The humble jump rope has been a fantastic method of metabolic (CV) conditioning working for hundreds of years. It can easily be incorporated into to any workout to help tone muscles all over body while improving coordination which you will benefit from across your subsequent exercises. Not to be ignored in anyone’s routine, jumping can burn up to around 1000 calories per hour. This makes it a great workout if you are looking to undertake highly intensity interval training to lose weight, as the cardio is performed at such an intense level that your body will spend the rest of the day expending energy to recover from the ass-kicking you gave it. Jump rope is one of the most efficient workouts possible and I believe that once you get proficient in your technique in the gym you can be the most diverse CV workouts. When looking at adding jumping into your routine consider using it at the start of your warm up or as the main focus of a conditioning session, this is a great group exercise and it can be done both inside and outside of the gym as it’s both portable and affordable. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or a professional builder the rope can be taken on business trips, vacations and even to your gym. As soon as you hear the word jump rope you may quickly jump to the conclusion that it will be easy to master, however learning to jump correctly can take a little time however the key is to be patient and slow the movement down until you are comfortable with the fundamental mechanics. The next step is to start to increase the speed and keep as much weight on your toes as possible so you have a quick bouncy contact with the surface from which you do not need to jump too high. Remember that when getting started it’s vital that your jump rope should come up to your arm-pits when measured from the ground to guarantee it is the correct length to maximise the efficiency of your workout.
Here is a great 15 minute jump rope work out for any beginners want to get in to HIW :
Find a clear space in your home or gym and ensure you are positioned on a suitable surface. Once you have done this ensure you have a stopwatch or you are located near a clock so you can regularly check the time. Then begin
– To warm up jump the rope for 3 minutes, try to find a comfortable speed that helps you fine-tune your technique
– Rest for 30 seconds
– Now jump the rope as quickly as possible for60 seconds
– Then rest again for 30 seconds
– Jump Rope as quickly as possible for 60 seconds
– Rest for 30 seconds
– Then repeat this alternating pattern for 15 minutes.
When starting out remember that if you are finding the HIW work out to difficult you can increase and decrease the times of intense jumping. An example of this is if you are finding it too easy, increase the duration of your work out from 60 seconds to 90 seconds and/or shorten the rest periods to manipulate the intensity of the workout. Remember that the jump rope is a great starting place for beginners when looking to undertake a HIW, once you have mastered the jump rope try move on to more difficult gym equipment to help you get a varied and mixed workout. If you hate 60 minute’s runs then remember that jumping rope is a great alternative and it doesn’t require you to run around the block for miles or kill yourself on the treadmill. Give this interval style workout a try 2-3 times per week and your fitness will go through the roof while you shed that unwanted weight.
After being involved with the fitness industry for more than 10 years I realize there is a huge need for more intensive rowing technique among Crossfit members and other competitive athletes. Hundreds of Crossfit gyms across the nation use the Concept 2 Rowing Machine in order to improve strength, conditioning, and speed for better results in the Crossfit Games. The ‘White Board’ in every Crossfit gym is used to measure speedwork for shorter distances on the Concept 2 with the use of 500, 1,000 and 2,000 meter times. I want to open up my training, conditioning, and training secrets to the world of CrossFit’s and beyond in order for you to get faster times and results on the rowing machine. Nearly every year for the past 15 years I have raced the 2,000 meter standard distance indoor virtual rowing race on the Concept 2 rowing machine with times ranging from 5:57 to 6:08 on my slowest day. I will teach you how to maximize your rowing workouts in order to get the fastest times possible on the Concept 2 rowing machine!
