For lasting results in a dedicated fitness program try Isometric Exercise & Proper Breathing

Isometric Exercise & Proper Breathing Create A Non-Stressful Workout That Yields Results by Ellen Miller

Gentle, isometric exercise, combined with a carefully focused breathing technique facilitates quick, reliable, lasting results in a dedicated fitness program.

You can lose more pounds and inches -- without half-killing yourself by enduring high-impact, stressful exercise routines -- simply by changing your breathing technique during a light, isometric workout. Hard to believe? Maybe so, given all the “No pain, no gain!” and “Feel the burn!” hogwash we’ve been fed for so many years – but the good news is that it’s absolutely true.

This is great news for everyone who has burned out on the “Sweat ‘til you’re dehydrated” and “Burn! Burn! Burn!” approach to exercise. Pack all that foolishness up and toss it out; it’s not necessary; it never was necessary, and it never will be necessary for an effective, successful fitness program.

Most people are unaware of how they breathe … and many are likewise unaware that their usual method of taking in oxygen is shallow, short and highly inefficient. When you’re breathing correctly and more deeply, you’re taking in more oxygen, and enabling your body to use that oxygen more efficiently. This makes it possible for your muscles to function at top capacity.

How that works with isometrics is that by increasing the oxygen supply to the brain, you’re enhancing the brain’s ability to send messages to the muscles to contract. As you contract a specific group of muscles and have a targeted focus for your breathing technique, you’re actually forging new pathways of communication between the brain and the muscles you’re working.

It’s somewhat similar to Hatha yoga – which, in itself, is a kind of isometric exercise because you hold certain postures while you breathe deeply and slowly through the nose. But Hatha yoga isn’t specifically focused on physical fitness, whereas the combination of targeted isometric exercise plus a proper breathing technique is.

A training DVD combining isometric exercises and proper breathing technique can easily and quickly show you how to combine the two for reliable, lasting results, enhancing your fitness program and making it work even harder for you – while you don’t have to work any harder at all.

The combination of a proper breathing technique and targeted isometric exercises has the effect of making your body a more efficient, effective machine. One well-known isometrics instructor tells of a client who had broken her leg and couldn’t leave her couch. Within a week, she had lost two inches by utilizing this system, without changing her eating habits or anything else. Granted, the story is anecdotal … but the instructor had her client measure herself both at the beginning and end of the week of using the breathing technique along with targeted isometric exercises that could be done while sitting on the sofa, and the two-inch loss was documented.

With an isometric exercise DVD that also incorporates training in proper, targeted breathing, you can speed up your fitness program dramatically … and while you’re doing so, you won’t be over-extending yourself physically … won’t be over-working your muscles … won’t wear yourself out or feel any discomfort. It’s one exercise system that’s “no pain, all gain.”


Owner of IsoBreathing Inc. and creator of IsoBreathing(R) Ellen has been teaching life style and fitness over 20 years and is a certified fitness practitioner and personal trainer. Find out about Isometric Exercise, Weight Loss Exercise or buy her Exercise DVD - visit http://www.isobreathing.com.

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Weight loss using a good Treadmill

Weight Loss by Treadmill by andreasovte

Weight loss using a good Treadmill workout program has worked for many people - and it can work for you too.
Treadmills can be used by virtually any age group, and by individuals of any activity level. Treadmills can help you lose weight, and maintain your weight loss.

It really is a numbers game. The more time you spend doing cardiovascular exercises the more calories you are going to burn and the more weight you will lose. And if you are looking for fitness equipment that will get the maximum burn, then a treadmill should be at the top of your list.

The treadmill is unsurpassed for a cardiovascular workout. According to a study done by the Medical College of Wisconsin and the VA Medical Center in Milwaukee, calories burned on the treadmill for 60 minutes averaged 865 - 705. This compares to:

Stair machine 746 - 637
Rowing machine 739 - 606
Stationary cycle 604 - 556
Cross-country ski machine 678 - 595

This is one of numerous studies, that rank a treadmill as the number one cardiovascular machine.

Here are a few steps you can take to develop your own weight loss treadmill program:

Find ways to make your Treadmill session enjoyable, by listening to music, books on tape, or teaching tapes. Or, some people prefer to just enjoy nature and life around them, and the time to think, pray, or just let their mind wander. The more you enjoy your Treadmill workout, the more likely you are to workout consistently.

Make it a DAILY habit - just like brushing your teeth. Working out on your Treadmill daily makes your weight loss ambitions much more likely to succeed than if you are working out two to three days a week. And, most people that make the switch will tell you that it's easier to workout every day. You don't have to think about whether it's a workout day or not and get geared up for it - you just do it every day and your body gets used to it. It soon becomes a normal part of your day and you begin to look forward to it.
Incorporate "intervals" into three or four of your Treadmill sessions each week. Intervals are brief periods (about one minute) of more intense exercise mixed into your Treadmill sessions. For example, you would do a one minute interval of faster walking about every five minutes throughout your exercise session.

Here's how it will look; you'll start with your normal three to five minute warm-up and then five minutes into your walk you do your first interval, one minute of faster walking (or perhaps jogging). At the end of that minute you should be "winded" and ready to slow down. You'll slow down to your normal walking speed for the next four minutes and then your fifth minute is another one minute interval. This pattern continues throughout your exercise session.

