Fitness: Core training for triathlon.

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Tap out of Your Exercise Routine

Practicing fitness religiously comes highly recommended, but it's important to remember to introduce new activities into your every day routine. Part of living a healthy lifestyle means trying new things, mixed
martial arts included.

I'm guessing for most of you it's the same: wake up; go to the place that you love the most (work), followed by a visit to the gym where you supplement your day with even more routine. Next, you go home to prepare a freshly cooked meal, similar to what you ate the day before. And before you tuck yourself in, you stare in the mirror asking yourself why you didn't try something new today?

Sure, it's difficult for some to simply switch their lifestyle, whether it is job, diet, fitness, or relationship related. Although most of these variables are fixed or very difficult to change, it's important to stimulate your health and standard of living by engaging in new and different things.  The easiest is typically your daily exercise routine, starting with your visit to the gym.

For a majority of people who practice exercise, taking a trip to the gym 3 or 4 times a week is quiet ideal, and will do the trick. But after a while this can get old, especially if you are following the same routine. And some gyms, although affordable, don't have the necessary equipment to diversify your workout. What I mean by this is that athletic centers contain things like rock walls and punching bags, while your standardized gym merely has treadmills, ellipticals, machines and free weights/barbells. It's true that some places even contain swimming pools, tracks, tennis courts, basketball courts, aerobic centers, and house personal trainers.

For the population of people who visit the gym with fewer options, I strongly suggest Mixed Martial Arts as a form of exercise. Highly aerobic and calorie-shedding, MMA is a full contact combat sports that permits a large variety of fighting methods. It's derived from a mixture of martial art traditions and non-traditions. Traced all the way back to the early 1900s (Europe and Japan), MMA has been around for over a century now, and continues to draw large crows in the USA through venues like The UFC.

Although it may seem unlikely, there are many training centers – ones that you didn't even know existed in your hometown. Typically, training centers that specialize in Jiu Jitso and/or Karate will also provide classes for MMA. Also, there are some well known gyms that offer this type of combat training, subject to their own practices and facilities.

MMA relies heavily on achieving superior body positioning skills, allowing you to control your opponent both standing, and on the ground. Therefore, there are a number of workouts/routines involved in becoming an MMA expert. It's true that most confrontations end with a clinch on the ground; MMA gives you the ability to defend yourself against larger, more powerful attackers, while providing a full body workout. All in all, the practices taught will lead you to a healthier lifestyle, while separating you from your mundane exercise routine.

Brent Jacobs is a representative of MMA Industries. Visit the MMA Industries website to learn more about Mixed Martial Arts. MMA is a distributor of MMA T-Shirts, MMA Training Equipment, and more…

Exercise may be an effective treatment for alcoholism

Exercise May Be an Effective and Nonpharmacologic Treatment Option for Alcohol Dependence

Alcohol abuse is highly disruptive of circadian rhythms, and circadian disruptions can also lead to alcohol abuse as well as relapse in abstinent alcoholics. Circadian timing in mammals is regulated by light as well as other influences such as food, social interactions, and exercise. A new study of the relationship between alcohol intake and wheel-running in hamsters has found that exercise may provide an effective alternative for reducing alcohol intake in humans.

Results will be published in the September 2010 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research and are currently available at Early View.

"Alcohol abuse, characterized by routine craving for and consumption of alcohol as well as an inability to function normally without it, disrupts both the timing and consolidation of daily circadian rhythms — when to sleep, eat, and mate — driven by the brain circadian clock," explained J. David Glass, professor of biological sciences at Kent State University and corresponding author for the study. "With continual alcohol use, one may go to bed too early or late, not sleep across the night, and have an unusual eating regime, eating little throughout the day and/or overeating at night. This can lead to a vicious cycle of drinking because these individuals, in response, will consume more alcohol to fall asleep easier only to complain of more disrupted sleep across the night and additionally have a greater craving for alcohol."

In other words, said Alan M. Rosenwasser, professor of psychology at the University of Maine, chronic alcohol abuse and circadian disruption become reciprocally destructive and result in negative effects on physical and emotional health. "It is therefore very interesting that access to running wheels or other forms of voluntary exercise in animal experiments has emerged as a powerful environmental factor influencing brain health, circadian rhythms, and emotional well-being," he said.