Since I was young all I know and have been introduced to has been surrounded around sports. Growing up I played every sport imaginable and loved the challenge of what every sport had to offer. I realized I had more endurance than most other kids and athletes so I stuck with the sports involved in those areas. Rowing and long distance triathlons were going to be the sports that I would be involved in for a long time. The influence my parents had on me was very powerful and influential in many ways in both school and sports. My mother was always more on the academic side as my father always chose sports over academics. My father still expected good academics but if there was a sporting event, game, and/or practice that would take precedence. The fight to finish school and competitions became ingrained in me and if I ever wanted to quit early I would always here my mother’s words ‘If your going to do something… whatever it is. Do it the right way and finish it to the best of your ability.’ Make sure to stay involved with what your children are doing and try to balance out their lifestyles and give them just the right amount of advice. Even Though my father, John Nunn, was an Olympic Bronze Medalist 68′ in rowing and was the head Olympic Men’s Rowing coach 76′, he never once told me or forced me to row. He always asked me what I wanted to do and what made me happy. I played soccer, baseball, ice hockey, tennis, basketball, and surfed before I was a rower and got a scholarship to row at UC Berkeley. Make sure to stay active with your children and ask them as well as yourself what activities and sports make you happy. What do you like to do? When I made the decision to quit baseball and soccer at the same time my father told me that was fine but that I had to find something else to do or get a full-time job. I asked him at that point, 16 yrs of age, ‘How about that rowing program down in Long Beach?’ He jumped up out of his chair and the rest was history 😉
Obesity is so entrenched in the U.S. that it would take an intense push by schools, employers, doctors and others to reverse an epidemic that accounts for billions of dollars in annual health-care costs, concluded a report released Tuesday. But the challenge lies in making such changes. Many of the recommendations in the report have been advocated for years—including in previous IOM reports—yet opposition to recommendations has prevented many from being put into place, particularly at the federal level. While several cities and states have considered excise taxes on sugared drinks in recent years, for example, the beverage industry has spent millions of dollars lobbying and advertising against them. All have eventually been defeated thus far. The Obama administration put the fight against childhood obesity on center stage with first lady Michelle Obama’s “Let’s Move” campaign, and promoted a nutritional overhaul of subsidized school lunches to include more vegetables, fruits and whole grains. This year the ‘My Food Plate’ took the new look over the ‘Food Pyramid’ and is changing the way Americans and the World is looking at good nutrition. It also pushed to remove unhealthy foods from schools. But Congress blocked the administration effort to push pizza off the lunch tray, in part because it typically has some ingredients considered vegetables. Meanwhile, a working group of four federal agencies set up in 2009 to devise voluntary nutrition standards for foods and beverages marketed to children remains in limbo, amid objections from lawmakers and food marketers. The problem is not coming up with good ideas about what to do about obesity, it’s about actually doing carrying through with them and making it stay for the long run.
The IOM report was released at a “Weight of the Nation” conference in Washington, D.C., hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and comes as rates of obesity in the U.S. have generally leveled off in the past decade among both children and adults. But two-thirds of Americans are still overweight or obese, and the number of people who are severely obese has continued to rise. It isn’t clear where the epidemic is headed. A study published Monday in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine predicted that 42% of the U.S. population will be obese in 2030. In 2009-2010, 35.7% of adults and 16.9% of children were obese, according to CDC data. One factor that concerns public-health officials is how many of today’s more than 12.5 million obese children will remain obese as adults. Also of concern are rising health-care costs, as obesity is linked with costly chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease. Estimates vary widely as to the cost of obesity-related illnesses; the IOM said it runs to $190.2 billion annually. Scientists have known for some time that sedentary people are at increased risk of developing heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. But they haven’t fully understood why, in part because studying the effects of sedentary behavior isn’t easy. People who are inactive may also be obese, eat poorly or face other lifestyle or metabolic issues that make it impossible to tease out the specific role that inactivity, on its own, plays in ill health.