Intervals increase your aerobic fitness level by "pushing the envelope." While doing your interval you cross the anaerobic threshold into anaerobic metabolism, forcing your body to become conditioned to more intense exercise and making it a better weight loss program.

Intervals increase your basal metabolic rate (BMR), causing you to burn more calories 24 hours-a-day, and intervals can make your exercise less monotonous and help the time pass more quickly.

If you're not weight training, walk on your Treadmill with light (one to two pound) hand weights two to three days per week. Swing your arms and also use a variety of arm movements while walking to tone your upper body muscles and further increase your basal metabolic rate.

If at all possible, do your Treadmill workout first thing in the morning. Over 90% of people who workout consistently, do so first thing in the morning. If YOU want to exercise consistently, odds are in your favor if you hop to it early.
Make one day a week your "easy day." Make this a very leisurely workout. Appreciate how good your walks are starting to feel as you lose weight and tone your muscles.

Keep a record of your workout. There's something very motivating about seeing your workout accomplishments and paper. Record the date and time-of-day of your workout, and the distance and/or time you walked. Keep a running total of the miles or minutes you've walked. Also, record your thoughts or feelings for that particular workout.

By taking these steps you're making this time each day a special time to take care of yourself. Make that a priority in your life and don't let anyone or anything keep you from that time. Working out on your Treadmill every day will help you achieve your weight loss goals and have a positive impact on all aspects of your life, including fitness level!

So, from the simple perspective of weight loss, the treadmill is by far the best exercise machine given its significantly associated energy expenditure. Treadmills have consistently provided quality results and lasting benefits. Treadmills allow you to work at your own pace, but don't allow you to slack off. You'll be able to burn calories effectively and reach your weight loss goals. It's that simple.


The auther writes articles on different topics. To know more, visit exposed body, exposed face

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When Exercise is not Exercise

When Exercise is not Exercise by Simon Evans

One of the biggest reasons we are getting so fat is no secret, we eat more calories than we burn. For example, if you take in 2000 calories a day and you only burn or excrete 1900 then you have a net increase of about 100 calories per day, which translates to about 10lbs of increased body weight per year. Do this year after year and you find yourself 50lbs overweight in just a few years.

There are three main ways that we burn calories

First, is our basal metabolic rate (called BMR). These are the calories that we burn just lying still. The calories we burn just breathing, pumping blood around and basic physiology. In individuals that have a sedentary occupation and don't exercise much, this accounts for most of the calories burned.

Second, are the calories burned from eating and digesting food. These are called the TEF or Thermic Effect of Food. This accounts for about 10 – 15% of total daily calories burned by most people.

Third, are the calories burned by physical activity. Most people think of these as the calories burned by the amount of exercise that you get. There are all kinds of formulas to calculate how many calories you burn while exercising and most exercise equipment can do this for you.

Activity is not always as it appears

However, there is another form of calorie burning from physical activity that is under appreciated. These are the calories burned from NEAT, which stands for Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. Kind of a mouthful, so let's just stick with NEAT. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic are heading up much of the NEAT studies, but it is catching on elsewhere as well. In fact, one of my colleagues at the University of Michigan is working with the Mayo people to study NEAT in a pre-diabetic rat model that we are studying.

NEAT is essentially the energy that you burn just by moving around. If you have a job that keeps you active then this will account for much of your NEAT. But tapping your fingers, shifting in your chair, bouncing your leg, etc. all add up to some calorie burn as well.

Benefits of Fidgeting

Some folks, like me, are very fidgety - when I was little my parents always told me to stop fidgeting so much. Other people sit motionless much of the time. These ‘innate' behaviors account for a lot of calorie burn.

It turns out, according to estimates from the researchers, that fidgeting can actually differ by a couple of hundred calories per day between fidgeters and still people. If you think about that in terms of weigh gain that can add up to 10 - 20 lbs. per year. That's a huge difference and may be one of the reasons that some people just don't gain as much weight as others, even when they seem to eat and exercise about the same amount.

This does not mean that if you are a fidgeter and seem to be protected against weight gain that you do not need to exercise. The benefits of getting your heart rate up go far beyond burning calories and losing weight. Exercise also contributes to cardiovascular strength, muscle tone and even brain function, as I have discussed in the past.

NEAT things to do

Fidgeting is not likely something that you can adopt if you are not a fidgety person. It seems to be programmed in. However, you can do a lot of things to increase your level of NEAT and burn a few more calories every day, which can add up to big effects.

Here are a few suggestions:

Stand up and walk around when you talk on the phone instead of sitting at your desk or on the couch.

Don't sit in your chair for more than 15 minutes without standing up and stretching a little.

Take the stairs instead of the elevator.

Park further away from the store and spend two extra minutes walking instead of two extra minutes driving around looking for the closest spot to the door.

Park a block away from work or get off the bus a block early.

These are all simple things that don't seem like much but when you think about these in terms of cutting 10 – 20 lbs per year off your waistline, it should be worth it.


Copyright (c) 2007 The Brain Code LLC


Train your Brain for total Brain Fitness. The Brain Code is the key to unlock your maximum potential. Dr. Simon Evans puts together the right ingredients in right amount to create the recipe for success. Visit us at http://www.thebraincode.com

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