately, more than half of them are in no way prepared physically for the demands that they are about to place on their bodies, and this can make running a marathon dangerous for those people.

The Cardiac Dangers of Running a Marathon

Because it is the most serious of potential problems associated with running a marathon, the biggest danger is cardiac problems – although this isn’t the most common thing that will happen.

In this instance, the heart simply is not in the required shape for the demands that are placed on it when running a marathon. You won’t experience cardiac arrest during a marathon because you are too old to participate. Instead, it will be because you didn’t do enough training to get your heart in shape for this endeavor, or because you had existing cardiac problems to begin with.

The Muscle, Bone, and Joint Dangers of Running a Marathon

Aside from cardiac arrest, other injuries are possible, and more common. These injuries are to the muscle, bone, and joints, and typically occur simply because the runner wasn’t in shape for the marathon. Injuries to the knees, hips, ankles, and back are very common.

In some cases, those injuries will heal with proper care and rest, but in other cases, those injuries will continue to haunt the runner for the rest of his or her life. In some instances, these injuries occur not because the person wasn’t in good enough shape, but because he or she becomes either dehydrated or over hydrated during the race, or immediately before the race.

Additional Dangers of Running a Marathon

When you run for long distances, you can actually put extra strain on your kidney’s and your immune system. When these two systems go haywire, so to speak, other things start to happen within the body. The body thinks that it needs to be repaired, and starts this process by releasing stress hormones and cytokines.

These hormones can actually cause inflammation, and they can affect your heart. So, as you can see, you must do more than get your heart in shape for the marathon, all of your other muscles, bones, joints, and bodily systems must also be properly prepared.

Whatever the cause when you are sore and achy all over you simply want to feel better as soon as possible.

Holistic Natural Treatments for Soreness All Over Your Body

Many variations of relaxation and holistic treatments are available and successful in treating soreness.

• Meditation – has been shown to be effective for treating fibromyalgia and arthritis pain.
• Yoga – practicing yoga can minimize the need for pain medication; it increases your flexibility and muscle strength as well.
• Shiatsu – Shiatsu is a deeply relaxing process and has been effective in treating pain all over the body.
• Acupuncture – using the application of pressure to specific points of the body pain relief can be naturally achieved all over your body.
• Acupressure – specific placement of very thin needles can be effective in treating soreness all over your body.

Natural Treatments for Soreness All Over Your Body You Can Do At Home

When you are sore there are some natural ways to help get relief at home.

• Soak in a hot bath – You can do this more than once a day.  Soak at least 15 to 20 minutes to relax sore muscles and joints.  Hot showers can help too if you have difficulty getting in and out of the tub.
• Apply heat – Use a heating pad or snuggle in an electric blanket for short periods.  Do not fall asleep using either of these because you risk burns to your skin.
• Get Moving – Move about and work out stiffness and soreness in achy joints and muscles.  Mild stretching can make you feel better.
• Use of over the counter anti inflammatory medications to help reduce inflammation in joints and relieve mild muscle pain such as acetaminophen or ibuprofen.
• Relaxation and breathing therapies – by relaxing your muscles and managing your breathing you are improving circulation and bringing more oxygen to sore tired areas of your body.

Natural Treatments for Soreness All Over Your Body from a Spa

Spa treatments are not just for pampering.  You can receive multiple natural treatments for soreness all over your body at a spa.

• Full Body massage – Improves circulation, relaxes sore muscles
• Heat Therapy – including saunas and whirlpools
• Body Wraps – removes toxins that can build up and cause soreness