…So, to solve this problem, researchers lately have embraced a novel approach to studying the effects of inactivity. They’ve imposed the condition on people who otherwise would be out happily exercising and moving about, in some cases by sentencing them to bed rest. But in the current study, which was published this month in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, the scientists created a more realistic version of inactivity by having their volunteers cut the number of steps they took each day by at least half. They wanted to determine whether this physical languor would affect the body’s ability to control blood sugar levels. “It’s increasingly clear that blood sugar spikes, especially after a meal, are bad for you,” says John P. Thyfault, an associate professor of nutrition and exercise physiology at the University of Missouri, who conducted the study with his graduate student Catherine R. Mikus and others. “Spikes and swings in blood sugar after meals have been linked to the development of heart disease and Type 2 diabetes.” So the scientists fitted their volunteers with sophisticated glucose monitoring devices, which checked their blood sugar levels continuously throughout the day. They also gave the subjects pedometers and activity-measuring armbands, to track exercise guidelines from the American Heart Association and other groups recommend that, for health purposes, people accumulate 10,000 steps or more a day, the equivalent of about five miles of walking. Few people do, however. Repeated studies of American adults have shown that a majority take fewer than 5,000 steps per day. The Missouri volunteers were atypical in that regard. Each exercised 30 minutes or so most days and easily completed more than 10,000 daily steps during the first three days of the experiment. The average was almost 13,000 steps. During these three days, according to data from their glucose monitors, the volunteers’ blood sugar did not spike after they ate. But that estimable condition changed during the second portion of the experiment, when the volunteers were told to cut back on activity so that their step counts would fall below 5,000 a day for the next three days. Achieving such indolence was easy enough. The volunteers stopped exercising and, at every opportunity, took the elevator, not the stairs, or had lunch delivered, instead of strolling to a cafe. They became, essentially, typical American adults. Their average step counts fell to barely 4,300 during the three days, and the volunteers reported that they now “exercised,” on average, about three minutes a day.
DR. SEARS ON THE IMPORTANCE OF NUTRITION AND TAKING JUICE PLUS 🙂
Do I feel passionate about this product? Yes! Here’s why.
Each morning I put a scoopful of Juice Plus+ Complete® into my fruit and yogurt smoothie. Every day I take my Fruit and Veggie Juice Plus+® Capsules, and dole out Juice Plus+® to our kids in the form of chewables (soft) and capsules according to their age and taste. Then I go to my office and recommend the Juice Plus+® Children’s Health Study to the families in my pediatric practice.
In April of 1997 I underwent major surgery for colon cancer, followed by a long course of radiation and chemotherapy. Realizing that colon cancer, and all major diseases for that matter, are influenced by diet, I was determined not to let my medical problem repeat itself. So I began devouring medical literature on the connection between diet and health. During the year following my surgery, I read volumes about nutrition, subscribed to every nutrition journal I could find, put together a collection of over 500 file folders about food, and became what my friends tagged a “health nut.” About three months into my new style of eating I noticed some amazing changes. My energy level skyrocketed, prompting my wife Martha to call me “Zip.” We stepped up our ballroom dancing and even beat some of the younger couples in the swing contest. My mind was working better, too. I just plain felt good all over – mind and body – and finally learned what it is to experience real well-being. Too bad I had to get sick in order to learn to eat right instead of eating right to keep from getting sick.
Why was I feeling so good? The answer seemed clear: I was putting the right fuel into my body that made it run better. At that time – as a father of eight, author of 28 books, and a pediatrician at the peak of his career – I was going to do everything I could to keep my health up and not let the cancer reoccur. Talk about motivation! During my quests for what constitutes good health I devoured books and articles about supplements and discovered that one of the secrets of good health is to eat a lot of fruits and vegetables that contain thousands of disease-fighting chemicals called “phytonutrients.” I call them “phytos” for short. The same phytos that help keep the plants healthy help keep our bodies healthy. Even thousands of years ago Hippocrates said, “let food be thy medicine.” As I studied the parade of supplements out there, I concluded that whatever supplement I take must have good science and make good sense.
That’s how I came across Juice Plus+®. It had good science behind it and made good sense – a whole food based supplement! Whole foods, a bunch of the healthiest fruits and vegetables, juiced and dried at low temperatures, removing the water and most of the sugar, salt and bulk. These nutritious juice powders are then put into capsules and chewables! Intrigued by this concept of packaged phytos, I realized that my life depended upon eating the right foods and taking the right supplements. So, I did my life-saving detective work. While visiting the company where Juice Plus+® is made I saw firsthand the care and quality that went into this product. In examining their independent research I discovered that researchers had measured the blood levels and found that disease-fighting “phytos” go way up after taking Juice Plus+® – and they had published their results in a peer-reviewed medical journal. This was a vital discovery since it’s not what’s on the package label that’s important, it’s how much gets into the body. Finally I grilled the company executives. They were honorable people. The combination of good science, good sense, and a reputable company convinced me that this would be my supplement of choice.