Glass agreed, noting that exercise is important in the non-photic regulation of circadian timing. "Restricting animals from exercising," he said, "such as blocking access to a running wheel as we did in this study, had a significant stimulatory effect on alcohol consumption."

Glass and his colleagues tested for three things: the effects of wheel-running on chronic free-choice consumption of an alcohol (20% v/v) and water solution; the effects of alcohol consumption on wheel-running in alcohol-naïve hamsters; and the influence of constant light (LL) on both alcohol consumption and wheel-running behavior.

"In this study, we found that the more the hamsters ran, the less they consumed alcohol," said Glass. "The 'lazier' hamsters that did not run as much had a greater craving for and consumption of alcohol, suggesting that exercise may be an effective, beneficial, and non-pharmacologic treatment option for alcoholism."

"It seems that alcohol intake and voluntary exercise represent two forms of inherently rewarding behavior," added Rosenwasser, "and the rewarding effects of these two behaviors may partially substitute for one another. This finding suggests that the two behaviors are regulated by overlapping systems in the brain."

Glass agreed, noting that exercise appears able to alter the chemical environment of the brain in a manner similar to alcohol. "Dopamine is the primary chemical released within the brain in response to any type of reward, including exercise, drugs, food, and sex," he said. "For humans, exercise may be an effective, beneficial, and naturally rewarding substitute for any type of addiction. It may also reduce the risk of addiction in individuals who have a family history of it, in addition to significantly reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and mood disorders. But like all rewards, exercise should be used in moderation, and not interfere with an individual's normal daily functioning."

A second key finding was that hamsters that displayed greater sensitivity to the disruptive effects of constant light on circadian rhythms also craved alcohol less. "Thus, there may be an underlying genetic predisposition for alcohol dependence and abuse that is expressed under challenging circadian conditions," said Glass, "such as shift work, sleep problems or repeated jet-lag exposure."

"Several research groups have recently become interested in relationships between circadian clocks, exercise, and alcohol and drug abuse," said Rosenwasser. "In general, research in this area has shown that alcohol abuse can dramatically disrupt biological rhythms, that these disruptions can promote subsequent alcohol abuse, and that exercise is an important environmental factor influencing both circadian rhythms and alcohol drinking. These studies have opened several new directions for alcohol researchers, and raise the hope that circadian-based and/or exercise-based interventions may be developed for improved management of the serious and debilitating disorders associated with excessive drinking."

"Many members of the general public, and indeed, many medical professionals, continue to view alcohol abuse and alcohol addiction as character flaws and as failures of 'willpower,'" said Rosenwasser. "Findings such as these help put alcohol abuse disorders in a broader biological context, and show that both physiological and environmental factors contribute to excessive alcohol intake. Accordingly, these physiological and environmental factors will need to be addressed in order to effectively control alcohol abuse and other forms of excessive behavior."

Information source: ScienceDaily

Dryland swim training on Vasa Trainer

Dryland swim training on Vasa Trainer at the University of Southern California

How do I get started in a running program?

I want to start running to improve my health. I am 33 and about 20 lbs overweight. I used to play sports and was fairly athletic. However, I haven’t been doing any exercise for about 15 years. What would you suggest that I do to ease myself into running for fitness.

How do I start running and jogging exercises for health and well-being?

How can I get more benefit my running exercise?

What is better exercise running a mile or doing stairs for a mile, which burns more calories?

What is better exercise running a mile or doing stairs for a mile, which burns more calories?

Have any tips for someone who wants to start running?

To put it bluntly, I am a very sedentary creature. I’m skinny and I eat healthy, but I’m just not in shape. I feel kind of like I should be, so I’ve been looking to start running for some exercise. I’ve found someone I can run with, even.

Is there anything I can do or should be doing to make the process of starting easier?
What should I do before or after I go for a run?
What kind of workout clothing or shoes would you strongly recommend or strongly recommend avoiding?

10 minute Vasa Ergometer workout – clip 2 of 3

This workout (clip 2 of 3) utilizes the Vasa Ergometer, hand weights, a power wheel and a resistance band. This workout is perfect if you are short on time (taking only 8-10 minutes) or if want to incorporate some upper-body strength work into your session. (Note: this is split into 3 clips to speedup download time.)

What brand name of Running shoes do you recommend?

I need a new pair of good running shoes for gym and am choosing between Nike and New Balance. I have run only indoors on treadmill, aerobics, strength training and crossfit types of exercise. Whats a better name?

What you do suggest?

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