Since taking Juice Plus+® daily and following an overall healthy eating and exercise program I have not even had so much as a cold, even though my wonderful little patients share their germs with me everyday. The parents of children who are sick a lot often thank me: “Since my children have been taking Juice Plus+® they haven’t been sick as often.” Juice Plus+® is now the only whole food based supplement I take. I’m pleased to recommend the joy of taking Juice Plus+® to everyone who takes their health seriously.
To order Juice Plus+® capsules or any other Juice Plus+® product, click here.
Do your children get sick all the time?
Do you frequently feel tired and run-down?
Is it nearly impossible to get your children to eat fruits and vegetables?
Are you lacking the recommended 7-13 servings of raw fruits and vegetables each day?
If the answer to any of these is yes, then Juice Plus+® is extremely important for you and your family.
For many years the National Institutes of Health, the American Cancer Society, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and every other national health association has emphasized the importance of eating at least five servings of raw fruits and vegetables every day. The health benefits of this are numerous, including:
Protection against cancer
Stronger immune system
Prevention of chronic illness
Protection against heart disease
Slows down the effects of aging
These benefits are not only due to vitamins and minerals, but also from the enzymes, antioxidants, phytonutrients, and fiber contained within the raw fruits and vegetables. There are many more potential benefits of these nutrients such as improved intellectual function, better eyesight, and increased energy level. In short, our bodies simply function more efficiently.
How many of us actually eat 7-13 servings of raw fruits and vegetables every day? Some Americans may eat an orange with breakfast and maybe an apple with lunch. We are pretty good at making sure we finish our one or two cooked vegetables at dinnertime. However, virtually all of us fall far short of the quantity of fruits and vegetables we need to protect us from cancer, chronic disease, infection, high cholesterol, and heart disease. Very few of us are receiving the nutrition required to help our bodies run smoothly and efficiently and to maximize our potential for a healthy life.
It is difficult to get adults to consume their share of fruits and vegetables, but trying to coax children – from toddlerhood through the teenage years – to eat enough of them is nearly impossible. Many parents worry about their two-year-old who barely seems to eat anything at all or about their busy teenager-on-the-go who doesn’t even sit down to eat. The nutrients in fruits and vegetables can maximize the physical and intellectual development of our children as they grow through the school-age years.
What is Juice Plus+®? Juice Plus+® is more than extra vitamins and minerals. It is actually a whole food based supplement. The fruit capsules are made from apples, oranges, pineapples, cranberries, peaches, cherries, papayas. The vegetable capsules are made from carrots, parsley, beets, kale, broccoli, cabbage, oat bran, rice bran, spinach, and tomatoes.
How is Juice Plus+® made? The fresh fruits and vegetables are juiced, then dehydrated to a powder form. It’s carefully tested to ensure no pesticides or other contaminants are present in the product. It is never exposed to high temperatures that would destroy the nutritional value of the fruits and vegetables. Most of the vitamins, minerals, active plant enzymes, phytonutrients, antioxidants, and fiber are preserved in the final capsules. When re-hydrated with water, the nutrients are absorbed into our bodies as if we had eaten the fruits and vegetables whole.
Is Juice Plus+® as good as eating fruits and vegetables? There’s no complete substitute for eating the real thing. But how many people actually eat such a wide variety of raw fruits, vegetables and grains every single day? Juice Plus+® is a convenient way to ensure you and your family get all the benefits over time from adding more nutrition from fresh fruits and vegetables to your diet.
But my child already takes a multi-vitamin. Why does she need Juice Plus+®? Juice Plus+® is not a vitamin supplement which contain, at best, only a small number of pre-selected antioxidants. It is a whole food based supplement containing nutrition from the thousands of antioxidants and other nutrients found in fruits and vegetables. Some children may need vitamin supplementation, but every child needs Juice Plus+®.
Is there any scientific proof that Juice Plus+® really works? To my knowledge, no other nutritional product in history has been subjected to as rigorous scientific investigations as Juice Plus+®, which has been investigated by scores of scientists at leading hospitals and universities all over the world. The results of 12 such studies have already been published in peer-reviewed scientific journals – and numerous other studies are currently underway. The published studies indicate that Juice Plus+® delivers key antioxidants that are absorbed by the body, reduces oxidative stress, promotes cardiovascular wellness in several ways, helps support a healthy immune system, and helps protect DNA.
This all may sound complicated, but the simple truth is that Juice Plus+® is the best way to get your entire family to reap more of the healthful benefits of a diet rich in raw fruits and vegetables. Juice Plus+® comes in two forms:
Have you ever caught yourself saying or thinking that you hate exercise? Or that it hurts too much and makes you sore? Not to mention that exercise makes you feel uncomfortable while you sweat. Here are a few steps on how to fall in love with exercise.
On November 25th 2012 I will be participating in my 3rd Full Distance Ironman in Cozumel, Mexico. After a brief rest from completing two international Ironman competitions in 2008 Nice, France and 2009 Florianopolis, Brazil I wanted something to train for again in order to keep driving myself into competition.
While teaching indoor cycling classes over the past 10 years I have come to the conclusion that the beats and character of the music that an instructor plays in class is the single most important part of a cycling session. Without the beat I am lost and so are the members in class. The beats of the music will allow you to coach a rhythm that will ultimately design the ride throughout the hour-long class. A fast beat will take you into a sprint while a slower beat might have you into a seated and/or standing hill climb. I’m often asked how I find the music for all of my cycling classes. Ever since I traveled to Nice, France to compete in the 2008 Ironman I found myself falling in love with dance music and house music. This type of music combined with lyrics is the new way people are listening to music. In the United States it is becoming the hottest phenomenon ever since hip hop hit the stage more than 20 years ago. I love music and cycling so much that I never find it to be a chore when searching for new ways to guide my members in class with new sounds and beats. In any given day I will go to Radio Metro (Australian House Music Online Station) and put on my headphones and just listen to the beats and pick up what I like to play. Music set play-lists that some world class DJ’s around the world have mixed together can also be a great way to keep your class going and make the hour long class seem like it’s flying by. However, make sure that you are taking some rest throughout the play-lists because it’s easy to get caught up and burn out when your only 20 minutes into the ride. I like 3-5 minute songs because it offers the best workout to rest ratio in between songs. Either way you will get the most energy out of your members while playing very high energetic electronic big room house music! If you don’t believe me then check out the latest news in Forbes Magazine this past month about the rise of house music as well as one of my favorite DJ’s and the #1 DJ in America right now:Kaskade!
Have you thought about opening your own Indoor Cycling Studio? The Relay Fitness Group and Jack Nunn can help. Even if you already own a cycling, yoga, and or fitness studio we have the resources to better streamline your business while reducing costs and building class sizes at the same time! Relay Fitness has proven solutions and a quality brand with the Evo Indoor Cycling Bike that will simply improve your profit without all the maintenance of traditional indoor bikes. If you’ve instructed a cycling class for any amount of time, you’ve probably run into a situation where one of your indoor cycles was out of commission due to a faulty component. If your class is full, that missing bike means one less person enjoying your killer indoor cycling session!
Cycling instructors must know that throughout any workout there must be a warm up and cool down phase of every indoor cycling class. Novice cyclists who are new to the indoor cycling program are notorious for not warming up before rides or cooling down and stretching afterwards. It’s easy to jump on a bike in class and start off class with intense riding however when you limit or rush your warm up it can cause injuries, sore leg muscles, and make you feel short of breath throughout the ride. Warming up and cooling down will improve your performance on the bike and reduce the risk of injury.
The Atkins Diet claimed to help individuals drop weight quickly by inordinate reduction of carbohydrates. The South Beach diet claimed to help shed 10 pounds in just one week by diet and intense exercise. While the Zone Diet looked to control an individuals insulin levels by limiting carbohydrates and balancing fats and proteins. Each diet fad made headlines, but medical experts agree: these quick-fix strategies rarely help for long-term weight control and health. While weight loss may be ideal for some individuals, other folks may want to improve their diet as well as lose weight over time. If reducing the risk of disease and increasing your overall health, an anti-inflammatory diet may seem like the best fit. Fruits and Vegetables and Anti-inflammatory diets contain the same proponents of most diets, except with a new twist. Compared to other diets, an anti-inflammatory focuses on adding foods that help reduce inflammation that can cause health risks. One of the main staples of this diet is fruits and veggies. As with most diets, fruits and veggies contain low sugar and trans fat levels and contain the vital proteins and fibers necessary to replenish and revitalize the body. Aim for high fiber fruits and vegetables, apples, papaya, broccoli, tomatoes, and kale. Fruits and veggies will keep you full, but also put a stop to high blood pressure, curb onset diabetes, and lower your risk of heart disease. Add some spice to your life: ginger, chili and even curry adds some spice and flavor to your foods; more importantly, spices also help reduce inflammation. Take some ginger, chili and even curry and add them to your dietary staples, i.e., chicken, meats and even pork products. If you feel daring, try adding these spices to non-meat products, including pastas, salads and even fruits. If you loathe the taste of hot spices, you can also try more tepid flavors to tone down the spicy factor, including mild sauces, peppers and even mild curry. Look for recipes to help incorporate mild and hot spices into your meals or visit an accredited college database online to learn new tricks. Fish, salmon and even sardines contain omega-3 nutrients that help curb inflammation. Nutrients aside, seafood also comes loaded with protein and is easy on the carbohydrates. With so much variety to select from, seafood makes for the perfect anti-inflammatory food to consume. Add in some veggies and some spices to the pot and you have yourself a triple threat of anti-inflammatory foods. Herbalists continue to rave about teas natural ability to grant essential nutrients and supplements to help the body recover and reduce inflammation. Green, white, and Oolong tea may be the best choices for fighting inflammation. When mixed together with anti-oxidants and nutrients this makes tea the perfect compliment to any meal. Whether you drink tea hot or cold, look to add it to your meals at least 4-5 times per week.
Growing up with a father who was a two-time U.S. Olympian in Rowing (68′ Mexico City Olympic Bronze Medalist and 76′ Montreal Olympic Men’s Rowing Coach) was a very interesting experience. I thought it was normal routine workout and it made sense that my father would go out for a 3-hour workout and train 7 days a week. I didn’t really appreciate or even come close to understanding how truly hard and mentally tough it is to win an Olympic medal… let alone just to make the Olympic Team until I rowed and was recruited to row for UC Berkeley. All of a sudden I found myself the weakest and slowest rower on the team as we went on to win 3 National Championships and 4 PAC- 10 Championships in 4 years along with International rowers that were recruited from all over the world. It was my introduction to the next step of my rowing career as I rowed alongside recruited rowers from Sweden, Norway, Germany, England, Serbia, Australia, Canada, South Africa, and Croatia . I remember days where I would barely be awake during practice in the early mornings as I did not have enough time to recover in between practices. Our coaches made us do fitness tests every week to see how fast we could row 10,000 meters on the Concept 2 Rowing Machine. One year we accumulated 15 tests every week of 10,000 meters and about 10 fitness tests of 6,000 meters! My overall best Concept 2 times were 33 min 20 seconds for 10,000 meters (1:40 split avg) and a national team qualifying time of 19 min 2o seconds for the 6,000 meter test (1:36 split avg).
The humble jump rope has been a fantastic method of metabolic (CV) conditioning working for hundreds of years. It can easily be incorporated into to any workout to help tone muscles all over body while improving coordination which you will benefit from across your subsequent exercises. Not to be ignored in anyone’s routine, jumping can burn up to around 1000 calories per hour. This makes it a great workout if you are looking to undertake highly intensity interval training to lose weight, as the cardio is performed at such an intense level that your body will spend the rest of the day expending energy to recover from the ass-kicking you gave it. Jump rope is one of the most efficient workouts possible and I believe that once you get proficient in your technique in the gym you can be the most diverse CV workouts. When looking at adding jumping into your routine consider using it at the start of your warm up or as the main focus of a conditioning session, this is a great group exercise and it can be done both inside and outside of the gym as it’s both portable and affordable. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or a professional builder the rope can be taken on business trips, vacations and even to your gym. As soon as you hear the word jump rope you may quickly jump to the conclusion that it will be easy to master, however learning to jump correctly can take a little time however the key is to be patient and slow the movement down until you are comfortable with the fundamental mechanics. The next step is to start to increase the speed and keep as much weight on your toes as possible so you have a quick bouncy contact with the surface from which you do not need to jump too high. Remember that when getting started it’s vital that your jump rope should come up to your arm-pits when measured from the ground to guarantee it is the correct length to maximise the efficiency of your workout.
Here is a great 15 minute jump rope work out for any beginners want to get in to HIW :
